Yesterday I was fortunate enough to have one of my models make it onto Warhammer TV Twitch channel again!
My Red Gobbo’s Surprise featured alongside the work of other hobbyists on this Thursday’s ‘Hang Out and Paint Christmas Special’ episode on Warhammer TV (Thursday 22nd December episode, at around the 1 hour 23 minute mark, if anyone would like to see it).
It’s always an honour to have had my work exhibited in this way, and a big thank you to Em, Lewis, Ollie and the rest of the Warhammer Community Team for their kind words about this miniature!
There’s still time to fit in a bit more hobby before the end of the year, so here’s Games Workshop’s 2023 Christmas model, Da Red Gobbo’s Surprise! The majority of my LED miniature projects are intended as gaming pieces, but this one is definitely more for display.
Modelling
This model was an absolute gift to illuminate, as most of the scenic base is hollow, including the chimney. You can see this in the ‘work in progress’ images below. The techniques I used to achieve this were similar to those in my Nighthaunt LED Candle short-form tutorial, with each LED and resistor pair repeated in parallel.
The dynamite fuse and the fairy lights are made with individual 3V ultra nano SMD chip LEDs, with Water Splash Effect Gel used to create the sparks and fairy light bulbs respectively. I enhanced the sparking fuse effect with tiny 2-3mm lengths of fibre optic cable that I cut and inserted into the acrylic gel at different angles while it was still curing.
I must admit I did think about skipping the fairy lights on the grappling hook wire, since they’re on the back of the model and may not be seen. But in the end I knew that I I would feel I hadn’t done a proper job on the miniature if I didn’t include them. I went for red, yellow, green, blue, and then back to red again to give the impression of a repeating pattern that was part of a much longer string of lights. The 3V ultra nano SMD chip LEDs I used were not available in yellow or green from my normal supplier, so I simply used white LEDs and then applied a glaze of paint to the acrylic gel ‘bulbs’ in the required colour to tint the white light. The flickering chimney fire is made from a 3mm candle effect LED (and 47 ohm resistor) directly under the hollow chimney.
When planning this miniature, I did also consider illuminating the Red Gobbo’s eyes, to make it look like he was wearing night vision goggles similar to my Grot Kommando. But in the end, I decided against it. The Red Gobbo is pictured with simple flying goggles in the artwork and animations, so I applied Rule 1 of my LED Miniature Design Philosophy and just painted the goggles as blue glass.
Painting
When painting this miniature I mostly followed my own Ork-related paint recipes found in this article and the suggestions for Da Red Gobbo in the Citadel Colour App. I did consider using snow flock again, as I had previously with Red Gobbo & Bounca, but I was concerned it might obscure some of the detail on the base, like the presents and fairy lights. In the end I decided to simply hand paint the snow.
As an aside, if you ever find you need to paint miniature baubles(!), then my tip is to paint the bauble in a light silver like Runefang Steel, and then apply two coats of either Spiritstone Red, Soulstone Blue or Waystone Green. This gives a lovely shiny festive finish!
That’s it for today. I hope you’ve enjoyed this bit of festive fun! Thanks very much for reading, and please remember you can also find me sharing my work on Instagram, Threads, Twitter/X, Bluesky or Mastodon.
What beats a Kommissar like ol’ Yarrick? An even BIGGA Kommissar! Stands to reason, don’t it?
Armageddon Ork wisdom
I’m taking a slight detour this week to a side project, a brand new Ork Warboss! I have a Blood Axe Ork army that has languished without updates (other than the Kommandos) for the past few editions of Warhammer 40K. But I’m going to blow the dust off them to play a game with Apologist this weekend, as part of his Ashes of Armageddon project. I’ve used my Orks in a lot of different narrative campaign settings over the years, and when I enter a new one, I like to make a new Warboss. I new warlord can often help an existing army feel fresh and new.
Modelling
When I picked up the Ork Warboss in Mega Armour, the LED potential was clear. I knew I had to get that big shoota firing, and I had to do a cool bionic eye to go with the “Yarrork” theme I had planned. The LED techniques used on this model can be found in my LED Muzzle Flare Tutorial. The only difference is for the bionic eye I used a single Red 0805 Chip LED (3V) and 100 ohm resistor from Small Scale Lights, rather than the TruOpto 1.8mm LED mentioned in the tutorial. This LED is sculpted into a bionic eye mounted on the Warboss’s face, rather than being embedded in a resin head.
