#BloodBowl #ArmiesOnParade Mega bowl or Death Bowl pitch - TO DONE!

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been working on my #ArmiesOnParade2023 board. This year is all about showcasing 4 of my Blood Bowl teams. The 'best of the rest' category is always quite small and I wanted to showcase it doesn't have to be 40k or 30k [and not a cynical attempt to reduce the odds]. Mega bowl is way of playing Blood Bowl  with 4 teams and I wanted a 7's pitch so that it would fit in a 2'x2' square. However, 7's pitches are 21 spaces long and you may note this is one square short... Nevermind, it's not like I'm going to limit it to seven players on the pitch either. Anyway, I created the grid, the 3x3 corners will be space for reserves and the inner square is the 'no-man's' land that teams start outside of.

Next up - tile spacers to create tangible squares. Superglued in place, although the glue was a little temperamental sometimes. It was quite the challenge to make sure the crosses were all aligned neatly while 'floating' on this cushion of superglue. Using a couple of scalpels to press it in place was the easiest way to do it. 

The whole thing got a PVA and sand covering, then primed with Halfords Red Oxide car primer, then I think matt black car spray. Lots of Burnt Umber brown, but the bottom quarter will be my Nurgle tar pit, so I mixed talcum powder with PVA to create an effect similar to my Gloss Black 3d Texture paint. The tile spacers were still a little too plasticky, so I added some Valejo Red Oxid texture paste on all of them. 

I started mixing in some Latte [cream] art acrylic into the Burnt Umber for highlights in each player square.

And yet more highlights, creating a much paler board than I had expected.

I added a bit of shading around each tile spacer and then picked each one out in white so they're clearly defined.

I then added the rest of the pitch markings, so now we can begin to understand the layout a bit more. Now, we know where Nurgle is going, but the Humans and Halflings are on grass, while the Orcs are barren earth, which is what we currently have. So who else goes where?

This is a Photoshop mock-up as I had always envisaged the grass splitting the pitch.

Halflings opposite the Humans.

But I suddenly wondered if dividing it diagonally might make more sense.

With 'good' on one side and bad encroaching from the other.

So I used the mock-ups to poll on a Blood Bowl group and they all suggested splitting the pitch was the better option. I'm not sure why but this is where we got to with the flocking, some small flowers in the Halfling reserve area [I swapped the human halfling sides] and gloss varnished the tar pit. The grass was much less green than my renderings but other than that it came out OK.

So, next was picking out the endzones, which was pretty straight forward and fun to do.

And lastly the BB double skull logo in the centre. In 7's 2 balls fit in 2 of the 4 centre squares [so actually if it had have been 21x21 squares it wouldn't have worked]. So the skull is a nice touch to help show where that is and harks back to the Astrogranite™ original. I printed an outline stencil, cut it out and stippled white. The a second stencil for the black outline, which I then tidied up freehand.

So that pretty much TO DONE! and as it was done quite a few months back now it actually gets the last GREAT Big RUSTY Stamp of Approval. 

So, as far as I'm concerned my AoP is now ready. The only thing I feel I could add is a backdrop, but I'm not sure I have the wherewithal at the moment to fit that in alongside my other hobby projects. We'll see after #DreadTober as our in-store parade is earmarked for 18th November... 

'nids part 357 - #DreadTober High Rule Dude and Screamer Killers chitin highlights 2

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity it's the 16th of #DreadTober and I've been #PaintingWarhammer on my Tyranid High Rule Dude and the second set of chitin highlights are complete.

Much brighter but still I think I covered up far more of the previous Teal highlight than I would have liked.

Here's some close-ups to see the quality of the line work.

Some good ones but also some scruffy ones.

I also decided to fill the dots with brush work, rather than pins, tooth picks or paper-clip dots. It's less uniform and in some places goes wrong too but it was just easier to do in one sitting.

Those vents are disappointing. I will be doing green glow from them like the Hierophant and on the sides. Hopefully the additional colour will break things up and be more interesting to look at than the dodgy striations. 

The guns

which look like weird little star fields now.

Talons

The look OK, ther'll be lots to do with the black highlights when I get round to them.

Not just the massive talons themselves, but the hand claws.

The elbow and the three little spikes underneath the forearm. This may break me next week.

Both Screamer Killers are now highlighted.

It's bizarre who the legs offend me again. I get why they're stocky, but the Norn Emissary is bigger and his legs and chitin plates are more tapered.

But it's not just the shape, its the numbers. The Emissary has five plates on the thigh and the three on the shin.

This has six plates on the thigh and four on the shin.

I'm convinced if they'd stuck to that the proportions would have made more sense.

But again, this thing needs more armour so they through on more plates. Lore-wise, bio-morph wise it makes sense. I just think visually it falls down.

Although I do love the back, these vents will need a green glow too.

And the other SK, I just think it looks like it's wearing tartan pants.

I put some tertiary highlights on the High Rule Dude, but haven't done so here, which I might have to rectify now I've spotted it.

There are just a few places where both of them would benefit from just a little extra definition,

Reds next and there's a fair bit to do on all these models for that.

So, that's the vast bulk of the model done just reds, blacks, greens, blue [for the SC plasma] and teeth and eyes.

Back to the spreadsheet to track my progress, unfortunately I keep adding to it, to help identify different elements, as I tick things off 124 elements now. However, I've only 25% left to do, so at least progress is outperforming the setbacks. Although I'm not sure having 50% of my time left is actually sufficient to do that 25%! So many details left...

'nids part 356 - #DreadTober High Rule Dude and Screamer Killers chitin highlights

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity it's the 13th of #DreadTober and I've been #PaintingWarhammer on my Tyranid High Rule Dude and the first set of chitin highlights are complete.

I think I'd feared this more than the bone, but actually it wasn't too bad.

Once again I'm using a spreadsheet to keep track of things, on all of my DreadTober pledges, so it helps to tick each element off one at a time. This is the body, obviously, but also forms part of the 'dots' task.

Left and right legs [plus dots].

The guns, which I'm going to try and match to the Bio-titan weapons.

It's a bit more 'Duplo' than the Hierophant, but then this sculpt is - sacrificing some of the finer detail for a better overall chunky feel. The dots and finesse of the striations match up.

Scything talons, funnily enough I did the three forearm plates on both and actually thought these were done.

Then I realised there was the 'sheath' bit of the talon itself. Don't know how I overlooked it initially, and they were probably more effort than the three bigger plates!

And back to the Screamer Killers and I got so carried away I totally painted the second set of highlights on one of them before I took the pictures of the first stage. I won't go into it until all stage 2 highlights are together but it makes an interesting comparison as I think I cover almost 80% of the 1st stage. Once again I'm going to blame my clumsiness and laziness.

I'm returning to my issue of this beast having much too chunky legs and the armour plates almost give the impression it's wearing tartan pants.

It's coming together from the saide.

And I do like the top/back carapace armour.

Not a lot of dots, but they make a significant difference to help break up the space inbetween the striations and the inconsistencies with the wash on the plates.

Once again the close up and this time pay attention to the teal. I'll repeat this after the 2nd highlights so we can see how much is covered.

Right, 2nd highlights still to do. I've estimated there are 118 elements on all three models, so far I've done 66, with only 52 left. Great progress and although I will have gotten through the bulk of the model very soon the remaining small bits may end up taking just as long. All the red and black highlights, green glow FX, any fleshy pink bits and perhaps even blue plasma [urgh] on the Screamer Killers...

We'll just have to see.