“Shiny happy people (not!)”

Right well starting where I left off last week, there was very little left to do on my “Snow Trolls”, it was really just a case of going over them and touching up any bits I’d missed or gone over the “lines” on, the only new colours I added were on the shields that two of them have at the rear of their belts (that you can’t see in the photos of course!!), the bosses in the shields certres were painted last week with chainmail, so I now painted in the faces of the shields with and undercoat of dark red and then highlighted these with pink burgundy, and they were ready for “Quickshading”.

Now the other figure I started this week was the “Ogre” I picked up at Salute from “Tritex games”. This pre-painted plastic model is from the D&D range and though quite a nice model as he was, I decided (as I often do!) that I would carry out a light conversion job on him. So out came the “greenstuff” and the first job was to replace his oversized axe with a club, this involved firstly cutting away the head of his axe and then after drilling a hole down the length of the shaft, slotting a piece of cocktail stick in said hole and then after mixing up copious amounts of putty (honestly I don’t think I’ve ever mixed up this large an amount in one go before), slapping it around the shaft and stick in a club like shape (surprisingly enough!), then taking a small knife I “dragged” in the bark effect and added some knots where the branches had been broken off. After this I added a beard and some unruly hair that fans out across his shoulders. When all this was dry I sanded down his base a bit and textured it with “Tetrion” filler and a few cat litter rocks before he was given my usual spray undercoat of matt black.

I began his painting by giving all the areas of exposed flesh an undercoat of flesh tone seven (a dark brownish tone, think Mexican flesh), this was then mixed with pale flesh and the resultant much lighter tone was then dry-brushed over all the flesh again, I then painted his open mouth in dark red and highlighted this with bright red. Next I attacked his hair with coffee, dry-brushed with subsequent layers of cream and white. While I had the white out I added his teeth and eyes, the latter dotted in with black.

Chocolate brown was then applied to his club along with all the leather belts and strapping around his wrists and feet, these being highlighted in leather brown and his club in butternut, the pieces of fur visible between these straps and the pelt around his “nethers” were then painted dark grey with light grey dry-brush over them once dry. The thick belt around his waist was re-painted black and at the same time I also re-covered the skulls hanging from it, then a highlight of dark grey was painted onto his belt, and the skulls were dry-brushed in successive layers of butternut, coffee and cream, The chains attached to his belt and around his neck were undercoated in bronze and then highlighted in bight gold with a couple of chainmail dots added to add a little interest to his medallion. Lastly I dug out the stone green and dotted the tips of the various spots and boils around his body before mixing up some very wet amounts of continental flesh, dark red and pale flesh. These were then painted around the spots as an “almost” wash working outward from dark red to pale flesh. I then got a bit carried away and added areas of these colours to other bits of the flesh to try and remove some of the uniformity of the large expanses of flesh and make it a bit “blotchier”, (I think he needs to improve his diet! Wizards are very high in sugar and fat you know!). Anyway he too then had a coat of “Quickshade” and once dry all the figures had their bases painted chocolate brown then dry-brushed in khaki and coffee before areas were picked out in scenic green and then these areas were flocked with hairy grass. They were then finally treated to a spraying over with matt varnish, well I say matt varnish, I went to get a new can of this on Friday and our local model shop no longer stocks the Humbrol stuff I’ve used for years, instead they have some new cheaper stuff (though at £8.50 a can it’s hardly cheap!) called “Rust-oleum, Crystal Clear” that is “just as good” they said, well it sprays on nicely I must admit, but despite what it says on the tin it is not “matt” this is definitely a “satin” finish. Sadly I’ll have to live with it until I can get a tin of old faithful from somewhere, though with the rate that models shops seem to be closing that seems to be getting harder and harder.

Anyway tantrum over (for now at least), till next week, cheers Roger.