Ork Boyz & Buggies

Recently I've mostly been converting Ork Boyz. Searched through bits boxes and sorted out the orky materials. Got some of my old plastic 90's Orks from Space Crusade and WH40k 2nd edition in there. Also, my dear friend found a random collection of Ork & Necron models (around twenty troopers and some vehicle bits) from flea market last winter, and brought that lot for me. So sweet & lovely!!! A few modern Mek / Nob bits found their way in as well, as I got their sprue leftovers on top of other purchases earlier this year. Shoulder pads made from cut up felt pen.

The Boyz were quickly bashed together with a method I've been earlier using with Chaos Cultists, Pox Walkers and such. First sort out roughly the required number of body parts and weapons in one container. It's propably best, if the numbers don't exactly add up. If there's a hand or two missing, who cares. Just glue the gun straigth to the shoulder. Bored of the 4 identical looking bodies? Cool, just cut them all in half (horizontal or vertical, doesn't matter) with pliers, mix up, and glue back without fitting/measuring. Missing a pair of legs? No problem, 2-3 screws should do the trick.

I've noticed this approach gives very nice and often unpredictable poses, which can be even further exaggerated (or balanced down a bit if needed) with basing the models on uneven surfaces. A good example of this is the Nob with rokkit launcha & screw as arms, who's in kind of a climbing position. Would have been very different story, if that model had been put in to a plain and flat base. I tend to make a whole bunch of bases at a time, and then quickly try and find out the suitable miniature + base combos.

The first mob of 10 Boyz with shootas.

The second mob of 10 Boyz with choppas and sluggas.

Tried to do oval bases from foam board. That worked out very nice. Just drew the outlines on the board and cut them out with utility knife. First I cut very carefully along the drawn line so that the blade didn't go through the board, but just the surface layer. Then I pressed the blade through the whole board in a slight angle (to imitate the GW bases), touching the tables surface. Then I made the actual cut through the foam board by sliding the board along the tabletop, keeping the knife firmly in place. Very clean cut, and the angle on the bases edge remains constant. The edges were then painted twice with a mix of PVA and black paint for some structural integrity. Wohoo! Cheap! Easy! Good!

Hot glued cool bits & garbage on the bases. Then PVA glue and sand or "mixed basing mess" (which is all the cutoffs, mould line scrap and other junk from the tabletop that should go straight to the bin. Or actually it shouldn't).