Blood Bowl Orcs: Three Down!

The first three models in my Blood Bowl team are finally complete. A thrower, blocker, and lineman.

To be honest, I lost my enthusiasm for the models and sort of phoned it in on the paint job near the end. They're better than primer or bare plastic though, so I'll take it.
I added white stripes for the player numbers, as plain white numbers didn't look right. The Orc-style font I tried ends up looking a little off, but good enough to mark them out on the board.
My base ring colors are sloppy. I got tired of chasing colors back and forth with the black. Again, good enough for the board.
You might notice that the lineman is missing a finger on his left hand. I dropped these models on the floor more than once, and the lineman suffered an amputation, while all three lost the tips of spikes here and there. Oops.
The bases are just small rocks and sand glued down, painted brown, and some pale green flock added. I got it years ago in a pack from Secret Weapon, and can't for the life of me find the rest of the bag, I just have a tiny bit left in a sandwich bag. I may have lost the rest I the house move. I chose it over the bright green stuff because I figure plants on an Orc pitch would be in less than ideal health.

Now that these are done, I'm working on some Raven Guard models (a Rhino ad a few more Assault Marines) before I try my hand at some Harlequins. I'll randomly select three more Orcs to paint ad add them into the queue.

Blood Bowl Orcs, Progress Report Two

It's time for an update. Things have been busy since Christmas what with vacations, holdays, birthdays, snow days, and a big DIY renovation project on my house. Tearing down old plaster walls and putting in new electrical lines and some plumbing. Not a ton of time for painting of late.

I've been working on these three Orcs for what feels like an eternity now. I'm oh-so-close to being done with them. Here's what they look like at the moment. The images are washed out, as is usual for me and my lazy photography.

 

They all need eyes, teeth, and nails painted and some touchups done on the pink armor where I slipped while painting spikes or rivets. You might notice that on the Black Orc, I stopped painting the spikes and rivets in silver. I decided I just hated the look. For the rest of the team, I'm just painting armor spikes that don't have a defined separation from the plate as well as rivets in the pink armor color, and just highlighting them.

I'm also going to be adding some white stripes to various armor plates and then painting the numbers over that in pink. I think I'm going to go with red for the ball, to look like squig hide.

 

I've played a total of three league games with my team now, accumulating a win, a loss, and a coin toss win (we were tied after the second half and didn't want to fudge through sudden death). I'm thoroughly enjoying the game of Blood Bowl, and really like leveling up players in the league. However, I'm sort of bored waiting for new Orc team models to be released. I'd like to own a Troll and some Goblins, but have no idea which models to use. I'd like to do some hand and head swaps on the duplicated sculpts on the team, but am not sure which models from the Sigmar line would match. I'm thinking the various Ironjawz for Orcs, but am not sure on scale. Anyone know how the Ironjawz match up to these Orcs?

I'm at a total loss when it comes to Goblins, but I think I might try to land one of the old Battle of Skull Pass Troll models for my team.

 

Those plans are a ways off, as I'm finding myself a little bored with painting these guys. My attention span for non-Marine models is historically awful. I think I'll hop back over to a Raven Guard Rhino next, then some Harlequins, more RG Assault Marines, and then the next batch of three Orc Blood Bowlers.

Blood Bowl Orcs, Progress Report One

There's been some good progress made on my first three Blood Bowl Orcs. I painted the skin with Reaper colors, with a wash of old GW Thrakka Green in the process. I'm not sure if I like the result or not. It's hard to tell until the model is complete. The nice thing with Orcs is that I can have different green recipes for different models and it won't be a problem.

After the skin, I applied Screamer Pink to the armor plates:

 

Then I covered the armor with Pink Horror. At first I tried leaving some Screamer Pink showing in the recesses like I used to do with my Ultramarines, but it looked like crap on such uneven plates. So, I covered over the whole basecoat and will have to go back and use a shading wash.

 

I am not sure what would be a good wash for pink. My first thought was a red, but right now I only own purple (old GW Leviathan Purple). I think I'll thin that out with some medium and see how it pans out. After that, I'll touch up with Pink Horror. Then I have to decide if I should edge highlight or drybrush the final layer of Emperor's Children. The Warhammer TV method is to drybrush the final color, though they used red and not pink. I've never really drybrushed armor before, and am not sure if I'll like it. I think if I drybrush, I'll want to add some sponged armor chipping to edges to give some definition to the edges. If I edge highlight instead, I'll likely skip the chipping.

 

I have no real idea what to do. Any suggestions?

