EBDT

The Earthborn Dire Troll. This guy. Was fun.

As the EBDT was basically naked, he didn't really fit the salvaged, "at war" theme I've been running with, so he got some serious armor treatment.

Using Privateers Brown/Aluminum stuff to get those hard edges, He was given various plating, a helmet with straps and chin-plate, belly plate and an assortment of straps. The long greenstuff strap was rolled out and flattened, then after fully cured, cut and wrapped from the front of the torso, under the arm, and to the back plate.

Once again the rivers were done with a mechanical pencil tip (I have a metal 0.7mm that is not too thick on the end so it really gets a clean press. The buckles on the helmet were done following the tut for buckles NQ47 IK Gobber article.

Really excited in about getting some paint on this one and have had a lot of positive feedback already on this guy. Mostly because he looks like a linebacker ready to demolish whatever finds itself in front of him.

Just got my Thumper crew in the mail too along with matching dice for my .45 fury tokens. I always have to have swirly dice apparently. These are the Gold Leaf Gemini 16mm from Chessex.

Until next time!

New Trolls!

Recently I decided to take a break from my Circle and work on some new stuff. I had bought and painted a Gunny model some time ago. I wasnt satisfied with his paintjob so I stripped him down and repainted him. Then I realized how much I like Gunnbjorn and said screw it, Im making a Gunnbjorn force.


Mind you, none of these are finished, hell, most of them are just a basecoat of brown, but I figured I'd get this up and going.

Gunny himself, on a new spiffy base..

The brown is Vallejo's Dark Rust and I decided to do the skin not as blue, going with a base of Greycoat Grey and adding Trollblood Highlight to it as I lightened it up (can be seen on the face.)

The big thing I wanted to do with this army was theme it with a very Gunny/troll trencher look. So many of the models are sporting salvaged armor and clothing, such as these Fennblades.

 The rivet bits were done with an empty mechanical pencil.

The Impaler sports some salvaged rockets strapped to sticks, taking a page out of the Deliverers' book. The rocket bits were taken from 40k Orks.

The Axer's face was bulked up (couldn't stand the metal ones face) and he was given a Cygnaran Defender's cannon. Ok, he wasn't given it, he ripped it right off.

I was a bit disappointed upon getting the plastic Diretroll kit to find that the Bomber was the same as the metal. So I went ahead and used those new gorgeous Mauler hands, now hurling a scrap metal bomb (an 40k Ork wrecking ball). The pyg's face was covered and helmeted due to some pretty nasty mold lines along his mouth/teeth.


Lastly, to unify my theming, I made some custom tokens/markers/accessories.

Gunny's Rock Wall template:

Spell and animus tokens, made from plasticard and Fury tokens, made from 45 casings.

Much more to come in the future! EBDT and Swamp Gobbers are being built as we speak! Enjoy folks!

Party Hard: Trollblood Family Reunion

The great Trollblood commission is complete! (for now at least). A fairly large commission model wise, the bulk of this is for the Kegslayer Family Reunion list. I will not that I did not assemble the models, albeit a few conversions and fixes.
  
-Borkha and Keg Carrier
-Calandra

-Dire Troll Mauler
-Dire Troll Bomber
-Storm Troll
-Pyre Troll

-Boomhowler and Co (10)
-Trollkin Champions (11) (Two Min, 1 Max)
-Krielstone Bearer and Stone Scribes (6)

-Trollkin Champion Heroes (2)
-Skadi Bonehammer
-Stone Scribe Elder
-Stone Scribe Chronicler 
-Trollkin Runebearer
-Gatorman Witchdoctor

The client wanted his trolls green. I wasn't too keen on it initially but I found a good color scheme and it finally warmed up to me. 
  

One of my favorite sculpts, Borkha Kegslayer and his little keg carrier.  The commision was to be tabletop quality (as seen later with other models) but I gave these guys a little extra love.

I also did Calandra, though it is for another list.

Next, the Dire Troll Mauler (the old metal sculpt).

The Dire Troll Bomber is one of my favorites from this commission. A last minute experimentation after some discussion about a future Mountain King project, I decided to experiment with some water effects to have some spewing beer from one of the kegs.

The Pyre Troll and Storm Troll.

Here's where it really became a grind: The units. Boomhowler and Co, a good deal of Trollkin Champs, and Stone Scribes

And a good number of solos. Skadi and Janissa were also sculpts I had always liked, so they too got some extra love above the designated quality.

