Trollkin Runeshapers

My first completed infantry unit! It took me about a week to get the three models painted. Standard tartan and basing (for me). I painted the arms and weapons separately and assembled the models after painting, taking some care to clean up or paint over the gloss finish left by excess glue.

The “leader”, the model with the circle of stones and his hands thrown up in the air, was a pain to assemble and paint. The stones are multi-part metal and heavy, which made getting them glued into position without falling over difficult. In addition, I couldn’t paint the leader with the stones in the way. After painting both separately, I lost a fair amount of the paint on his kilt and the stones trying to fit the model into its base. Despite the time and effort involved, I’m rather pleased with the results.

You can see my Dire Troll Mauler lurking, half-painted, in the background. He’s desperate to have his shading done, but my next goal (haven’t flipped the coin yet) is either a completed Krielstone Bearer and Stone Scribes or a completed Trollkin Fennblades unit (so much painting).

Use the force, Luke?

Earthborn Dire Troll

The latest and largest addition to my Trollbloods force, the Earthborn Dire Troll. It took me 3 days of filing, gluing, green stuff and painting to get it to this point. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera on hand when I was putting it together last weekend or I would have taken step-by-step shots.

In these pictures you can see the right arm blocks most of the surface of his stomach, groin and right leg. I actually painted the right leg and arm before assembling the torso to the hips. There was a particularly large gap in the mold on its back (~4mm wide) which I had to remodel with green stuff. My work is a bit clumsy, but you can't really tell from these shots. I also ended up closing the gap between his right leg and hips, and his head and neck. The teeth were super easy to paint, and I still need to paint the eyes.

I was considering the purchase of a Dire Troll Mauler, but after the work I put into the Earthborn Dire Troll I am going to wait for a month or two before taking on another big project. Regardless, I am really happy with the results of my first Warbeast and 50mm project.

Cross posted at 25mmk.

New Year, New Paints, New Project

My reentry into Warmachine and first exposure to Hordes started this week with a box of Trollkin Fennblades. Not the wisest choice for army genesis, considering the unit is basically unplayable against the prefabricated starter sets, but the models look good and I am avoiding the Trollblood starter box until the plastic miniatures are released. It's not that I'm averse to working with metal miniatures, I just prefer plastic.

Emily gave me an awesome paint box, paints and paintbrushes for Christmas, so I was eager to crack them open and get started yesterday. Unfortunately, the Fennblade model I chose to paint had a ton of mold lines; about 30 minutes of scraping and filing later I was ready to base it. I don’t normally get too fancy with bases, but I really wanted this Fennblade standing with one foot up on a rock. I removed the plastic bar connecting the model's feet and created a more dynamic pose.

I primed black and was ready to go. The defining articles of Trollblood equipment are the sash and loincloth, traditionally painted with a pattern unique to your army. Having drooled jealously over the tartan designs on many Trollblood armies, I decided to try my hand at a simple tartan design which I think came out rather well.

This model is about 90% done. I'm going to repaint and possibly add some sculpting to the leg to have him "going commando". I've also got to highlight the dark green and red in the sash. The tartan design was simple: a base layer of dark green ("Green Meadow"); a broad cross pattern of dark red ("Brick Red") with brighter red ("Napthol Crimson") square intersections; lastly, thin yellow ("Lemon Custard") lines breaking the horizontal pattern.

Cross posted at 25mmk.

Painting Again

With the second session of the new Pathfinder game past, I decided it was time to paint some of the miniatures picked out by players to represent their characters. These two minis have been in my collection, primed black and wanting, for about eight years now. The first was this elfish ranger:

I’m not happy with his right hand, which has been remodeled several times and eventually pinned after breaking at the hilt. The cloak also has some strange coloration due to a repainting; I glued my finger to it while adding the sand base and subsequently ripped off parts of the base coat.

The necromancer has been half finished since the day I got it. I actually painted over some red in favor of blue-complementing brown. The runes on the scroll are clumsily painted on (this smaller resolution version of the image handily conceals my frequent erasing with white paint).

As an aside, I learned how to take pictures of miniatures with my 50mm lens. The f-stop was at 1.8 for the pictures in the previous post, which in poor light at macro distances produces an extremely narrow focus. With the f-stop increased to 5.0, near the lens’s maximum of 5.6, there is a deeper field of focus. I am pleased with the results, though the miniatures are a little shiny as the matte varnish was still wet when the pictures were taken.

Cross posted on 25mmk.

Blue Paint

Green was a top contender, but I ended up painting my room blue; a more muted shade than depicted. The light in the room is strange even with the flash (no flash in this picture, though) and I'm still rocking Expression x1 with the Canon. Brand awareness is the only aspect of photography that I can honestly say has improved since I purchased my camera in June.

With no supplies the project cost me $57 and that includes an extra quart of paint I picked up in case 1 gallon wouldn't cover my 400 square feet of wall space. It did, with some to spare. That some spaces could use a second coat doesn't bother me given that this room is not a permanent residence.