Weekly Waffle #343 – The Operator
27th July 2024
I’m going to start this week’s weekly waffle by saying that I feel like I have returned to the land of the living. Even though it was only a little bit of head cold last week was not a pleasant week. I had was in full man flue mode with everything being an effort. But I’m glad to report that I am now feeling much better, still tired but much better. Although I am gutted because of I missed out a cinema trip last Friday, but the misses told me it was really good film and even better with the full Imax experience. So, there you go.
Even though I’m now feeling a lot better it has taken me a few days to get back to normal, so I’ve not done a load of painting this week. Although I have enjoyed what I have managed to get done. The albatross has remained firmly in place on myself, and I haven’t even looked at them this week. Instead, I’ve stayed working my way through my Puppets War box and have a couple of simple projects for you.
The first looks a little lonesome because it’s an add on to something else. And I haven’t dug out the something else for the pictures. So instead, you just get three different versions of the same things in different colours. That was really just a way of teasing you to make it sound like I had something more exciting that I do. But there is only so much that you can do to big up a big shoota turret for a truck.
I currently have two completed trucks for my boys and have all of the bits I need to complete a third. But I just haven’t got round to finishing off the last one yet. But for the two that I do have finished I ‘ve done different weapon options and thought it would be nice to go for a bit of uniform feel for them. I know that’s note very Orky, but these turrets do look good, and they weren’t expensive so I thought I would get three of them to align all the trucks. I have magnetised the weapons so if I want to swap the big shoota out for a rocket launcher in the future that will be really easy. But for now, I just wanted to something a bit colourful and easy to paint. Every little bit helps to keep the mojo flowing and for the time it took to paint these it was a good return of effort.
You can see more Ork miniatures at my gallery here.
Next up we are back with Puppets War and this time we have The Orc Operator, but I’ve also done a head swap for one of the Orc Fleash Busters heads. Just because I think it looks cooler. This is basically an Ork Boy with a remote control and is really nice-looking model. In the same box of goodies, I also have Gobots which are basically robotic grots. So, the way I envisage using this guy is as a Grot Hurder keeping all of his Gobots (Grots) in line. I think the whole idea fits well with a speed freak army and adds a lot of character. Having these little guys clearly under the control of an Orc with his remote control will look really good on the tabletop.
For the operator himself I’ve stayed with the standard speed freak colours of red, because it’s fast. Then I’ve added some accents using blue, because it’s lucky and yellow because it gives a nice pop of colour. For the skin I’ve just used Ork Flesh contrast paint and then highlighted it with a brighter green to give a nice pop of colour which was easy to do but I also think it looks good. The base is just a standard GW base with some plastic card added to give a bit of texture. I wanted to try and give the impression of scrap yard or a ruined hive city with Orks picking over it’s remains and causing general mayhem.
I love how it’s turned out but I may come back and make a small change in the not to distant future. The armour plate between his shoulders has a whole there that will accept a magnet. I’ve put one in there for future use but haven’t quite diced what will be fixed there. I was thinking of some sort of transmitter that ties in with the remote control for extra range. But I’ll have a play around and think of something suitable for him. But what do you guys think.
You can see more Ork miniatures at my gallery here.
Compared to last week I feel like I’m getting back on track and have plans to keep up the painting for next week. My only concern at the moment is that I’m really enjoying painting these Orks and I don’t want to end up with the Necromunda gang being side-lined yet again. I think the ideal balance would be to carry on with the orks as I’m enjoying them at the moment and interspace a couple of sessions to move the Necromunda gang along a bit. At the moment I’ve been working on the same colour on each min which leave you feeling like you aren’t making any progress. So, I may try to finish one of them so that I then have an example of how the rest should look to work towards. It’s a small change but one that I think could have a big impact on the project. It gives me a finished mini to keep the mojo topped up and working on them alongside the orks mean that when I start to flag, I have something to move to which will keep the mojo flowing. The only dilemma will be what do I pick out of the box next.
I’m about halfway through the box of minis I ordered from Puppets War and there are a couple of bigies in there. Things I’m not sure I can get finished in a week so I’ll need to consider that. Am I letting myself down if I don’t have anything complete and need to go with some work in progress pictures. I’ll see how I go but I still think I have enough in there to bring you complete projects for the next couple of weeks at least. What I do need to be careful of though is putting undue pressure on myself to get the updates done. It’s supposed to be about using the blog and way of helping my motivation not hindering it.
Well that’s it for this week. I hope you all keep yourselves safe and well. Enjoy whatever you have planned for the week and I will be back here next week with more updates for your perusal.
