A Christmas Zagstruck

Alternate Title: What I did on my holidays...

For christmas I received from our lovely housemates that terror of the skies: Boss Zagstruck!

I have warned my housemates that this will have earned the ire of all my opponants. Being the sort of big kid who likes to play with all his new toys on Boxing Day I stuck him together straight away and broke out the paints. I decided to use this as an opportunity to paint Ork skin as well as I possibly could, as the face would need to stand out from a very busy model. See what you think:

The method is involved and I wasn't taking notes or anything but here is the rough process. A basecoat of a couple of thin layers of Knarloc Green is washed with a shading wash of 2:1 mix Badab Black and Thraka Green. I then started highlighting, first with pure Knarloc Green and then with increasing amounts of Rotting Flesh added to the mix. Overall I think I went through about six small iterations of increasing rotting flesh until I was at roughly a 3:2 mix of Rotting Flesh and Knarloc Green. I then glazed the skin with Thraka Green and once dry re-highlighted the highest points with the brightest Rotting Flesh/Knarloc Green mix. That's about ten layers to achieve the effect, well worth it I think!

This image showcases both the musculature of the arm and my favourite part of this model, his "sword". Just to start with it is just such a brutal design. Then there is that cute little rocket. Should the Boss feel that he needs to hit that little bit harder he just thumbs that red button and a rocket assisted strike is his! It is just such an Ork design. You can imagine the mek's thought process "So 'e wants ta 'it 'arder... duzzn't want a noo arm... 'e's cuvvered in rokkits... why not add annuvver..." so very charming.

The model really is a monstrous chunk of white metal. That base is 40mm across for those with rulers handy. The enourmous rocket pack on his back created a challenge for colour balance. If I wanted the usual camoflague that I use on the Blood Axes it would stand out too much and draw attention from the more significant parts of the model. Just pure rust didn't look right either, not enough definition. Instead I went to a mix of monotone shades, black for the majority, white teeth on the shark and grey shark face. This gave definition without distracting from the rest of the figure. A few red accents added interest and bound the rocket in with the rest of the model.

His pose is just wonderful, he looks so heavy, actually falling rather than hanging in mid air. Those vicious clawed legs of his I decided to leave rusted but sharpened the claws with tiny streaks of mithril silver to prevent them looking weathered blunt.

The checks on the knee and shoulders were done for largely the same reason as the rocket colour pallete. I needed something to add interest but whose colours would not overpower the skin which was the focus of the model. Checks always look great on Orks anyway.

Finally, his base is a fantastic design, it is hard to see with all the additional groundwork but the large white metal scenic section in the middle balances all that weight above it and provides a huge contact area for the superglue to bind to. The painting of the base was a fun exercise in painting adjacent rust sections. The broken piping is done with "scenic" Jeff-rust, mixing the final Boltgun Metal step with the Macharius Solar Orange to blunt the brightness. A heavy wash of Devlan Mud between the componants finished the delination between claw and pipe that may have been lost had I simply painted the same scheme twice.

So, that is what I did with my holidays! Back to work now, there's more Death Korps a comin' and some Warhammer commissions in the post. Posts up when I have funky images for you all. Have a happy new year one and all.

TTFN