Orktober 2025

This is going to be a kick update. Two days late, but done anyway. This year work really made getting my Orktober project done very hard, but I have not missed one in 5 years and don’t plan to now. Here they are, my first group ready for the Space Gits Kickstarter when it gets here. These were a joy to paint, Kromlech really has some great minis. Thanks for taking a look!

This week I almost finished the bodies for this gang of corsairs. I just have to wrap up one barrel backpack and banner, and then its on to the arms and huge guns. These are taking longer than normal, because I am trying some new things, like cross hatching to sell texture. free handed stripes and checks are always slow too. I really like the way they are turning out though, they are much brighter than my normal orks are. I am still highlighting a mix of AK 3rd, Army Painter Fanatic, and Pro Acryl.

I need to wrap these up, today the guys announced Terrainfest, and I want to join in for the first time! I have been printing Star Wars Shatterpoint terrain for weeks. I also have a ton of Mandalorian frontier town buildings to use for Shatterpoint, Stargrave, and a sci fi western bend to Dracula’s America. It’s more than I will ever have a chance of getting done soon. Mrs. PIGM00 may even join in and work on the warcry forge from a few starter sets ago for Frostgrave.

Until Next week, Thanks for looking!

I finally had a day to spend painting the corsairs, and made some slow progress. I started to continue batch painting these and after an hour felt like I was getting nowhere. That’s when I decided to focus on one at a time. These models look awesome, like all of Kromlech’s do, but there is so many things hanging on these guys! I know that most of the time people say “don’t paint all of it,” but I just can’t skip something because it is all I will see when I am looking at the finished models. I managed to get two and a half bodies done and have two I still need to work on that are base coated. I have been highlighting these with AK 3rd gen, Monument, and Army Painter Fanatics (which are quickly becoming a favorite). I have used too many to list. This is a bad habit I have when painting, too many colors used. Anyway, I still hope to get these done in Orktober, but may slip into November because of work. Thanks for looking!

I didn’t make much progress this week, I really only get to paint one day each weekend. October is always too busy. I like to do an Orktober project each year, but fall and Halloween is our favorite time of the year to do trips and festivals. This past weekend we drove to Salem, Massachusetts to visit the witch trial historical sites and go to the annual witch festival. We ended up staying longer and spending time in Boston too. When we got home I did manage to get some base coats and washes onto the corsairs. I want these to end up very bright so I used Ducat Blue form AK, Averland Sunset from GW, Orange Red from Monument , and a few Army Painter washes. It’s not a lot done, but at least next weekend I can start the details and highlighting.

When I saw that Mike Hutchinson of Gaslands fame was releasing an Orc miniatures skirmish game that was also a dexterity game, I had to see what it was about. I watched some videos from the Kickstarter campaign and immediately backed it! I thought it looked like a fast, fun, and absurd game of dice staking and mayhem. In years past, my Orktober projects have been huge 3d printed affairs, but I have some work and travel that would make that hard this year. Surly I will have time to eek out 5 minis.

I started with a few hours of clipping, clean up, and scraping. I tossed the partially assembled minis into some warm water and dawn, and moved on to the bases while they dried. I want the bases to look like the deck of a pirate ship to keep with the theme. Also, I have a pretty big MDF ship from TT Combat that will eventually be built and orkified for my hoard.

I used some coffee stirs that I picked up somewhere. I started by gluing them down to the bases and leaving them long. I wanted some variation and damage, so I offset the plank ends and dug some holes out of the centers of a few. Once I got one base completely covered, I flipped it over to the bottom and scored the overhangs close to the rim and broke them off. This gave me a rough end look, and I used my xacto to damage them some more. I cut some lines into the surface planning on using contrast to stain the wood. After a dry fit, I did this four more times.

I attached the minis to some junk bases to hold them to my painting handles and airbrush primed them with desert tan Vallejo surface primer. The arms are glued to some skewers and slotted into a little plastic painting rack I found at our local craft store.  Time to switch back to the bases while these dry.

I tested several contrast and speedpaint options to find the color I liked best for the planks. I finally settled on Snakebite Leather, and finished up covering the rest of the bases.

Once I finished that I started with a basecoat to the skin using Army Painter Fanatics Greenskin. This is a really rough coat, and I was not too careful about hitting areas around the skin right now following the “start from the inside” advise you always hear. By the time I finished all the skin, I was able to circle around and start adding some deeper color to the recesses. I did a coat of Army Painter Orc Skin speedpaint mixed 50/50 with Speedpaint Medium. This is gen one spedpaint, so after a few hours to dry, I hit it with a layer of Army Painter Matt Varnish through the airbrush. I think this will stop the reactivating that gen one was known for. Also, work is going to be hell this week, so they should get several says to cure.