Oldhammer-style 'basing with flock' tutorial (featuring a bunch of re-rebased Orcs)

This weekend I decided to go crazy and rebase my old Orcs on new-fangled big 30x30 squares. To be quite honest, I promised myself I would only rebase Ruglud's Ladz, knowing full well I would get carried away doing that. Besides, I figured, rebasing a bunch of Orcs should only take a Saturday morning's worth of time (for me, starting any task requires a complete miscalculation of the time required to actually do it). So a full weekend and a few mid-week evenings later, here's a bunch of rebased Greenskins, ready to take on The Old World in style.

These ancient Orcs have always been based, now they have also been rebased!

How old-school can you go? Drastik Plastik Orcs old maybe? (with old school basing tutorial)

People occasionally wonder why I spent time painting ancient models. After all I could also use it to paint the newer, better looking kits. Most of the time I point out I like Oldhammer's unique style just as much (sometimes even more) than the newer models. Sometimes its just pure nostalgia. The Drastik Plastik Orcs of 'yore fall completely in the nostalgia category.

Never fear, the Drastik Plastik Orcs are here....wait up, that should be: Cower in Fear, the Drastik Plastik Orcs are here!

Tutorial: flock basing around buildings and painting rivers for Warhammer and Age of Sigmar

Building the Townscape gives me ample opportunity to make some pictures for tutorials. Let's start off with a double feature: Flock basing around buildings and painting rivers for Warhammer and Age of Sigmar (and any other wargame as well for that matter). Followed up with some bonus content about adding signs to buildings. To follow along you'll need some appropriate bases (I prefer MDF), a few colors of flock, grass tufts, instant filler and (optionally) plaster and molds. Let's get started.

We start with the end result, this is what I'm aiming for here.

Jungle ruins and realm gate (aka messing around with polystyrene)

The recent completion of the Mighty Fortress got me rather enthusiastic about messing around with polystyrene. So between other projects I made a few random bits of terrain. With the Skaven sneaking in, Eldar shenanigans and recently Gaslands/Dark Future, this project has kind of fallen through the cracks. As I did not bring a lot of things to completion this weekend, I thought 'lets throw them into the spotlight right now'. So without further ado: here's some random ruins made from polystyrene, Ikea plants, flock and bits.

Meanwhile in the valley of mist...

Making The Unquiet Dead markers for AoS

With the launch of Legions of Nagash Games Workshop has given Death a new lease on life (har har). It also brings us the best hint of what Slaanesh has been up to so far. Good times (maybe too good) are to be had by all. In Legions of Nagash the rather wonky Age of Sigmar summoning system is replaced with something more workable and fun. An ability called The Unquiet Dead is part of this. Every army that belongs to one of the Legions of Nagash has it. It gives the player four gravesite markers that help reinforce and regenerate certain units in his army. More important than game mechanics (as far as I'm concerned): it gives you an excuse to get creative with hobby materials. In short I made these for use in my games.

As a Legion of Nagash general I get to slam down my own graveyards on every battlefield.

Tutorial: building a ruined bridge base

Yesterday I completed my Orruk Warboss on Wyvern that included the fancy base you can see below. It is supposed to look like a ruined bridge or highway (or something similar). As it was rather easy and fun to build I thought people might like a tutorial on this. Luckily I actually remembered to take some pictures while scratch-building.

Never mind true line of sight and hiding behind terrain: a big model needs a big base, it just looks right.

Badlands scatter terrain for Age of Sigmar

With the sun up and the glue (mostly) dry, I had a chance to make a few pictures of the new bone terrain. Here it is. If you want to replicate this project click on the Badlands terrain set link to the top right of this page (or beneath the second home button if you're using a mobile device). I've added some models to give a better sense of scale.

Painting and flocking badlands scatter terrain

Thursday over lunch I remembered I had a small dropper bottle of the Vallejo Wash I was waiting for. So why not use that and refill the bottle from the big tub when it arrives. Well done me! And it only took me a week to get to think of that... Anyway that gave me the chance to wash the bones and let them dry making it possible to finish this terrain project last night. Without further ado here are the bones for my Badlands Terrain set.

Now these are some bones to cower between. Or was that to take cover between? However you wish to use it, it is a finished set of badlands scatter terrain.