Ork Dip -- Click me!

So I am going to be entering in a 40k tournament in August.  I’ll be entering as an Ork player and have been tuning and playing various lists in preparation..   I have a lot left to do though..  I also have a lot of painting to do because one of the requirements is that you have a fully painted army.  It doesn’t have to be professionally painted but it does have to look generally good, and have more than 3 colors on the model.

That’s fine, except I have a LOT of models to paint and I generally take far too long to paint them.  I can spend 2 hours painting a single dude, and considering I have over 100 dudes (not counting vehicles)  yet to paint.. I have a daunting task ahead of me..

I told my friends that there would be no way in hell I could paint all 100+ models in the time left.. It’s just not possible.. That’s when my buddy got after me to use the “dip” method of painting.. It’s fast and easy, and you don’t have to “color in the lines”..

So tonight I gave it a try..

I knew that if I were going to have full 2000 point 40k Ork army ready for this tourney I’d have to paint each model in about 10 minutes, so that’s what I did.. I gave myself 10 minutes to paint the model. Period. (Not counting the spray prime dry time or dip dry time.)

I went to the store and got some light tan colored spray paint that I’d use as my primer/base coat. It’s pretty light in color but I knew the dip/stain would make it darker so that’s what I went with..

0:30 — I came home and randomly selected one Ork not knowing if this would work worth a damn. I took all of 30 seconds or so to prime the model with the spray paint then let it dry. It took about 30 minutes to fully dry because I got the spray can nozzle a tad too close..

I then went inside to prepare my painting area.. I selected the 5 colors I was going to use, Boltgun metal, Catachan Green, Fortress Grey, Brazen Brass, and Calthan Brown and then got my water, paper towels and brushes ready.

9:30 — Once the primer was dry I sat down and hit the stop watch. I then took 9 minutes to paint the arms green, the helm and gun boltgun metal, some bitz got a bit of brown and some others got some grey while his shoulder piece got brass.. I was going to do some more brown and grey but the clock hit 9 and I put the brush down.

There is more I wanted to do, but I stopped at 9 minutes.

10:00 — I picked up the model and walked out to the garage where I already had the can of minwax stain open and ready to receive.. I used a pair of vice grips to dip the model all the way to the base in the stuff and let it sit in there for about 5 seconds..

I pulled it out and shook it off as hard as I could into the trash can making sure it got all the drips..

That’s it.. Done. You see the results above.  It takes about 6 hours to get to the point where you can handle the model, and then a full 12 hours to make it so it’s not tacky (or so I’m told.. I haven’t passed the 12 hour mark)..

A couple things yet to do is to spray paint a matte or satin varnish to dull some of that shine, paint the base black again (Should have done this prior to gluing to base.. lesson learned), and finally flock the base..

It’s not perfect by any stretch but as a 10 minute paint job it’s not half bad.   I’m going to refine my process and paint like 10 at a time to speed things up but this is definately my process.. here it is.. this is how I’m doing it..

I’ll post more pictures once I get more.   I’ll also post a left and right comparison of a model I actually took 2 hours painting versus one that is dipped just to see..

30 Minute Loota

Additional:

So after some game play I decided I needed some Loota’s in my army. Here is one I painted using my new method.. It takes a bit longer in total due to all the bitz that are there to paint. So probably 30 minutes total went into this one. I haven’t flocked the base or matted the model yet so its a tad shiney still.. Either way this method works very well here too..

Latest Render

While my Tau Hammerhead is coming along nicely, I needed a bit of a break from it.  I decided to model something from either the Imperial Guard or Space Marines codex.  I don’t have either army, but I do have a Leman Russ that I was planning on turning into an Ork battlewagon..  So it seemed like the natural choice for modeling..

The model is still in pieces which as actually a boon because I can hold and model each part individually and then assemble them.. or at least I hope its that easy..

As with the hammerhead I plan to show a render of the model for every 4 hours (or so) of work.

Note: This post will be updated a lot as I work on this model.

Leman Russ 01

First 4 hours — Believe it or not, that’s 4-ish hours there.   I wanted to take advantage of instancing for all the bolts and rivots as well as the spiral lathe for the springs.. took me a bit to figure that out..

