The Final Stretch

There's just under 2 weeks to go till Astronomi-con 2012 so of course I'm now frantically trying to get everything together ;) I realize I haven't updated in a while but I've been so fixated in trying to get my 40k army done that I really haven't had the time for anything else.

Much to my horror last week I pulled a Professor Frink and  "Forgot to carry the one" on my initial armylist putting my 100 points over :S So of course I'm now horrified that I might have to make some significant changes to the armylist at the last possible minute.
On the upside I got to take some figs I wasn't overly happy with out of the army, on the bad side they were already painted! so I didn't save myself any real effort.

Progress is being made though. Aside from 1 fig everything is either finished or very close to done but I've still have lots to do and I'm running into various construction related issues... Hopefully I'll work them out in time. Contingency plans also exist. *fingers crossed*

The Chinork is really close to done. (It's actually a tad further along than in this picture) just some final details to paint and some work on the base.

My Wartrukk sleds finally have a significant amount of paint on them. I dug them out of storage a few weeks ago and I've been grinding away at them.
It's about time too, given that these are some of the first figs I ever built for this army.

On a whim (aka tired of working on other projects) I did a ton of work on the Tank Bustas to bring them up to the new standard. They were, in a word, awful. I can't believed how hastily I painted them in the first place. It took a ton of work and I'm happy with the result but I almost wish I had put them in the dip instead, it would have been alot easier.

After the tweaking of my list I decided to put in my other heavily converted Nob "Razor". Although technically the squad he's supposed to be with isn't in this army I decided I liked the fig too much and I HAD to put him in.
Plus painting him for a few hours was a welcome distraction from the monotony of painting metal details on Trukks. :(

and of course the Havork. My "final" helicopter.
You can see its general profile in this picture, I went with a chopper/shark motif on it that I think is turning out nicely.
Should have this all built by the weekend! hopefully...

Progress Report - Sick of Painting Brown

For the past couple of weeks I've gotten myself into the trap of trying to finish alot of projects all at once. Specifically I've been painting my 16 man boyz squad and the vehicle crews for 6 trukks all at once. In addition to being tedious as all heck... it's been dull. Paint 30 Orks boots brown Go! Paint 30 Orks pants tan Go!

After a while I started to listen to my own advice and took a break. Now I force myself to do dull paint work on 4 Orks, then I paint something fun! It's been making it go alot faster, feels more like I'm making progress. And you know what? It works.
All those boyz are now almost done and I've got alot of other projects that I've been working on that are almost done too!

51 days till Astronomi-con and I have 628/1500 points painted, and another 650 points on my painting desk 75% done so all in all I'm in good shape.

Just gotta keep grinding away.

Battlewagon has some color on it. Quite a bit more work to do but right now I'm concentrating on other projects. I'm going to try to get the interior detail and the krew installed next.

One night last week I just couldn't build up the will to sit down and paint. The tedium of painting 30 boyz at once had gotten to me. But as always I felt bad that I wasn't getting anything accomplished. So after a bit of sulking I pulled my Meganobz out of the case figuring I'd just touch them up. An hour later I had completely replaced the red paint with blue (to match my new army scheme) and fixed alot of the paint mistakes.
I even repainted there faces because I never liked how the dark green faces turned out.

Not my best work, but not bad for an hour.

My Wartrakks have been a thorn in my side for months. In other words I've been staring at them wanting to get them done but I've been to distracted on my other scratch builds. That ended this week when I finally finished the krews (with great difficulty I might add) and added a blob of paint.
They still need some work, but they are close.
I've got another 2 on the go, a couple hours worth of work and they'll be almost ready to go as well.

And then there's this monstrosity. I call it 'Havork'.
Will be getting this one together over the next few weeks.

Update in Picture Form

I've been working away at a bunch of different projects this month.
Tournament is at the End of April so it's almost time to kick it into high gear to get 1500 points done in time!
Here are some pics of what I've been working on lately. I'll do a proper update later once I get a few things completely done.

Tools of the Trade Pt 2

Well I've officially been working on this new Ork army for over a year!

I have exactly 428 / 1500 completely done and painted...
As sad as that may sound for a years worth of work it's all the conversion work and scratch building that eats my time. As a result I have almost 1000 points of stuff 60-85% ready for paint. My goal over the next month or so is to finish up projects that I have on the go and start power painting. It's actually a fairly reasonable goal for me to paint 500 points worth of figs in a months time, I really do have that many projects edging on being completed. I just won't stop getting distracted by new and crazy ideas!

I made myself a late Christmas present today.
This afternoon I just got sick and tired of cutting plasticard with a dull X-acto and using straight edges that haven't been straight for months due to excessive wear and tear. Let alone the fact that my measuring tools are so old and warped that they aren't acurate anymore...
I didn't think one could wear out drafters tools. I was wrong.
I bought a new set of measuring guides, angle finders, a steel ruler long enough to cut a full sheet of plasticard (bought dang time!) and a new set of blades. That and a $3 cutting board that, heaven forbid, actually lies flat on my table. I should be good for a while now.


As always during the Christmas holidays I promise myself that I'll finish up a bunch of projects I have on the go and instead find myself working on some newfangled idea that springs into my head at the last minute...
Last year it was a heavy gun trukk that eventually became my Huey. This year its this:

I gave into peer pressure this week and decided to add Grotz to my KoS list. Of course they needed the most ramshackle (read as AWESOME!) helicopter transport imaginable. So I build this junker out of spare parts and plastic tubing, loosely based on a Bell-47.
For those of you who get the reference "Suicide is Painless" at least that's what they tell the Grotz...

Here's a shot of the tail boom, a few more structural bitz and it will be all done.

I put together the structure for the rotors today, now I'm just waiting for sculpting putty to dry and I can add the final details.

As you can tell my Grotz are just thrilled.

Hehehehe

The infamous cattleskull

Well it took almost a year of ebay scrounging but I finally found this cattle skull bit!
I was so frustrated trying to find one that I was half tempted to just buy the bloody Fantasy Orks boxed set just to get the one bit.

This bit means alot to me, it was the last bit I added to my first Ork blimp trukk and I really badly wanted it on my first of the new generation of blimp trukks.

Well now that its done... Back to converting!

It feels like Christmas

It feels like Christmas every time I come home and there's another package full of bitz in my mail slot that I don't have to pay for. That is how it works right? ... no? damn!

What maniacal contraptions is he thinking up this week!?

Stay tuned!