About

[Swordandfire]

Greetings all.  Welcome to the Gnoblog for my Ogre tribe, the Oath Eaters.  I started this army about a year ago (about the same time I joined the Stronghold) and have worked on it intermittently throughout that time period.  In that time I must say that the Stronghold has provided a never ending fount of ideas, inspiration and just plain entertainment.  You guys rock.  Period.  So thanks for everything   

My goals for this blog are:

1) To display my hard work to people who will hopefully get some measure of entertainment from it (and maybe even inspire someone  )
2) To hopefully motivate myself to have a fully painted and based army of around 2250 pts.
3) Open myself up for helpful criticism, critiques and ideas to improve my ability as a painter and modeler.

While all 3 goals are important to me, I think that number two is my top priority.  I really want to get an army finished to the point where I can play it in a GW store as due to the hours of my job I am unable to go to the local hobby store during their Wednesday Game Night      Thankfully, my roommate does enjoy the competitive aspect of the game and we get to play the odd game.

Additionally, I've started and stopped far too many armies (3 and 1/2 40K armies and 1 other Fantasy Army) and want to prove to myself that I can finish an army, and that I can finish it in such a way that I am proud of it.

So without further explanations or ramblings (or at least with as little of them as I can manage  ) let the Gnoblog begin!

[Swordandfire]

Fluff

The name for my tribe was born from the Nemesis Summer Campaign.  Basically I came up with it because I had to *shrug*  Thankfully, I like the name and I find it sort of unique while still fluffy (Now watch 6 people post that they already have tribes by this name...)  The general Idea of my tribe is that they are a mercenary tribe that wander around the Empire, Bretonia and Woodelf lands (their two most common opponents being Woodelves and Beasts of Chaos) who take their contracts very seriously and are well known for sticking to their word.  They seal their contracts by marking an object with their own blood (possibly in a certain symbol) and ingesting it.  The general idea being that they are making the contract in the presence of the Great Maw, whom they hold in high regard and believe will strike them down if they do not honor the contract.  They also believe that in serving the Great Maw their tribe shall prosper as they are a splinter group from a previous tribe that suffered disaster after almost completely renouncing the Great Maw.  Hence the Butchers hold great Power in the tribe (I always loved the idea of the Butchers whispering in the Tyrant's ear and being the true power in the tribe  )

[Swordandfire]

Army Lists

Instead of listing army lists that I want feedback on (I can do that in the armies of the kingdoms section  ) I am going to use this section to list my goal army lists, which units in those lists have been painted and how many more units are left before that list is fully painted.  Keeping this in mind, feel free to comment on these army lists if you so desire.

500 pt Goal

Hero

Butcher w/ Bangstick (modeled and painted but not with bangstick, could replace bangstick with skullmantle)

Core

3 Bulls (modeled and painted)

4 IronGuts (modeled and painted, using Tyrant as 4th Gut)

8 Trappers (modeled and painted)

Complete!



1000 pt Goal

Heros

Bruiser w/ longstrider, wyrdstone necklace Heavy Armor and luck Gnobo (modeled and painted)

Butcher w/ Bangstick and Scroll (modeled and painted but not with bangstick, could replace bangstick with skullmantle)

Core

3 Bulls with Extra Hand Weapon and Bellower (painted and modeled)

3 Guts with Bellower (painted and modeled)

8 Trappers (modeled and painted)

Special

2 Belchers w/ Bellower (modeled and painted)

Rare

Slave Giant (modeled and painted)

Complete!



1500 pt Goal

Heros

Bruiser w/ longstrider, wyrdstone necklace Heavy Armor and luck Gnobo (modeled and painted)

Butcher w/ Bangstick and Scroll (still on sprue)

Butcher w/ 1 Dispel Scroll (painted and modeled)

Core

3 Bulls with Extra Hand Weapon and Bellower (painted and modeled)

3 Guts with Bellower (painted and modeled)

3 Guts with Bellower (still on the sprue)

8 Trappers (modeled and painted)

Special

2 Belchers w/ Bellower (modeled and painted)

3 Yhetees (modeled and being painted)

Rare

Slave Giant (modeled and painted)

In Progress

2000 pt goal

Coming soon

[Swordandfire]

Models That I Have

Here is a listing of all the models that I have that are in this army and a listing of what is needed or more precisely, what is wanted.

