Blood Bowl... In Pink!

Here's a couple of teams for your perusal...

Let me know what you think!

Some Blood Bowl Orcs For Sale...

Da Red Arra's!!

Well hurrah and hurrah!

That's another fine Blood Bowl team under my belt.  I decided to paint an arrow marking on the armour in the end because I've been lovingly calling these boyz the Red Arra's since before I began painting their red armour.


I'm very impressed with them in the end, despite how tricky it was to get everything just right.


And here they are:

Let me know what you think!

As for my next painting project, I've promised not only myself but my gaming buddy wiredwrong that I'd finally make an effort to get some more of my Space Wolves army painted, so I'll be painting my first pack of Blood Claws over the next couple of weeks.

Of course, updates and pictures will be posted here...

Stay On Target... Stay On Target... Stay - Oops!

Oh well, nearly but not quite.

I had hoped, having set myself a target of getting the Orc Blood Bowl team finished by Friday night, to have finished the teeth and bone on the Orcs tonight, but once more, time has run away with me.

I did manage to finish the Black Orc skin to a standard that I am very pleased with - so pleased in fact that I decided to go back and make a slight tweak to the normal Orc skin.  It is however, so slight that you probably wouldn't notice it in a photograph.

But just in case:

I have simply washed Scab Red and Ogryn Flesh into the recesses of the skin to give it a bit more contrast, but you can barely tell from the pictures, even though in real life, the difference is rather distinct.

Anyway, I have managed to do the Bestial Brown basecoat on the bone and the first highlight of Snakebite Leather - as well as gluing gravel to the bases.  This will be nice and dry for tomorrow, so that I can base them properly after I've added some more highlights to the bone (a 1:1 mix of Snakebite Leather and Bleached Bone, then pure Bleached Bone, then Skull White).

Hopefully, I'll get the bone and the bases finished by the end of tomorrow, but I'm quite busy so we shall have to wait and see.

You can't wait, can you?

Go on, admit it.

You know you can't!

The Story So Far...

Just a quick update for the night, really.

I've finished the skin of the normal Orc Blood Bowl players, although I didn't get chance to start the Black Orc skin yet - still, probably better to come at if fresh tomorrow...

Not bad at all, and definitely doing a good job of bringing out the reds - although I am leaning more and more towards giving the armour one final highlight of Vomit Brown, or perhaps something even lighter...

With a fair wind and a bit of luck, I should hopefully finish (and start!) the Black Orc skin tomorrow, and maybe even get some other bits and pieces done.

Here's hoping, anyway!

Skin and Bone...

Well, at least that's what I was thinking - just paint the Orc skin, the bits of bone, and then (of course) the obligatory tidy-up and bases, and the Orc Blood Bowl team would be done.

However, being a perfectionist (almost) I have decided that evey good Blood Bowl team needs some sort of markings on their armour - That said, my personal Wood Elf team, The Green Glade Hackers, do not have any markings, but that is not to say they aren't 'good' at Blood Bowl, they just don't have any armour.

(Alright!  They aren't any good at Blood Bowl either!)

Still, where was I?  Oh yes, right in the middle of the Orc skin, I suppose.

I just intend to add the final two highlight stages tonight (see my earlier posts if you're interested as to what these will be...) and then hopefully I'll get chance to start on the Black Orc flesh.

As for the markings, I have been lovingly calling these boyz 'The Red Arra's', so don't be surprised if there ends up being something dangerous and pointy painted on them somewhere...

Anyway, here are the latest two stages I've painted on the skin today:

They're really starting to come together now after a few false starts.  I can't wait to get on with them tonight now...!!

Aaaaaand Relax!

Well, with the majority of the tricky bits behind me, save for some tidying up and highlight work, tonight I basecoated the Orc flesh.

What a relief!  This Blood Bowl team will take me up to a grand total of fifty-three Orc/ks painted this year, and I'm quite confident in saying that I've got Orc flesh pretty much sussed.

Okay!  I put my hands up!  It certainly wouldn't stand up in comparison to the work of the Darren Lathams and Anja Wettergrens of this world, but as an... um... enthusiastic wannabe, I don't think I do too badly...

In fact, it is amazing that I've never collected Orcs because I love painting green skin so much!

There are many other things which I find challenging and engaging to paint, but I can think of nothing that is more fun.

Anyhow, so as not to get carried away and risk rushing, I've forced myself to stop at the basecoat for tonight so that I have plenty of time tomorrow to work on the highlights.

