#BloodBowl - Orc Team - Troll - final highlights

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer on my Blood Bowl Troll. Following on from yesterdays dramatic decision to take clippers to my half-painted figure I'm now completely back on track and SO much happier for taking the risk. Highlights for all the skintones and scales.

Now, if I'm honest the scales aren't quite what I expected, although unhappy might be too strong of a word. The issue is I can't seem to resolve what is going on, the definition of each scale has gone and it's almost difficult to look at [exactly how they always describe anything remotely chaosy...]

Maybe I added to much shade washes and all that red inbetween has been obscured. The irony, or perhaps the saving grace is that as I write this it is complete and varnished and I still haven't come to terms with it. But, now I look at it and compare to yesterdays post and I think perhaps another thin heavy red wash inbetween the scales might bring back that definition. Do I take the risk? Well I just did with the clippers on his pose and was pleased with the results...

Anyway, having added some red to the Goblin, I threw on some white ready for the Fluoro Magenta so he can be in my Mongrel Horde team.

I also highlighted all the claws on the troll.

A bit of pink fabric, but this scrap will be from my Porkbelly Stuffers Halfling Team.

The moon badge on the glove, may not be the Mongrel Horde's logo but it'll still be pink to match the gobbo. His eye and the highlight on the skin came out alright in the end. Pure luck.

Almost done then and I think I need to gamble on this red wash. VGEO Heavy Red washes have never let me down before, they've always look awesome and if the fact it's too dark is failing to reconcile what's going on then maybe I need to go lighter...?

#BloodBowl - Orc Team - Troll - surgery

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been kitbashing on my Blood Bowl Troll. Although I think this is a great model, the pose has always irked me. The raised hand, although perhaps accurate for a throwing pose covers up the Trolls face - both hiding it and making it difficult to paint. I;d seen a number of conversions where it had been reposed and one very recent which was so good I was gutted I'd got this far down the road where I couldn't cut and shunt my model to something I was happier with... or could I?

I just got out my clippers and snipped under the armpit and behind some back scales. When it was removed I could tilt and rotate it down with the same scales somehow managing to form a pivot point and still stay mainly attached at the top of the shoulder. The gap in the armpit I filled out with bits of sprue - support which would be covered up with greenstuff.

I was so much happier at this point. You can see the Trolls face, which is amazing but also means I have to do a decent job on it! Having smoothed the armpit most of that will be in shadow anyway so it didn't have to be anatomically correct Some veins on the belly too.

I added a few scales onto the shoulder to help blend it in with the rest of the scales. The armpit is slightly more sculpted on the back, it looks something like skin and muscle stretching but it doesn't need to be perfect, luckily. You should also have noticed I've used a heavy red wash inbetween all the scales to make them look angry. I was using my turquoise Genestealer Aberrants for inspiration here.

Now that that unforeseen diversion has turned out for the best, it's back to painting this monster. 

#BloodBowl - Orc Team - Troll

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer on my Blood Bowl Troll - just a bit of red, silver and bone.

Some minor details but I couldn't decide on the colours for the scales on the back - glossy black, or teal/blue from my Tyranids

I snap-decided teal/blue as I felt I knew what I was doing and it would help me get it done path of least resistance. Not everything has to be an exploration of something new.

Of course this looks insane, but in some respects I like this bright blue. Part of me wishes this was the look I had chosen, but washes were to follow.

And post wash. At the very same time I had a Middle Earth Moria Cave Troll to paint, which I decided to follow the same process on. I'll share those pics in a separate post

Highlights of the skin and the scales next, but before that there'll be the Moria Cave Troll.

#BloodBowl - Orc Team, Varag Ghoul-Chewer - DIRTY DOWN RUST!

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer on my Orc Team. Like many I've watched those on YouTube create amazing rust effects with Dirty Down Rust. I've tried repeatedly to achieve the same results but with limited success.

This was my most recent attempt to get it right and although I wouldn't say I'[d recreated what others had I was happier with the result. It might not have created the range of oranges but I did get some sepia to rich browns which I really liked. This was only on the three models on the right. The Blitzer on the left is still at wash stages.

It's here that I began to question how you go about fixing this as my brush on Army Painter Anti-Shine appeared to reactivate the Dirty Down so would I need a spray varnish to seal them?

Or could I brush on my varnish to the one on the left and then add the Dirty Down afterwards to achieve the results on the right? Then what do I do with the 3 already with Dirty Down in place? Would whatever I decide be the same as the others?

Questions - are the death of progress and suddenly my momentum was pulled up right sharp.

I'd finished all the black highlights. All the damage effects and weathering.

All that was left was the rust and how to achieve that - it totally killed my buzz. Having delayed things to get the decals this was not a welcome disruption.

All the extra effort had managed to tone down the red accent colour though. They were still far from my inspirations but I was liking what I had, in fact every WiP pic has had something I was actually comfortable with  but I was determined to persevere with exploring what I hoped to do with weathering effects.

The markers also got washes to add preliminary rust and damage. I particularly liked the different scales of check patterns.

It made them quite interesting and varied.

Varag Ghoul-Chewer also moved on, only to be stalled. At least I chose the Ghoul's colours.

It might have obscured some of the white pattern but it'll get there in the end and I liked picking out his running shoes too.

So, I was left contemplating how to get these over the finish line - the varnish was the issue. Did I need to buy some Army Painter Anti-shine spray? It can be prone to the same frosting as Purity Seal/Munitorum Varnish - do I risk it? Do I even try my half unused Purity Seal, which has sat idle for 11 years and haven't used since it frosted my Hive Guard. But I know how to use it now, but even so, 11 years isn't going to do it many favours...

I got a bunch of sacrificial test models to try some alternatives and in the mean time I had some random models to move along while I resolved this quandry.

#BloodBowl - Orc Team, Varag Ghoul-Chewer - checks and red

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer on my Orc Team. I continue to be inspired by, but deviate from Tyler Russo's amazing Orks at Billion Dollar Clown Farm and this Orc Team by Robbin Cruddace.

I've added the Orcy checks, stripes and 'dags' - trying to have fun and be varied in what I do and how I apply them.

I also added the decals for their team numbers.

As well as the Orcy horned skull motif as Robin did.

Red accent colours were added in so they were suitably Goff aligned.

The white bits where painted on thinly so it would look poorly applied. 

Rust and weathering will add even more texture to it in the end so I'm not fussed about great coverage.

Varag also progressed, I'm really liking how he's coming along.

And he looks great among his team mates. Although the red accent is a greater deviation from Robin's limited monotone scheme I still like where this is going.

I'd love to have the confidence not to do it but I just can't help adding in those accent colours. Washes and weathering next...