I've been ignoring my blog again. If I'm posting here it means that I'm probably not making videos, or shooting photos. Something's always falling through the cracks of my information dispersal. With that in mind, I thought that I would bring you loyal readers up to speed on my latest project: An Ogre Kingdoms Army.

About a year back I had plans to do an army like this for myself, but like so many other personal projects, it ended up taking a back seat to my paying work. So, when I was asked to do an Ogre Kingdoms army for a client I was really excited. 3/4 of the fun of doing a new army for myself is the work that goes into it so this was going to mostly satisfy my desire to do this army for myself.

One interesting thing about doing Ogre Kingdoms that is different from most other Warhammer armies is the fact that you aren't actually painting very many miniatures (unless you have a large Gnoblar mob) compared to other armies. This means that you can spend a little more time lavishing attention on the individual models. That was one of the things that originally appealed to me about this army. On top of that, the Ogres themselves are fairly large canvasses to paint on. It's a little freeing - assuming that you like painting flesh tones.

Assembling the army actually takes a bit more time than you might expect. Just because there are fewer models doesn't mean less work. The Ogres have lots of little bitz that you can use to customize your guys. The more choices to make, the more time it takes. Then there's the decision on whether to build them completely before painting, or to do them in sub-assemblies. For the core ogres (and leadbelchers) I chose to completely build them - which is what I will do whenever possible. I don't like screwing up my paint during assembly and being forced to them fix the problems and match the work that I did before. With the ogres this wasn't really a problem. The Ironguts are another matter. The models with their arms upraised would have made it extremely difficult to get at the faces - so those models are having their heads added after painting. They also have some largish extra bits that would also make painting things underneath difficult - so those will also go on later.

The Scraplauncher was a pretty fun little project. It was first assembled into sub-assemblies (wheels, chasis, catapult, crew, ammo barrels) and painted. I actually managed to put together a fairly complete video on this project that covers most of the work. I was able to do some very extensive rusting effects on this models - which I really enjoy. I prefer things to have a realistic edge when possible and a nice rust will really give that feel.

The best part of this army so far has been the giant. Talk about a large canvas! I broke out the airbrush to do his skin and I'm extremely pleased with the results. airbrushing skin tones was never something that I was good at in the past, but I think that I've worked through my issues with it. I used to think that the older giant was the better of the two, but after painting this one (and its Chaos cousin) I am sold on this one.

I'm still in the process of assembling Ironguts models and butchers, but the project is really coming along. If you're interested in seeing the videos of the process so far you can find them on my YouTube channel.