Just as a quick update, I painted the metal around the helmets last night and earlier this evening.  I basecoated them with a mix of Boltgun Metal and Badab Black, followed by a wash of Badab Black and thinned Choas Black.  Finally I simply highlighted with Chainmail and then Mithril Silver.

This method, you may note, is a little bit lighter and less 'dirty' than the metallics I painted for my recent Space Ork project.

The reason I went for a cleaner look (outlined in Anja Wttergren's Blood Angels Sergeant Lorenzo 'Eavy Metal Masterclass) is that despite still being Orcs, I felt that a Blood Bowl team's uniforms would be kept a bit more carefully than the armour of a hardened warrior - a bit more razzle-dazzle - or at least as much razzle and dazzle as an Orc can muster.

My plan for the skin (as always) is to begin with a basecoat of Dark Angels Green, followed by a 3:1 mix of Dark Angels Green and Goblin Green.  This will then be followed by a 1:1 mix of the previous colours, working up to approximately 1:3 Dark Angels Green and Goblin Green.  Finally, I'll highlight with pure Goblin Green before adding a hefty touch of Sunburst Yellow for the last, extreme highlight.

Oh, but you may have noticed someone missing...

I'm going to try something new for the Black Orcs, as traditionally their skin is painted a much deeper, more muted shade of green.  I haven't decided on the exact colour mix yet, but no doubt White Dwarf's numerous tutorials will point me in the right direction!!

Hopefully more tomorrow, when I should be at least half way through the skin...

Long Is The Way...

"Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light."

John Milton, Paradise Lost.

A bit dramatic, I admit, but that is certainly how I'm starting to feel about my current painting project.

The problem is, I decided to challenge myself with the two colours that I find the most difficult, red and black.  This was a very brave endeavor, noble even, but I think next time, I'll limit myself to only one 'problem colour' at a time.  That is not to say I'm unhappy with the way it's going at the moment, but I had hoped to have the team finished by Sunday night.  It's now late Friday / early Saturday (depending on how you want to look at it) and I think I'll be lucky to have them finished by next weekend.

Thankfully, both the reds and the blacks are almost finished, but there's still some work to do yet before I'm completely satisfied.

If you've read any of my previous posts, you'll be well aware of the work that's already gone into the Orc Blood Bowl team's red armour.  I cannot however be quite as precise about the black!

The cloth on these Orcs consists of a heady mixture of Chaos Blacks, mixes of Regal Blue, washes of Chaos Black, Badab Black and - yes - Regal Blue again.  I have some extreme highlights of Space Wolves Grey thrown in there as well, in-between all of those washes, and now I have decided to take a break and move on to the metallics and the flesh - which will then allow me to finish off what I've done so far with some sort of perspective.

Anyway, here they are at the moment:

I think I'm going to need a holiday soon!

Red Dread: Redemption.

Time's up!  Stop writing and put your pens down!

The reds are as done as they will be until the final touch-up phase.

As with the blacks that I did on the Human Blood Bowl team recently, until I start to get more colour onto the miniatures, I can't really judge the contrast on the reds any more accurately.

I think they'll look great against the bright green skin, so I'm going to leave it at that until I have something else to judge against.

I'm very pleased with the way that they look so far, if a little bit disappointed with how long they've taken me - still, the end result is the key and not the time taken!

Tonight I will start (and hopefully finish) the black areas, which, despite the length of time taken on the Black Omegas, are relatively simple compared to the red armour!

Best laid plans and all that.

I'm sure you'll hear about it all soon!

Red Rum! Red Rum!

Aaaaaaargh!  It was there!  It was - well, almost there, and then I got a bit too clever for my own good and messed it up!

Not fatally, but enough to add another day to the reds!

That's right, the reds still aren't finished.  This is slowly becoming a record.

I decided to redden the reds even more by applying a thin glaze of Blood Red to the finished armour.

Ooh, I though, that looks lovely.  Let's do a bit more, not stopping to consider that I was essentially washing a lighter colour into the recesses.

The first coat looked nice.  The second looked hideous.  Basically, the shaded parts of the armour were the lightest bits!

Next time, I need to just leave things alone.

Never mind though, all is not lost!

It turns out that the armour looks very nice (and finished!) if I finally do the Vomit Brown highlight and then wash pure Baal Red over the armour...

A bit of a Before-and-After example there.  If you're wondering, the 'good' one is the one on the right!

Anyway, too late to do any more now, so off to bed and fingers crossed that after tomorrow I may be able to paint something other than bleeding red!

Redlock.

It's been a few days since I last added any updates, but unfortunately I've been wading through a soggy mire of reds and oranges.