What’s nice is, there is actually only ONE rivet and only ONE bolt assembly.  They are then instanced into the 8 bolt assemblies, and 90+ rivets you see here.  This means all I have to do is adjust one rivet, or one bolt and the others will match.. Or more importantly, texture only one and you texture them all.. Yay!

This mesh promises to be WAY cleaner than the Hammerhead mesh which at this point I’m embarrassed by..

Leman Russ 02

+2 hours — Okay I have added more features and details to the side of the hull.. The two side doors are open to the world now, as well as adding various other bits and greebles.  I’ll add doors later, as well as adding the sponson which can be used or not depending on the vehicle I actually want..  (Lots of different vehicles in the 40k universe use the same basic body.)  I have also started working on the track which I have to figure out how to correctly shape itself around the hull.  I know Modo has an ability to do this, but not sure what it is..  I may have to poke around on the forums to figure this one out..  (Note: the track is currently WAY undersized, I realizes this and it will be fixed)  All in all it’s going wonderfully.. I’m enjoying this quite a bit!

Leman Russ 03

+6 hours — or maybe even a bit more..  So for this addition you’ll note that there hasn’t been a huge addition.. but it took a long time..  That’s due to the tank track.. Holy crap I want to club a baby seal..  It took me ages to get the tracks in place and working.

I ended up having to do the entire thing by hand since the path instancing tool in modo just doesn’t work as advertised.  I followed all the tutorials I could find and none of them work.  It’s a really simple process too, but the results were completely wrong each time, OR the application would just crash..   It really irritated me to no end..

But at this point the tracks are in place and ready to go, as well as having the room to put in the roadwheels and what not behind the scenes, which I will do next.   Once I get those in place I can start adding the main body..  That or working on a sponson.. not sure which yet

Leman Russ 04

+3 hours — I finally completed the back/inner side of the tread housing.. The sides of the tank are pretty much complete at this time, sans the sponsons and texturing.. *gleee*   The more I look at the track the more I think they are a bit too thin.. I’ll have to beef them up a tad, but in order to do that I have to redo them all the way around the housing.. Ugh.. I’ll get to it..

I have instanced and mirrored the main side in order to see an opposite.. I’m trying to figure out about how far apart they should be for the tank innards to fit..   This render also signals a slightly different render style from the others.. I’m adding in the ambient occlusion data for the render in order to give the image a more gritty film look..  Fun fun!

Leman Russ 05

+2 hours — Roughing out the hull!  Well I have the basics of the hull roughed out..  Now for the painful process of multiplying every single edge around the entire thing to soften them a tad.  I typically would edge bevel everything but that’s just about the worst way to actually do it apparently..

Once I get the hull to subdivide the way I want/need it to such that it maintains the shape while providing clean lines I’ll start working on the hull mounted cannon.   I haven’t forgotten the sponsons or the track fix.. I’ll get to it.

At this point I’m not sure the best way to go about subpatching the hull.. I have tried a couple things and the results were never very good..  I’m going to post on the Luxology forums and see if they have any advice.. most the folks over there are stupidly gifted when it comes to this stuff.. someone is bound to have an idea..

Leman Russ 06

+5 hours — I spent today touching up a lot of things with the russ.. The tracks are looking a lot better now.  I thickened them up quite a bit, though you really can’t tell that via the render.. they are actually twice as thick as they were before..

I haven’t quite decided what I want to do about the hull with regards to rounding and what not.. My traditional method is to edge bevel instead of subpatch.. but subpatching looks way way better..  So I dunno..  I’ll probably just bevel this one too.. Either way, while thinking about that I went ahead and created the sponson and the bolter.. It’s just about 100% accurate, but looks kinda plain.. There aren’t a lot of details on there.. I might have to spice it up a tad..

I did create the 40k Imperial Aquila though.. I figured if I’m gonna have it on there its not going to just be a texture.. It’s gonna be modeled onto the tank.  I’ll have to put it in a bunch of places so I figured I might as well do a good job of it..   Came out quite nicely I think..

40k Imperial Aquila 01

+2 hours — I have completely redone the 40k Imperial Aquila.  The version that is in the 06 picture is good, and actually better looking than the one on the model, but my buddy who knows about these things explained how it was still wrong. So with that I completely redid it using an even more accurate picture to make the model.