What I own:

Tyrant
Butcher
6 Bulls
3 Guts
4 Belchers
8 Trappers
20 Fighters
3 Yhettes
2 Gorgers
1 Slave Giant

+1 Ogre Battalion Box which will be made into:

2 Butchers
12 more Guts (2 to 3 of which with standards)

Wanted, may get some day:

Rhinox Rider

[Swordandfire]

Lots of Pictures

Not owning a camera of my own has made it hard to post any pictures of my army.  Thankfully I have a girlfriend who tolerates/ is amused by my hobby and from whom I was able to borrow a camera    Unfortunately, this means pictures may come infrequently depending on my ability to persuade her to part with her precious camera.

Here are the work in progress Gnoblar Trappers:





You can't see it in the pictures but I did try and sculpt some fur onto the non trapper blister models to unify them.  Once I paint the fur I'll try and take a detail shot.  (My sculpting skills are mediocre at best)

Here is my Slave Giant (I wish his rules matched how awesome he looks  )







For some reason I thought my Ogres would want to give my Giant a gutplate.  I think it turned out pretty good even if I didn't really know how to greenstuff rope... (any tips?)

[Swordandfire]

Here is my Tyrant. Nergui the Pious. Nergui means no name in Mongolian according so some site I found through Google.  Apparently, the Mongolians believed this was some sort of protection against bad things knowing your name and doing bad things to you... or something along those lines.  I should do some research.    (Sorry if some of the pics are blurry)  I eventually would like to make my own converted Tyrant.  Especially considering the awesome Tyrant conversions I've seen around here.



Here is my converted butcher.  This was my first extensive use of greenstuff (extensive for me).  I quite like how he came out although the gut flopping over his belt could use a little work.  I'll just have to remember to work on that on my next converted butcher.







Here is my unit of Bulls.  The one on the right was my test bull and is missing a layer of paint that I eventually added to my skin color scheme.  That's my he's a little pale.  Although, looking at it here, it's not as bad as real life.

[Reg06]

For some reason I thought my Ogres would want to give my Giant a gutplate.  I think it turned out pretty good even if I didn't really know how to greenstuff rope... (any tips?)

Ask you shall receive; http://us.games-workshop.com/games/40k/darkangels/painting/successor_characters/orteza_tut.htm. It's the last tutorial on that page.

I like the fluff alot, and the models are all looking great. The butcher's gut hanging over his belt looks like he's recently lost alot of weight, or just got his stomach stapled. But that could just be the picture, because it still looks good.

[Swordandfire]

Here are my most recently painted models, my Ironguts.  I definitely like the way they came out and think I have been improving each time I paint a unit.  I could probably work more on attempting to blend and try my had at inks.  But for now I like the results I'm getting    (even if it takes forever  )



That's it for my painted figs for now.

Here are my two Gorgers.  I was inspired by the um... "high five" description of the model's pose to try my hand at a couple of conversions.  I hope you guys like them.



This was just a simple matter of turning the arm 180 degrees around, pining it and using greenstuff to blend it together a bit.  While not amazing it gives the model a different feel (almost like he's dodging something)



While not the best picture I wanted to try a little more advanced conversion for this one.  Basically the arm was turned 90 degrees or so, maybe bent a little, pined and blended.  The torso was shaved down on the back end so he wouldn't be leaning forward as much.  It was pinned. then green stuff was used to fill the gap and I had to try and sculpt some muscles to cover the gap.

[Swordandfire]

Thanks Reg06.  That link shall be quite helpful.  I think my main problem with greenstuff is I tend to rush things and not plan things in advance.  This leads to my smushing and distorting already greenstuffed areas.

The butcher's gut hanging over his belt looks like he's recently lost alot of weight, or just got his stomach stapled. But that could just be the picture, because it still looks good.

Unfortunately, it does look like that.  I think I just forgot to look at the sides when I first made him.  But the nice thing is that it's not too bad from the front (there is fur bellow the stomach but it didn't come out well in the picture).  Live and learn I guess.

[Reg06]

No, it looks like you've got some greenstuffing chops, and I definately expect to see something really impressive in this gnoblog. Great work on the ironguts, and I really like the style you've done them in.

[Swordandfire]

Thanks for the encouragement.  It does an artist good.

For those interested a bunch more pictures of the same models from different angles and different degrees of blurriness can be found here: http://s229.photobucket.com/albums/ee108/swordandfire/

Oh and any and all ideas in this Gnoblog may well have been inspired by people on the Stronghold.  Just let me know and I'll give you credit.

