Da shield gitz

Gitz is one of da best unitz in da ork armiez. One of da reasonz is dat dey provide cover for da boyz. Wit dat in mind, we gotz ta make da shield gitz.

The metal 40k grotz are cool models, but their selection is limited, and they are expensive - about $3 a pop. As you need lots of them, this can add up - one 30 grot unit is about $100! I saw another ork player who had another idea for plastic grots, and being a good mekboy, I stole his idea.

The pieces parts. I used a box set of goblins from Warhammer Fantasy, this provides the parts for 20 models. Also pictured here is the grot weapon sprue from GW

 

 Here's a close up of the grot weapon sprue. In order to bring these gitz into the 41st millenium, we have to replace their primitive weapons with some modern grot blasters. Just cut off the handgrips of each.
The plastic goblin sprue provides you with either spear or bow arms, regardless of which you use just cut off the primitive weapon to make a blank "fist".
Here are the blank fists awaiting gunz
A close up of one grot. This is good shot - I drilled through his right hand to give him a sitkkbomb, and his pistol is glued to his left hand. As these are "shield" gitz, everyone has a shield somewhere - as both his hands were full, his is glued to his back.
For fun, I put together these prancing trophy grotz, with a large sword and carrying a trophy human head. They have guns too - in this case it is on their back.
There they are - all 20, for a total cost of $31 ($25 for box set, 3 grot sprues at $2 each). That comes to about $1.50 a piece, half the cost of the metal models.
After a black base coat, the first color to go down was goblin green. No picking on my painting skills; this is a fast job - I need them (as well as a lot of other models) within the next week or so, and at their size you don't notice little imperfections that are glaring in these close up photos. The pictures here are about 3x real size..
The second color to go on was scorched brown for the clothing and wristbands. I left the boots black..
Fiery orange is the color of my orks army, so I applied that to the skull head on the grots where ever it showed up. After that was dried, a libreral drybrush of boltgun metal over the shields, guns, and any armor (like this guys helm). By putting the drybrush of boltgun on afterwards, it makes the skull seem worn. Note that despite these are wooden shields for fantasy, they take on a good texture with the boltgun drybrush, and fit the 40k atmosphere nicely.
Next on the bill was dark angels green for the bases.
And than red gore for the eyes (which is hard to see on this model) and in this case, the chopped head and blood on the blade.
A quick bit of bleached bone for the teeth.
Before flocking the base, we went over the goblin green one more time to fix the eyes, and a quick hit of tin bitz on the metal work for that worn in, grot look. Voila, here they are!
As the other shots were anywhere from 2x to 3x life size, here's a real one.
Their slaver carries a choppa instead of a grabba stick. With the new assault rules, this works out better.
And what slaver would be complete without a squighound?
'ere they go! complete with slaver and hound.
Not too bad for $1.50 each!