Ghazghkull Thraka - Bad Moonz version - Completed

My hat's off to the Games Workshop sculptor responsible for making Ghazghkull Thraka such a joy to paint. Full of many fine details, the Ork Warboss had a nice combination of organic and metallic parts to paint. Photos were taken with an on loan Nikon D60 DSLR camera. Ghazghkull Thraka lacks some decals as well as washes and paint chips on the armour, but it is essentially done.

Ghazghkull Thraka without his 'iron jaw' on but ready for Waaaggh!

My grandpa ... what sharp teeth you have.

Side shot highlighting the Big Shoota.

Right shoulder armour lacks a tad of wash for shadows ... another item for the to-do list

Wires, wires, everywhere.

Yet more wires and other 'whatchamacallits'.

Side shot of the Powerclaw. 

Individual wiring colours on the Ork Warboss's left arm was a chore to do.

Ghazghkull Thraka gets his 'iron jaw' on.

Front profile of a fully assembled Ghazghkull Thraka

Right-sided profile of a fully assembled Ghazghkull Thraka

Left-sided profile of a fully assembled Ghazghkull Thraka

A fledging army
With Ghazghkull Thraka finally completed, the mood is set for the rise of a Bad Moonz ork army. It won't be long before a green tide sweeps over all that the dead emperor holds dear. With Thraka as the honourary leader (his Bosspole still retains the red colour of his Goff Klan) of the Bad Moonz army, surely the Imperium of Man is at an end?

Ugg and Ogg have a bossman at last.

My trusted LG Phone Camera VS a Nikon D60 DSLR
There could only be one winner ... need I say who. Unfortunately I won't have access to the Nikon D60 as much as I would like to ... meaning most of my blog pictures will still be taken with the LG phone camera ... but on rare occasions I might still be able to borrow the Nikon for some shots.

Front picture - LG Camera Phone (left), Nikon D60 (right)

Back picture - LG Camera Phone (left), Nikon D60 (right)

Preparing Ultramarine Terminators for paint

It has been a slow week hobby wise. Most of my free time was spent glued to Steve Parker's page-turner i.e. Rynn's World i.e. the first in Black Library's Space Marine Battles novel series ... a book about the Crimson Fists Space Marine Chapter that I bought two-years ago! Having just got around to reading it, I haven't been able to put the novel down long enough to do any proper painting.

Reason for an unproductive hobby week.

All I managed to do was to add to the number of Assault on Black Reach (AOBR) miniatures undercoated so far, i.e. five Ultramarine Terminators has joined the ranks of five Ork Nobz and 10 Ork Boyz that were painted with a black undercoat quite sometime ago.

Fresh off the assembly line

Skull White undercoat ... check

AOBR Ork Nobz that were supposed to be painted together with Ghazghkull Thraka

Ork Boyz still in their undercoats

So technically, I have three armies on my plate namely the Ultramarines, Orks and Black Legion Chaos army. While this will definitely slow me down in terms of getting an army up and running, it will however make the painting sessions less monotonous. That can only be a good thing in the long run ... I hope so anyway.

How to paint a Chaos Rhino Interior

My version of a Warhammer 40K Chaos Rhino interior was painted based upon the assumption no conversions were carried out on the transport model i.e. the side and top hatch doors remain glued shut. Once the model is completed, the interior's only light source would come from the back door ramp which can be opened. This means the interior would be darkly lit so the paint scheme generally gravitated towards more brighter colours to compensate AND not much attention was paid to details save for what could be seen from the angle of the back door.

1  

Undercoat: Chaos Rhino interior was given an undercoat of Skull White. With such a bright undercoat, any subsequent paint layers with translucent properties would look brighter.

2

Basecoat: Ceiling, top/side hatch doors, back door ramp, left/right side of the Rhino interior were given a basecoat of Bleached Bone, which was applied in two watered-down layers.Other parts of the interior given a basecoat include bolter and metal pipe (Boltgun Metal); computer screens (Chaos Black); computer buttons (Codex Grey); base for warp-spawn (Charadon Granite); warp-spawn's face and seats (Scab Red); and the interior's floor (Khemri Brown).