[BigD]

Your idea of using the iron guts banner as gutplate for the giant is a cool idea. Your paintwork is very good (especially on the giant), although, you could give the ogre skin a bit more depth by using darker shadowing.

BigD

[Swordandfire]

Well after a two months of distractions (Metroid Prime 3, Neverwinter Nights 2: MotB) I have finally gotten around to finishing up my Gnoblar Trappers.  Here are the pictures:





As I hope you can see, I have figured out how to take better quality pictures and would be happy to reshoot my other pictures if anyone is interested.

The unit consists of 4 metal Gnoblars (3 of them from a trappers blister) and 4 plastic ones.  As much as I like the posses of the plastic gnoblars the detailing on their faces was of a much lesser quality than their metal counterparts.  I guess I shouldn't expect super detailed sculpts for what is supposed to be a mass produced model    I also tried to tie the unit together with some greenstuffed fur on the non trapper models as can be better seen by the pictures bellow:





I really like how these guys have turned out but am glad that they are the only gnoblars I plan to paint.

[Swordandfire]

Your idea of using the iron guts banner as gutplate for the giant is a cool idea. Your paintwork is very good (especially on the giant), although, you could give the ogre skin a bit more depth by using darker shadowing.

Thanks for the comment BigD.  Right now I am using graveyard earth as the basecoat for my ogre skin, with dessert yellow, then kommando kakhi and finally bleached bone.  Looking back you are definitely right that darker shadowing would look better.  I may have to experiment on my next ogres although I'm not sure what to do... any suggestions?

[BigD]

Thanks for the comment BigD.  Right now I am using graveyard earth as the basecoat for my ogre skin, with dessert yellow, then kommando kakhi and finally bleached bone.  Looking back you are definitely right that darker shadowing would look better.  I may have to experiment on my next ogres although I'm not sure what to do... any suggestions?

Hmmm, let me think.  Yep, I have some suggestions

Because you use brown(ish) colors on the skin, I suggest experimenting with dark browns (bestial brown and scorched brown) or brown or chestnut ink. For me, I like to keep it simple. Used a mix of fortress grey and graveyard earth as base color and mixed it with chaos black to shadow and with skull white to highlight (look at my avatar to see an example of the skin color I use). But because you've already painted so many ogres, I would try shadow with  brown colors.


BigD

[Swordandfire]

Sounds like a plan.  I'll try that out on my leadbelchers when I get around to them.  Thanks for the advice 

[Swordandfire]

Update time.  Finished up a couple of leadbelchers, some gut magic markers and one yhetee.  Hope you enjoy. (I also figured out how to resize to a more reasonable resolution).



I tried to use darker shadowing on my leadbelchers as BigD suggested (thanks!) and I am very pleased with the result.  Unfortunately, I tried to highlight up too fast on the one on the right and he turned out a bit sloppy.  This is most evident on his face but overall I am very happy with the results, it just took my 10 ogres to finally get it down...



Looking around at the stronghold's yhetees I liked the look of the black ones the best for my army so thanks to all of you black yhetee people for inspiring me.  I tried to do brown tonal highlighting on the fur which really isn't all that apparent in the picture but in person it looks decent if not quite apparent at table top distances.





These were fun to make and easy too.  I elected to have black bases so I could write down what each gut magic does to cut down on the "What does that one do again?" questions.





My 500pt and 1000pt armies respectively.  (Updated my army lists section with these pictures as well)  This is the  first army that I've stuck with long enough to paint a full list that I am proud of.  It's a really great feeling. 

Next up: 2 more Yhetees, 3 Iron Guts and a Butcher for my 1500pt force.

[Malekith]

Cool, I can't wait to see them painted, I like what you've done so far as the scheme is nice, my favourite model has to be the yhettes, good work and keep it up.
Thanks, Malekith

[BigD]

I tried to use darker shadowing on my leadbelchers as BigD suggested (thanks!) and I am very pleased with the result.  Unfortunately, I tried to highlight up too fast on the one on the right and he turned out a bit sloppy.  This is most evident on his face but overall I am very happy with the results, it just took my 10 ogres to finally get it down...

I'm glad I could be of help. 

I think the shadowing came out very nice, especially on the left leadbelcher (the one with the eyepatch).
I also like your magic markers. Keep it up!


BigD

[Ghworg]

Awesome-looking stuff there. Also it must be quite a surprise for your opponents to face a giant in 1,000pts!

Ghworg