He’z about az sneaky az an axe to da face!

Common Ork Kommando compliment

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Gripped by excitement for the upcoming Kill Team: Octarius box, I decided to build a “proof of concept” model from bits box spares. Firstly, I wanted to check I could still remember how to paint Ork skin, as it’s been a while! Secondly, I wanted to test out a “new” colour scheme. Thirdly, I wanted to see if there were any LED issues I hadn’t anticipated.

Building

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As mentioned above, this model was constructed from spare Ork components I had in my bits box. The head is metal and from an old rokkit launcha boy, with a beanie hat sculpted from modelling putty. I used the techniques described in my LED Muzzle Flare tutorial to make the LED effect. The only new problem I encountered was the squat pose of the Ork legs – compared to straight Space Marine legs this was difficult to drill without making additional cuts. I ended up making a cut at the hip to make drilling easier, as you can see in the image on the left above. Otherwise it was as per the tutorial.

Painting

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The Blood Axes are my favourite Ork clan, and I have a large army of them painted in military blues and greys. However for the new kommandos I wanted to try and replicate the classic red second edition 40K kommando look, as shown above. At first I thought I’d paint the red fatigues with grey areas of camouflage pattern on them, but I wasn’t positive I could pull that off without it looking confusing for the eye – that is the point of camouflage after all! So instead I decided to paint the webbing in grey rather than the brown leather colours I normally use. Although looking again at the image from the second edition 40K Ork codex above as I type this, I’m now wondering if I should have painted the stikkbomb sack on his back a brown leather colour rather than grey? Ah well, that’s why we need to make test models sometimes!

Overall I’m pleased with how this model turned out and am looking forward to applying these techniques to the new plastic Kommando Kill Team. That’s it for today, see you again soon!