The Orc Blood Bowl team that I'm painting at the moment is going to have a deep red armour, with black cloth and some tainted metal decoration.  Apart from the flesh, which I always prefer to do last, red is the most prominant colour on the Orcs, so I decided to start with that...

I started three days ago.

Don't get me wrong, it's all going very well, but large areas of red are fairly new to me - small details, Space Marine auspexes, Orc/k eyes, yeah - I can do them very comfortably.  But to get a strong red takes me a lot of work...

And the work is still on-going:

With a bit of luck, all that remains in a final hard-edge highlight of Vomit Brown, but here's how I got to where I'm at now:

• Two thin coats of Mechrite Red were followed by...
• A wash of Asurmen Blue into the recesses of the armour...
• Then a highlight using a 1:1 mix of Mechrite Red and Blazing Orange...
• And a highlight of pure Blazing Orange after that.
• Then came a highlight of 1:1 Blazing Orange and Vomit Brown...
• And finally, two coats of Baal Red Wash.

I'm still applying the wash to some of the miniatures (I'm waiting for the first coat to dry on a few of them at the moment...), so I'm off to finish that now and then hopefully I should get the final highlight done by the end of tomorrow.

Goodnight for now!

The Canis Helix

Ah... In these unassuming grey containers lies the very life-blood of the Space Wolves Chapter...

You know what, I can't make this exciting.  Truth be told, mixing paint is only marginally less dull than watching it dry, but now the job is done and my Great Howling's armour mixes are ready to go.

The funny thing is though, when I put these paints away tonight, I discovered to my amusement that I was carrying them with the care and awe-struck wonder of - I don't know - an embryo from Jurassic Park or something!

Anyway, no excuse for not starting my Space Marines now...

Well, apart from the Blood Bowl teams:

The black armour is all but done on them, but the more I look at them, the more I think they'll benefit from one final hard-edged highlight of Space Wolves Grey.  This idea is quite a depressing one because, as the highlight has to be so neat, it is going to take a tremendous amount of time to apply to twenty-four miniatures.  In fact, I would imagine it'll take at least all of my painting time tomorrow, if not half of the weekend as well.

I shouldn't mind, but while I'm painting the black, it's difficult to see much progress when it's sitting next to a black undercoat.  I just can't wait to get some proper colour on them.

But then I always said that the first and most important thing to painting miniatures well is patience...

Grey Gold!

Hurrah!!  I was beginning to give up hope!  But luckily, Games Workshop Colchester didn't let me down!

Space Wolves Grey paint is in such short supply at the moment that it's been removed from the GW website (although I'm not sure why they don't just list it as 'Out Of Stock'...) so imagine my surprise when I walked into the store and found they'd had a delivery of it!

Even the manager seemed very proud - telling me with enthusiasm that it had only just come in and he'd managed to get eight pots.

I bought three of them.

Now, before you call me mad and accuse me of some sort of end-of-the-world panic buying, I must point out that two of them are going to be used to mix up a large batch of my armour mixes for my Space Wolves, and the other is going to top up my ever-dwindling supply.

Saying that, I was tempted to buy another could 'just in case', but managed to stop myself!!

And there you have it, I am probably the only person in the world sad enough to post a blog about nothing but paint.  With a photo.

Of three pots.

Okay, I'm going to drag myself back from the brink a little now:

The rabble above is the work so far on my Orc and Human Blood Bowl teams.  As you can tell, I've started on the blacks for both teams, letting me paint both at the same time (hard work, but very satisfying because it makes me feel like I'm ploughing through at double-speed!).

To save time, I've skipped one stage of the 'Eavy Metal Masterclass, because they were starting to look very etherial, and have drybrushed the final highlight of (wait for it...) Space Wolves Grey (!) onto the armour - and the rest of the miniatures, as you can see from the photo.  I always make it a point to try and avoid drybrushing when possible and, if it is absolutely necessary, reserve it for the first colour area so that I can be as messy around the edges as I like.

Now, to smooth it over a little, I'm going to add another thin wash of Choas Black paint.  The reason for not using Badab Black is because although much thicker and richer, making it ideal for getting a much deeper shading effect, it tends to have a shine to it as well.  Although washing with black paint is flatter, it is seeming to work quite well for these miniatures... But of course we'll have to see the finished teams before we can really pass any true judgement...

And of course, while that wash dries, I'll be mixing together my master pots for my Space Wolves' Power Armour...  GRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrr...!

(If anyone has a life to spare, I really could do with one...)