Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game - Moria Cave Troll

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been painting a #MESBG Moria Cave Troll. Marc from Old School Gaming kindly sent me it, along with some other Middle Earth figures that Otty, Liam, Scott and Ben are extremely grateful for. First of all I had to rebuild this metal monstrosity - pinning and gluing it.

Also, sand and gravel on the base. The blue and green chips were from one of those occasional forays into having a pet fish - fish tank gravel. It adds another scale of stone to my mix and among the gravel it's pretty consistent.

Here's the Great Big Big Build RUSTY Stamp of Approval for the build.

Liam had done something similar, for colours but I was following my Blood Bowl Troll - turquoise body with a grey torso, and some areas on the knees, feet, elbows, palms and face.

The grey was wet blended into the turquoise, which makes a change. It was roughly done but I was surprised with how much I liked it, confident any roughness would be mitigate by further washes and highlights.

Hammer, chain and loin cloth were basecoated black.

I also painted the base [mostly] - Great Big Big Build BASE RUSTY Stamp of Approval. 

And on to the scale base colours - as per the Blood Bowl Troll, and my Tyranids this starts with DoCraft Bahama Blue. I also used it in areas as a quick shade. I was thinking further shade washes of green red and purple would add even more tones to his skin.

Although it is not really in keeping with the toned down nature of my Middle Earth figures, there is something appealing about the Bahame Blue, even if it is garish.

Sepia and Strong Tone washes helped tone it down, which again looks pretty interesting and more in keeping with Middle Earth.

I also used the wash on the skin in places to add a bit more tones and variation.

#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.

Dark Angels - Deathwing Knights and Terminators - base and prime TO DONE!

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer on my Deathwing Terminators, here they are all primed with Halfords Red Oxide Primer.

Then Army Painter Skeleton Bone, with a slight zenithal highlight to keep some of that red oxide underpaint. The sepia wash will help eventually help blend it together.

Meanwhile, I had another Terminator body, legs but no Thunder Hammer and Stormshield, or at least not a Dark Angel one. I did have Space Wolf shield and hammer, so I took a Dark Angel upgrade symbols and bent it with pliers across the wings [you can see the white sterss points]. I then shaved the front of the shield.

I then glued it and held it in place with crocodile clips.

Which gave me this fella.

Based, with sand and slate.

A better shot of the Storm Shield, and while the Thunder Hammer still has a Space Wolf skull on it I'm hoping it won't be too apparent when it's painted.

 Great Big Big Build RUSTY Stamp of Approval for the build.

I then primed and based the terminator.

As well as all the other terminators, which I haven't taken pictures of but they look like this.

Which gets me a Great Big Big Build BASE RUSTY Stamp of Approval. 

#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.