Gang of four

My recently discovered love for converting and painting Traitor Ogryns would not let me rest until the fourth member of the squad was completed, so this post will be about him.

After the last Ogryn (you know, the one with the tongue…) had been such a joy to build, I found myseld really psyched for the next model. Unfortunately, it was a bit harder to come up with yet another Ogryn without the whole thing ending up boring. The reason for this was that there is unfortunately very little diversity in the plastic Ogres: While there are lots and lots of cool bits, the kit just offers two bodies, and the positioning of the arms is very restricted.

So it took me a while to build the last squad member, but in the end I prevailed. Here’s what I came up with:

Once again, the head was quite difficult to get right: I used a helmeted Ogryn head and added some augmetic goggles. But that alone made the Ogryn look like some really flustered fat guy with glasses, so I added an Ork armour plate to give him a closed helmet once again.

I tried to combine various visual elements from the other squad members without duplicating them outright. So the Ogryn got the helmet and goggles and some armoured arms from the Ironguts kit while also sporting the armour plates and a strange tank grafted to his back. He ended up looking like a “missing” link between the first two models I built which is just what I had intended.

I really wanted to use the huge club from the Ironguts kit, since it looks like a truly improvised weapon. It took some time to get the pose right, but in the end, everything worked out rather nicely. I also added some bags to the model’s waist to make the area look less plain.

By this time, the recipe for the paintjob had been well established, so all I had to do was to follow it. This also allowed me to finish this guy in a little over two hours which is quite a feat for me. Here he is:

The Ogryn’a giant club was painted as if it was made from stone studded with rusty metal. I wanted to give it a really used look, which I think worked pretty well.

Looking back on it now, the gut plate looks a little too busy. Mabe I should have gone with something simpler there. I also managed to overlook a very noticeable moldline along the right hand. Sigh.

Apart from that, though, I quite like the result. And the best thing is that I now have a fourth member for my merry barbershop quartet. Take a look (click for a bigger picture):

These guys really look like they mean business, right?

I will probably add yet another Ogryn to bring the number of models in the squad up to five, but that will have to wait for a bit. Although I am already finding myself thinking of the next conversion in line…

Until then, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!