3

Wash: Ceiling, top/side hatch doors, left/right side of the Rhino interior were given a wash of Gryphonne Sepia along the edges and shadows; bolter and metal pipe (Badab Black); back door ramp and floor (mixture of Devlan Mud and Badab Black).

Some Chaos symbols were also drawn free-hand on the left and right walls of the interior and given a wash of Gryphonne Sepia.

4

After basecoats and a wash

Midtones, highlights and some free-hand drawings added

Midtones and Highlights: Of all the parts on the interior, most attention was paid to the instrument panel as it would be the main focus of someone looking into the Rhino interior. 

Computer screens were given a watered-down layer of Orkhide Shade to stimulate a fluorescence effect. Free-hand drawings of computer readouts such as radar, sinus wave etc were applied using Scorpion Green. After that, a wash of Thraka Green was applied to the screens. The warp-spawn's face was given a midtone layer of Red Gore and two highlights i.e. a 1:1 Red Gore:Blood Red highlight followed by a pure Blood Red highlight. Buttons at the instrument panel were given an extra wash of Gryphonne Sepia while the bolter was highlighted with Chainmail.

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Assembly: All the separate parts were then glued together.

Chaos Rhino Interior - Front view with the top off

Chaos Rhino Interior - Left side view with the top off

Chaos Rhino Interior - Right side view with the top off

Chaos Rhino Interior - Front view with the top on

Chaos Rhino Interior - Left side view with the top on

Chaos Rhino Interior - Right side view with the top off

As this is my first try at assembling and painting a Warhammer 40K vehicle, I am pretty happy with the progress I have made. Slow and steady is the mantra I am adopting.

Khorne's price
While painting my Khorne Berzerkers I had a few broken brushes. Khorne's demand for his pound of flesh was no less in this case ... literally! My fingers were stuck to the miniature model with Super Glue for at least three times ... ouch, ouch and ouch. This being my first time assembling a Rhino, I kinda panicked at the gluing stage. Oh well ... the price has been paid. =)

BBC story on Warhammer 40K

Thanks to a fellow blogger at Miniature Miscellany it has come to my attention that BBC News Magazine has written a story on Warhammer 40K. Do check out the cool story.

My favourite quote in the article ...

In Warcraft it's made so there are no bad guys. In Warhammer there are no good guys. They're all bad. It's a universe that's simultaneously nihilistic and joyous. - Warhammer fan and Marvel X-Men comic writer, Kieron Gillen

Father & son project ... take one!

It being the school holidays and all, I decided to proceed with a miniature painting project that had been in the works for a long time. So out came the very first ork boyz I had ever bought, and both my son and I had a real go at it. Taking it slow, we are concentrating just on the basecoats first. Being only nine-years-old, he did reasonably ok for a super impatient hyperactive kid!

Pa, what shaky hands you have!

Three basecoats done - Iyanden Darksun for armour, Boltgun Metal for metal parts and Orkhide Shade for skin.

Well, as you can see, I am not a very good teacher. But more importantly, I hope his desire to try and paint the miniatures will mean that he will cultivate some patience when doing things. Will try to post some progress pictures if we manage to continue with this project.

Upcoming 'How-To' blogs for fellow noobs
Hopefully, I can finish painting my Chaos Rhino transport interior in the following days and post a simple 'How-To' paint blog on it. I am also trying to compile my previous Khorne Berzerker pictures into a straightforward and coherent 'How-To' process, and hope to put that up soon as well.

Ghazghkull Thraka - Bad Moonz version - WIP

Bogged down in details ... that about sums up my progress with Ghazghkull Thraka. This model has an insane amount of little details like wires, pipes and whatnots. So far, all I have managed are basecoats for a good portion of the model as well as some washes here and there. There is certainly a lot more work to be done before it looks half-decent.

What do the game rules say?
Technically, Ghazghkull Thraka hails from the Goff Klan which means his armour should have been painted with patches of red. Here, the warboss is wearing 'honourary' yellow armour since my army of Bad Moonz orks have decided to throw their lot behind G.Thraka and let him lead them. However, can G.Thraka be fielded in yellow armour during a game? Help ... anyone?