I went WAY over board heh.. Each Aquila has over 3k polygons..  That’s more than the entire sponson.. Bolter and all..

Leman Russ SDS Example 01

+6 hours — Thanks to the information provided by folks like Michael Blackboum and Richard Hurrey I am going through and adding the edges necessary to correctly subpatch the body of the Leman Russ..

It’s a lot of work.. basically for each edge becomes roughly 7 edges.. (hard to explain that without pictures.. but just believe me.. )  So its a lot of polygon slicing..  The main point of which will be to give the hull a “real” look.   I could have just beveled all of the hard edges but that starts to a ) fail at certain intersections and b ) look less real as you zoom in.

Consider is this;  Imagine if you will two polygons intersecting at a 90 degree angle.  In reality nothing short of a razor blade has an edge like the one those two polygons have now created..  it just doesn’t look real.  By adding a bevel you can make it look more real, but as you zoom into that bevel the polygons become apparent..    But by subdividing as you zoom in the renderer automagically generates more and more polygons.. so it always looks smooth..  That’s a win for me.

Simply put, it looks more “real”..  This has been a trail let me tell you, but now that I understand the concept I’ll be doing all my models this way I think.. The results just look a lot better..

Leman Russ 07

+3 hours — Okay I have finished completely subdividing the hull of the tank and then went on to build the front little window hatch also using subdivison and subpatches.. It will take some getting used to but I can really see the power of doing things this way..

Now that I am not fixing parts of the model I had already created, I can now go on to actually continue creating stuff..  Next I plan to make the front turret..  Fun stuff!

Leman Russ 08

+4 hours — I have added the nose cannon as well as making some modifications to the sponsons bolter..  The new gun is completely subdivided and looks pretty good.  It looks like its too big to me but all my measurements assure me it’s the right size..   Maybe it wont look so out of place once I get the top turret in place.

There is a lot of stuff going on in the back of the tank that I have yet to even start on.. I’ll probably start tackling that next.

Leman Russ 09

+2 hours — I have been putzing around with several things for this update..   Firstly you’ll note a color change in my render.. heh I was goofing off with the light and environment settings to see what I could come up with..   I’ll probably keep playing with that so .. expect some differences..

Further, I roughed out the top turret housing and started working on that.. It doesn’t look to scale to me.. it looks small, but all my measurements say its correct..  *shrug*   I have also started adding detail to the rear of the vehicle.. Lots of work to do there..  I’m gonna begin on hatches and things first..

I have also been designing and pondering a couple animations with this and other 40k elements.. One of them deals with a drop pod which I need to model..

I love those little green bastards but I have a billion of them to paint.. (Okay, a billion might be a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much.) Over the years I have had Necron, Tau and Orks as my 40K armies, and Orcs & Goblins, Skaven and Tomb Kings as my Fantasy armies. I played the role playing game for years and really preferred it to D&D or any of the other traditional role playing systems..

I tell you this so that you will come away with the understanding that I have a pretty good idea about the Warhammer universe and to convey to you how absolutely excited I was about Warhammer Online, Age of Reckoning. I had long thought this universe was ripe for computer games.

I was proven right when Blizzard pretty much raped the Warhammer universe for all of it’s games — but that’s for another post..

Needless to say, after doing a lot of looking, I’m a little disappointed in the direction the Warhammer Online game is taking. Firstly, it looks terrible. The graphics look extremely “Last Generation” in my mind. My first thought was, wow.. it looks like Dark Age of Camelot. I then learned it was being put out by the original DAOC creators.. that gave me a chuckle, and worried me. If their mark was to make a game that from launch looks 4 or 5 years old, then kudos boys, ya did it. If you’re intent was to make a modern looking game then you failed.

It has a wonderful Cinematic Trailer but that doesn’t tell you anything about the game play — and that trailer is over 2 years old at this point..

It really looks like they are trying to duplicate Blizzards World of Warcraft art style, all the while blizzard is basically using clones of their intellectual property.. It’s just sad. Especially considering one of the Q and A presenters when asked how they would deal with competition like World of Warcraft responded, “Kill them!” But.. you’re imitating them.. OH.. I see.. kill them, then you can say what you’re doing is original.. Got it.