Wold Guardian

Water & Stone Wold Guardian concept.

For This and All Nights to Come

Its been a bit of time since I've gotten to work on some Circle, as my recent commission work as kept me sidetracked.

Here is my Night's Watch inspired Saxon Orrik!

 

I wanted to have a gruff and grizzled look, so I took elements from GoT's Lord Commander Mormont (one of my favorite characters from the books/ shows.

 

 The crow was added from the Menoth Wracks kit and the hood and facial hair was green stuffed in.
Heavy snow dusting was painted on with a few sections lightly dusted with the snow basing flock to add a bit of visual and physical texture. Had a blast working on this guy and and currently chipping away at the others on the to do list. Speaking of to do lists I've leave this one with a cliffhanger for you ASOIAF book readers who are on the up and up:

Rompin' Stompin' Freebooter!

With the end of summer about, I've been pulled away from my painting in the recent days with all sorts of distractions. However in my last few days off I managed to get a new one done!

I've always been a fan of the Freebooter and have always wanted to just work on one. So I did! Picked this guy up, sat down and built him in a couple hours, then went to town with the paint.

With the introduction of the new Merc Minion Jack Marshal, Rulak Moorclaw, I immediately knew I wanted some jacks for my Gatormen, this guy and a Buccaneer especially. I wanted to make him look like he belonged with them, but still apart, so I kept the base cohesive with their and gave him a little swampy dock. The planks were made out of craft sticks and the piling from a wooden dowel.

 I've always loved the Freebooter's pose so I ran with it and had him smashing through the piling, splinters shooting everywhere. They were simply glued together and hit with some zip kicker for a quick hold (To which im honestly surprised they held up so well). Added a bit of jewelry chain to just give the base a little more oomph so to speak, its the little things that count.

One of my favorite mini's to date, just gotta get him on the table now!

Hey Ladies!

Finished up some of the Bloodtrackers and Nuala.

 Trying to get a good mix of hair color. A few lovely redheads in the mix to brighten things up. A bit of water effects on the blonde for a small stream base. The bottom left was a huge pain to get in between the legs and trees, but worth it in the long run.

This poor gal. Endured a bit of rough treatment as she was painted. Almost got dropped in the dirt while dullcoating, breaking off the spears and her claw arm, not to mention ruining some of the paint. Went back and fixed her up and now shes good to go. Pretty happy with the dusting on the cape.



And theres this, my work music...

Three Blasts...

....for White Walkers!

Finally got to posting this guy. Been done with him for a bit and even get a little game time in with him! Very fun piece to work on. The eyes became a bit of a pain, but Im very satisfied with this one, especially his icy sword and rotted hand.

Lord of the Feast

While I've been painting away at my Bloodtrackers, I picked up a few more models, one of which being the oh so good Lord of the Feast.

He was initially one of the first models I wanted to do for this list, but was not the best choice for a 15pt game with the beasts I chose. However, now that I've moved past that 15pt mark, I happily started my White Walker themed Lord of the Feast! (sans crow at the moment)

 

I added some more hair so he didnt have his little mohawk/plume thing going on and gave him his little beard, much like this horrifying gent:

 

 I decided to forgo the antlers and make him a bit less busy. After making my modifcations, I tagged on the usually stick to give it a bit of framing and scenery. Very excited to finish this one!

Bloodtrackers

All assembled (and now currently primed and basecoated as I type this) are my unit of Tharn Bloodtrackers.

Originally I wanted to bundle these ladies up in furs and hides much like the Wildlings, but after looking over the models with all their straps and bands and various acessories, filing, shaving and cutting each model would be far too time consuming and now provide results I wanted.

That still didnt stop me from lopping off the big hair and horns of the leader and giving her a fur lined hood and fur half cape.

One thing I really wanted to convey with this unit was there hunter aspects, notably the fact they have pathfinder. So I loaded up the bases with various twigs and rocks (again branches of a Rhododendron plant and regular rocks.)

The second row is a few close up of my favorite models of the bunch. I will say this to anyone looking to work on Bloodtrackers: pin the arms. Like a lot of Privateer Press' models, some of the arm connection nubs are quite small and don't provide much in terms of surface area.

Gripes aside, loved working on them and how they are coming out. Look for the painted ones soon!