The Blood Axe officers cap was sculpted from ProCreate modelling putty. When sculpting something like this, I find it’s best to work one layer at a time, allowing the first layer to dry before adding the next. I started by sculpting the peak/visor directly onto the head of the miniature, followed by the section that would become the red band. Next, I added the main bulk of the cap, and then I added the top layer that would form the rim. Finally, I sculpted the skull insignia. This is quite time consuming, but it’s probably easier and produces better results than trying to sculpt the whole thing in one go.
The blood on the axe (geddit?) is created from Araldite two-part epoxy resin. This might not actually be the best material for this, but it’s the only type of epoxy I had to hand. I mixed it up and allowed it to cure for a few minutes until it was partially cured and tacky. Then I used a spare piece of plastic rod to apply it to the blades, being sure to string it between the two saws. Once the epoxy had dried, I applied one thin coat of Citadel Blood for the Blood God technical paint. Both the epoxy and this paint are semi-transparent, which creates a very effective liquid gore effect.
The so-called “Kommissar Yarrork” was most likely born from an Orky desire to emulate an intimidating opponent like Commissar Yarrick, and the typical Blood Axe need to ape the most effective parts of the Human military machine. This hulking brute formed part of Ghazghkull Thraka’s “Counsill of Clan-bosses”. It is unknown whether he was already part of the council when he assumed the Yarrork identity, or whether this persona resulted in his elevation. In any case, it was all for nought, as there are no confirmed recorded instances of the greenskin imposter getting within a hundred miles of the honourable Commissar Yarrick during the war.
Extract from ‘The Second War for Armageddon: A Final Definitive History’ by Scribe Primus Howtopher Buxcraft
Painting
I wanted to keep the mega armour fairly neutral, so I settled for a Leadbelcher and Nuln Oil scheme. This utilitarian scheme is in keeping with the ‘Commissar’ and Blood Axe theme of the model, and helps to frame the points of interest like the face, gun grot and axe head. This is also why the armour glyphs are grey, to provide a little bit of visual interest but not draw the eye away too much. For all other elements, such as the skin, leather and red trousers, I followed the paint recipes detailed in this post. The only exception was the grot skin, which I wanted to appear as a slightly different tone from the boss. So I substituted Straken Green for Warboss Green for and Nurgling Green for Skarsnik Green in my normal Ork Flesh recipe.
It was tempting to sculpt Shootit the grot some fancy clothes since he is obviously the boss’s favourite, but in the end, I decided to keep him fairly drab and utilitarian, so that he didn’t draw focus. I did give him a gold cap badge though, just to show he is a bit more important than the average grot.
The helmets on the boss pole are painted in the colours of the three Space Marine chapters that were cannonically involved in the Second War of Armageddon: the Blood Angels, Ultramarines and Salamanders. I stuck to canonical MkVI and MkVII helmets, which are probably the most appropriate for the era.
That’s all for today, I hope you’ve enjoyed this detour to Armageddon. Thanks very much for reading today’s post, and please remember you can also follow my work on social media at Instagram, Threads, Twitter/X, Bluesky and Mastodon. And of course don’t forget to check out Apologist’sAshes of Armageddon project blog!
A Merry Squigmass to all, and to all a good fight!
Red Gobbo
One final model for 2022, ‘Red Gobbo & Bounca‘. I received this kit as a Christmas present from a good friend this time last year, and it has been sitting on the Shelf of Shame ever since, waiting for the holiday season to roll around again. This model won’t be joining any army projects, it’s simply a fun festive display piece.
Modelling & Painting
This was a record for me in terms of number of LEDs on a single infantry-sized model, seven in all. It was originally eight – there was an additional red light on the end of the fairy light string – but the connection for the eighth LED became damaged during installation. Despite my best efforts I couldn’t seem to fix it so I decided to cut my losses – literally – and snip the failed LED from the end of the string.
I had to work quite quickly on this project in order to get it done, photographed and shared by today. I didn’t want it to sit on the shelf for another year! So that’s why there aren’t many ‘work in progress’ pictures – I couldn’t spare the time to stop and take them. But I did capture this picture of the wiring shown above. It might look complex, but the design is a fairly basic circuit. Every LED is in series with a single resistor, and every LED and resistor pair are connected in parallel with all the other pairs. The entire circuit is driven from a single coin cell battery and switch under the base. Essentially it is my Simple Muzzle Flare tutorial, but with the LED and resistor repeated multiple times in parallel.
