Father & son project ... take two!

After more than a year of being ignored, the two Ork Boyz were taken from the shelf and dusted off for the resumption of a small father and son W40K painting project. Feeling bored during his school holidays, my son had asked if he could continue painting his Ork Boyz. So that meant putting all my other miniature projects temporarily on hold to help nurture his interest in miniature painting. In this project, I painted one of the Ork Boyz as a guide while my son painted the other.

Without a doubt, Darth Vader is the ultimate Geek Dad

If you are a fan you would have realised the cartoon image above is actually a humorous take of a classic line from the Star Wars movies. The image was taken from a book written by Jeffrey Brown called "Darth Vader and Son". I kinda regret not getting this book from a local bookstore when it was previously on sale. You can check out a review of the book on a Wired article titled Darth Vader and Son imagines the Sith Lord as a doting dad. The book's cover is shown below.

Darth Vader is the coolest geek dad a Jedi could hope for. If you ask me, Luke should have joined Lord Vader and ruled the galaxy as father and son. =)


Anyway, back to my mini geek-dad and son project involving two Ork Boyz. So with his interest rekindled, albeit briefly, both of us resumed painting our orks, which were at the basecoat stage. With fun being the project's main criteria, we didn't set out to paint the miniatures to a high standard. Both minis may not be table-top quality but it was enough that he was having fun slopping on paint.

Can you guess who painted which Ork?

Back view of the Ork Boyz

As you can see, the bases aren't done yet but they are going back in cold storage till, hopefully, he gets the painting bug again and we can resume take three of the project. But with any luck, it won't take another year before that happens. It is never good forcing kids to do something as they will just end up hating it so the Ork Boyz can wait. Hmmm what would Lord Vader have done?

Waaagh! Meet Ugg and Ogg ...

Fnished painting the first two ork boyz today. They are essentially complete with perhaps some highlighting on the leather yet to be done. They are the first pair in a potential army of 40+ ork boyz horde.

For Ugg (picture, left) I tried my hand at battle damage on his helmet.

I also tried to do some bad moon markings on Ugg's right shoulder armour. It didn't come off too well as the wavy black flames were not consistent and were leaning in all directions.

Leather on the back still need some highlights but not too sure what to use on a calthan brown base. Did a bit of snakebite leather on the upper shoulder straps (not too noticebale in the picture) but it seemed too much of a contrast.

Footnote: One whole pot of goblin green was sacrificed in the making of Ugg and Ogg! Unfortunately for me, the paint was not used on them. Instead, through a freakish combination of clumsiness and lost of focus, I "catapulted" 2/3 of the paint in the pot up into the air and all over my hands AND then proceeded to drop the pot and lost almost all the remaining third of paint. My arms, hand and fingers were completely covered in green ... should have snapped a picture but was to angry at the time. =P

I have primed another 2 orks as a project for my son and me. They are both similar-looking so I guess it will be easier for him to follow my steps as I paint. Not too sure how to go about teaching him miniature painting as I am no expert myself. Moreover, he has the attention span of spongebob squarepants so it will be tough to get him to focus. =) If any of you guys have experience teaching young kids how to paint miniatures, any tips would be most appreciated.

These orks were primed before I got my hand of a can of citadel chaos black spray paint. I had used Krylon Fusion Spray Paint. but personally I was not too happy with the result as it seemed powdery. I guess it was due to the paint-plastic bonding process.