Heresy & Heroes

I really do love painting Orks. Not only do they remind me of that time long ago when silly things were truly appreciated in 40k, but they give me the chance to exercise my own silliness too. And boy are they fun to paint. Bright colours, oversized features, bonkers weapons… I love it.

I’ve had the Orruk Megaboss sat on my “to do” list for a while now, and I fancied doing a little creative storytelling in paint and conversion recently, and it got me thinking about using this mini to help tell the awesome story of Rynn’s World. So I got choppin’ and then reached for the yellow – it was time for a new Warboss.

I kept the conversions simple – less is often more, and there were so many parts of the original megaboss model that I wanted to keep that I didn’t want to go too nuts. The one you may notice first is the big choppa (or is it a spinna) that was borrowed from a Deffdred (I doubt he’s getting it back through). It’s incredibly impractical really, but when did that ever stop an ork? I also gave him a top knot and a banner pole, along with a big orky symbol on the shoulder that doesn’t have the giant dragon skull on it. There’s als oa few wires and things here and there to help show off his 40k-ness, and then there’s the robot arm.

This was a fun little bit of storytelling, I thought. On Rynn’s World, during the Waaagh! everyone is fighting (or more likely fleeing from) the orks. So I thought about an Ambot used to hold off this rampaging boss while some folk tried to make it to safety. In the fight, the Ambot cut off the boss’s arm, but the ork was eventually victorious. Game recognising game, the ork ripped off the robot’s arm and instructed a Dok and a Mek to attach it to him. It’s even a crimson colour – a fist, that’s sort of crimson. Nice.

So we can place this guy as a combat monster, and that means he’s bound to have a few scrapes and scuffs and a fair bit of blood (other people’s) on him too, and that meant weathering. Aside from testing things out on the checkered knee, all the weathering happened last and after doing what i thought was a fairly decent job painting the armour, it was off to go in and mess it all up again. To show you what that transformation looked like, I took a before and after shot to show you the transition:

Sorry as always for the slightly out of focus photography, but you can certainly see what changed. And again, storytelling through painting goes into it. I like the scuffs around his jaw armour to represent the shots taken by Space Marines trying to stop him, though no head shot managed to make it through.

I had a little more fun with freehand here, but only in the form of some patterns on the rear armour. Why mainly on the rear? I imagined this ork saying “Don’t put da fancy stuff in front coz it’ll get shot at – put it at da back so da runts behind know wot a rich git I is dat I can have dis fancy arma!” and that convinced me.

The base is simple enough, just a bit of Space Marine leftovers and a couple of other things to bring it into the setting. Poor, poor Crimson Fists.

Anyway, there you have it. I had a whole bunch of fun with this one. In terms of painting progress, I managed to get some really nice blends in the reds and yellows across this mini. Still need to work on my orky flesh but overall I think it all worked out ok. B- maybe for me. Potentially still a C+ but I just had so much fun working on this miniature that I think it maybe gets a little extra.

I hope you’re having just as much fun painting as I am, and I hope you’re enjoying an excellent weekend. Until we speak again; Onwards.