If you are trying to reproduce this then a useful tip I found was to paint a dot of colour on each of the resistors to remind me which colour LEDs they were supposed to connect to, since different colour LEDs have different resistor requirements. This was easier than looking on the tiny resistor colour code rings or testing with a multimeter each time. You can see these spots if you look carefully in the image above. This photo was taken just before the wires were coiled up above the resistors and covered in a thin layer of modelling putty to hold them in place.
When it came to positioning the LEDs on the model, I tried to replace the sculpted plastic lights with real LEDs on a one-for-one basis, which I largely achieved. Thankfully I didn’t have to spend a lot of time hiding the wires, as there were already sculpted wires on show as part of the model, so I left the actual wires on show and then painted over them. The LEDs that formed part of the fairly lights were secured with a small blob of glue from a hot glue gun. When dry, the transparent glue also acted as the ‘bulb’ of the light. However I stuck to my normal acrylic gel method when sculpting the fuse on the dynamite.
For the paint scheme, I followed my recent Ork-related paint schemes found in this article. The snow on the base was from a tub of ‘Citadel Snow’ that I’ve had hanging around since about 2009. Once I had hidden the wire under the putty on the base, I painted the putty Fenrisian Grey, which is a cool, light blue-grey. Next I gave it a heavy Corax White drybrush. Finally I applied a thick coat of PVA and the Citadel Snow, which is basically a fine white flock.
So there we have it, a small but intricate model! I’m quite pleased with how this turned out, but if I could go back again with a bit more time I’d probably take more care on the fairy lights to make them neater, and also add some more layers to the highlights on the squig hide. Those are only minor gripes though, and as I said overall I’m pleased with the finished miniature.
So that’s it for this week, I hope you’ve enjoyed this fun festive figure! As always, thanks very much for reading, and please don’t forget you can also follow my work on social media at Twitter, Mastodon and Instagram. Merry Christmas everyone!
When I first saw the Goff Rocker, I knew I’d have to add it to my collection eventually. The model is just so full of character, I love the call back to the classic Goff Rockers miniatures, and the awesome tie-in Christmas song just sealed the deal!
Modelling & Painting
I didn’t make any serious alterations to the model itself, other than giving his bionik eye the LED treatment. To achieve this I used the same technique as for my Eradicator sergeant’s bionic eye, including the 3V red ultra nano SMD chip LED. The metal stage texture is from a very old Games Workshop battlefield accessories sprue that has been languishing in my spares box for years. Originally it was a large square pallet for stacking ammo crates up, but I cut, filed and sanded it down into a circle.
My first “draft” of the base was a 50mm circular base with LED fire pyrotechnic effects on each side. But I decided it dominated the actual miniature too much, and revised it down to 40mm, which is the base size that the model is supplied with. I also swapped out the fire for two stage footlights, one in purple and one in blue. This change took it closer to the light artwork painted on the base of the box art model, and of course following the existing artwork is one of my key design philosphies when using LEDs in miniatures.
The stage footlights were made from small comms speakers, again taken from a battlefield terrain sprue, drilled out, and with more 3V SMD chip LEDs inserted, one in blue and one in white, as I didn’t have any purple LEDs in this size. To finish off the footlights, I filled them with acrylic gel and once it had dried glazed them with blue and purple glazes respectively.
When it came to painting, I followed the “offical” scheme fairly closely. The majority of the colour choices came from the WarhammerTV Citadel Colour masterclass painting tutorial for this model. The only exceptions were the ork skin and the squig hide. I used my own recipe for these to match other recent ork models in my collection, such as the Kommando Kill Team (the skin and hide receipes are in this linked article for anyone interested).
That’s it for this week, I hope you enjoyed this detour into greenskin territory! If you’d like to see more of my orks, search the ‘ork’ category on this site. Also, don’t forget to stream and download the Goff Rocker song and who knows, maybe we can get it to Christmas number one in the UK! As always, thanks very much for reading, and please don’t forget you can also follow my work on social media at Twitter, Mastodon and Instagram.
Chris Buxey Paints 