 

No progress has been made on the Harlequins yet. I simply haven't decided on a paint scheme yet. Do I do a preexisting Masque from the codex, or something of my own design? I feel like the diamond patterns on the GW studio models really make Harlies stand out, but I'm also really interested in trying a gradient fade using progressive glazes. Maybe I should do a halved or quartered scheme that uses both?

 

I'm adding a single Rhino to my Raven Guard, and have the thing mostly assembled. I need to add magnets in the side doors in case I ever want to use it as a Predator. I don't have a top turret, but I have scads of sponsons kicking around. I'm also trying to fiddle some magnets into the bottom to hold an IG dozer blade. The IG dozers look downright mean on a Rhino chassis, but they're tough to fit in place without extending the profile of the Rhino by a couple inches. I don't like extending the profile that much because it causes issues with model placement, measuring, and movement. Anyone ever gotten one of these dozers onto a Rhino while keeping the blade relatively tight to the front of the hull?

I'll try to get some pics of the dilemma for my next post.

 

Let the 2017 Projects Begin!

Now that the holidays are over, I'm back to my regular winter day schedule. That means I'll get my half hour of hobby time in each weekday morning. The long holiday break prevented me from getting very much done, as it's hard to hobby with a kid running around with new XMas toys.

The first thing I've done is assemble and begin basing for some of my Blood Bowl Orc models. I selected three random models from the box: a thrower and a couple linemen or blockers. I glued them into their slotted bases, and started playing with basing. Here's the first shot of them:

You can just see the small amount of texture I applied to the bases. It's the clearish, goopy stuff. Here's a close up: 

It's a product called "resin sand" that is made by various art supply companies. I used Liquitex brand, as that's what I had. From what I understand, painters and artists add this stuff to their paints to infuse texture into paintings and projects. I used it a long time ago when making rusty terrain for a Mars board at the FLGS. It dries quite hard and is pretty durable. 

After the resin sand was applied, I glued down some basic craft sand on the bases. The result is unimpressive so far, as can be seen below, but I think once it's painted and I've glued on some static grass, it'll look better. 

 

Since I had the basing materials out, I decided to jump in and start working on bases for my Harlequins as well. These guys are a little weird with the integrated wraithbone chunks, and I wasn't sure exactly which direction I wanted to go in. I decided to use straight glue on the bases, sprinkle some medium and large pebbles on, and then coat the remainder in fine sand. These are the same materials I'm using for my Raven Guard, but applied over the whole base instead of just small spots as on the Marines.

These models will be primed white, and the bases will end up a light tan for a desert feel. Once they're painted, I'll be adding some dead grass and scrubby vegetation to them.

 

On the Marine front, I finished my Deathstorm Drop Pod, but am working on taking pictures. My photo area is only so large, and I'm tinkering with ways to take pics of such a tall model.

 

I wasn't sure what the next Marine unit I wanted to paint was, so I took a few spare hours the other day and did a full inventory of all my kits and bits. I came to a surprising realization. Between my bits bins and a huge Rubbermaid tote of sprues and kits, I can only build the following:

• 10 Terminators
• 8 Scout Bikes (half of which are old, metal models)
• 1 Rhino (with an optional Whirlwind turret or a range of Razorback turrets)
• 1 Land Raider (with weapons for all three variants)
• 6 Servitors
• 1 Third Edition Techmarine
• and SIX power armored models of any type.

I was really shocked by the fact I can only build a half-dozen PA models. I have a significant number of PA sprues and bits, but the thing holding me back are torso backs. I have completely run out, outside of the six I have, and even those are preassembled to fronts from an auction lot I got years ago. I had plans for a lot of PA models for a Demi Company in the near future, but now I need to go bits shopping!

 

In fact, I can build a bunch more models with a minimum of bits purchasing. Five Terminator torso fronts can net me five more full Terminators, while a single Rhino rear door would get me another full Rhino chassis. Three basic bike chassis (without riders) would add another three Scout Bikes to my options. But the big one is torsos. I can build another 19 models just by buying torso backs (though no one sells just backs). Oh, and I can build three full Landspeeders if I get some more of the magnetized flying stands I use from Back to Base-ix.

 

I've got a few things listed on eBay right now in order to raise some funds for said bits, but in the meantime I'm starting assembly of a Rhino. I think my lone Sternguard Squad or my small tactical Squad would benefit from a transport or two.

 

I've got a lot of irons in the fire now with Blood Bowl, Harlies, and Raven Guard. We've got a Blood Bowl league starting up soon that I'm going to really have to work to participate in, and the FLGS monthly 40K tourney coming up in a couple weeks. Lots to do!