Orctober - Mantic Marauder Ripper Suits Progress

With my Ripper Suits assembled and primed its on to painting.  I've done my research and watched a good number of YouTube videos and there are lots of ways I could approach the Ripper Suits.

I'm particularly taken with Sonic Sledgehammer's Grizzly Suit. The result is subtle, but looks very different to a Space Marine or similar, and I want to avoid that. I've based my painting on this, though with my own palette, and lots more fiddly details.

When it comes to colours, I wanted to avoid the 40K orc black or red with checks look; Marauders are much more militarily sophisticated, though they are happy to trade on the 'dumb brute' stereotype.  I didn't want an 'army green', with green skins there isn't much contrast.  I'm also avoiding grey, I might look at that sort of colour for my GCPS.  My previous Marauders (here) were a sort of vague Afrika Corps colour scheme (or any modernish desert unit), which looked good with the green flesh, so I went for a yellow/brown palette, conveniently close to the German Green Brown primer; you'd almost think I planned this.

The Vallejo Surface Primer was given a wash of Army Painter Strong Tone. Already I liked the results.

 

Primed and washed Ripper Suits

Once everything was dry I used Sonic Sledgehammer's foam stippling technique with Vallejo Extra Opaque Heavy Khaki. It gives a good effect, though I think I need to practice a bit to reach his levels of quality. I highlighted with a mix of the VEO Khaki and Vallejo Game Color Khaki with a final highlight of straight Khaki. 

I then went on to the details. Orc skin in two different shades of green, gunmetal for most of the metal pieces and VEO Heavy Charcoal for the pipes and tubes. 

There are a lot of little details on the models, pipes, straps etc, and there's a temptation to add a lot of colour here.  However, these are military combat suits built for effective use; none of this 'red to go faster'.  Real life military rarely go for lots of brightly coloured equipment, that said, a little bit of spot colour will lift the mini and give interest to the eye.

So the final stage will be to add some detailing, but not lots.  Family stuff has taken up a lot of October (plus the opportunity to have a day playing the music of Josquin de Prez), so I'll be finishing these in November.  After that, maybe I'll get the rest of a Marauder Striek Force done, as I now have Deadzone 3, and these Ripper Suits need some friends.

I also got to go to FIASCO today, Leeds Wargames Club's annual show.  It's been a while since I've been to this show, but it looks like the only one I'll get to this year, and the first one since Recon 2019.

I didn't get much, some cheap brushes and a couple of Reaper Bones minis, but it was great to get to a show again and meet T'Other One and Bodvoc, along with his SAD Wargamers (Settle and District).  Bodvoc has done a better write up of the show (with pictures!), I struggled with the dim lighting that the show is cursed with, so didn't do much more than just gaze in wonder.  One participation game that stood out for me was a Mandalorian themed skirmish.  The 3D printed minis were excellently done, and made me think I need to investigate this more for both my 28mm and 20 mm Star Wars games.