More over in the modern era of dual and quad core machines they are intentionally keeping the system spec’s dreadfully low. They haven’t released the system requirements yet, but I bet you I could play it on my phone.. It doesn’t look any more advanced than Everquest 1 was.. To be honest, World of Warcraft actually looks a little better.. (I shun myself for saying that.. ) The Beta footage of Warhammer Online looks extremely lack-luster. They are talking about not wanting to make users need “liquid cooled super computers”, but from the looks of it don’t come anywhere near close to that. They may be very high poly count models, but they use the blizzard art style and thus they all look flat with sharp corners in an almost cartoon style.

During the Q and A session one of the devs was bragging about how he plays it on his old laptop and has zero problems.. *sigh* I can’t help but feel the game industry is going the wrong way here.. This is yet another case of “Blizzard did it so, it must be right!” I’m not saying go extreme high graphics like Crysis or Vanguard, just more than WoW cartoon blockiness.

They claim to be looking to the future, but it doesn’t appear that’s the case with regards to the LOOK of the game. Now I will be the first to stand up and say that game play ALWAYS comes first.. But why start with it looking old and outdated?

I do appreciate that they are looking to the future with content though.. they have 2 years of content planned to include the first 2 major patches, as well as being in planning and pre-production of the first expansion.. that’s nice.. That usually means they have budgeted it and that the game wont be here today, gone tomorrow. But, When do we get a graphics update? (Even World of Warcraft desperately needs one at this point and is my major sticking point with Wow. I hate the look.)

They are all proud about how their game doesn’t start until you have gotten to the end of your leveling. Meaning, you play the game from 1 to 50 and at 50 the game “really starts”. They tout that as being original and exciting when that’s EXACTLY what World of Warcraft does, the WoW game doesn’t start until you get to 70.. Period. All the grind to get there has nothing to do with WoW.. Its actually true of most games..

They are excited about all their “unique” advancement systems, but none of them sound unique. WoW gives you all the armor stuff, EQ1/EQ2/WoW gives you the alternate advancements and traits.. D&D Online gives you stat advancements.. City of Heroes gives you the badges, awards and trophies.. etc.. It’s been done. Move on.

And what the hell, if you want to customize the look of your character above the standard 2 or 3 sliders you have to buy the special copy of the game?! Fuck you! That’s just asinine and is the first HUGE red flag for me. Talk about nickel and diming the hell out of people.. I can’t think of anything that will make me not want to play the game more than being forced to play the same looking toon someone else plays simply because I didn’t want to fork over the extra $40 to get the “special” edition of the game. I want to be able to customize and I should be able to using the standard edition of the game.

It really seems the ONLY thing that Warhammer online has going for it is the realm versus realm, and player versus player game play. To be honest, I could give a crap about that. I didn’t enjoy it in DAOC, and I don’t know that I’ll enjoy it here. From what I can see, it doesn’t look like they have any end game PVE?! Are you kidding me? Of all the shit to NOT copy from WoW or EQ, you miss this one?

In the end, if I wanted to play world of warcraft, I’d play world of warcraft — if I wanted to play DAOC, I’d play DAOC. I have yet to see anything that makes this game stand apart from blizzards blatant IP theft of the Warhammer Universe or DAOC.

This game seems like nothing but DAOC 2 using the Warhammer IP. And that’s sad, it could have been so much more. Games Workshop, you should hang your head.

Er let me amend that.. I do want to.. I mean I enjoy doing this stuff, but I do it all day long!   I’m one of those lucky guys who managed to turn a hobby into a career, but in so doing; I lost my hobby.

I program and work on computers, all.. day.. long..  I don’t much care to come home and do it some more.  Its the main reason some of my online projects are suffering.  It’s not that I don’t wish to make something of them, I just can’t get in the mood to do it.

The upside is, the folks I deal with at IBM are brilliant on a level WAY above me and I am learning a ton.  So when I do finally get around to getting some of this done I’ll be that much better at it.

At this point when I get home each night I usually do one of three things;

1. Play Call of Duty 4 in order to kill people
2. Play World of Warcraft in order to get frustrated with the state of MMO’s
3. Paint miniatures for my 40k Ork Army.

that’s about it.  It’s typically one of those..  More programming or updating one of my sites just usually isn’t in the cards..   I guess tonight was your lucky night!

On the plus side my 40k Ork Army is coming along nicely!