Diesel DM

Primed black with some white zenith highlighting primer

Now that I’ve opened the way into Trollbloods with a battlegroup, it’s time to jump right to the biggest troll of all: the Mountain King.  With the Stormwall and a few trolls under my belt, I feel less intimidated by the Mountain King.   I believe him to be the best looking Gargantuan by far, so I’m still trying to take my time and do him justice, but without as much “where do I even begin?!” trepidation as when working on the Stormwall.

I didn’t get any assembly pictures as I still find the cleaning of mold lines and assembling to be one of the more difficult parts for me to get right.  However the King’s main body is only 6 pieces: torso, two arms, 2 legs and the top rocky outcropping.  I took a fresh scalpel blade and carefully cleaned each piece.  The mold lines here were not as bad as those on my Stormwall.  These all felt manageable, while some on the Stormwall I never did figure out how to remove without also taking off detail.  After removing mold lines, flashing and extra resin, I washed it thoroughly in soap and warm water as usual.

Rear shot of the King

With a model this large I used the biggest P3 pins and pinned everything except the rocky outcropping on the back.  The rock pieces essentially snaps into the torso, it’s a solid fit and between that and some glue, it will be fine. Each arm is pinned to the torso. The two legs are pinned to each other along the groin joint. Then I put two pins to connect the waist of the legs to the torso.  Next I pinned the front loin cloth on.  Everything else I left off for painting.  This was a tough call, as I prefer to paint as much assembled as possible, but there is so much going on there with the whelps and chains that this seemed like a good starting point.

I will be using a resin base, so the King is currently held onto the stock PP base with double-sided tape.  When the base is ready I’ll pin each foot and the fist to the base.

With assembly complete it was time to fill the gaps with modelling putty.  This was something that was not required with my Stormwall, but the King had massive gaps on his right shoulder with smaller gaps on the left should and waist.  There were lots of irregular gaps along the rocky outcropping attachment line as well.  I got to work with the P3 Modelling Putty (grey stuff, if you will) as I find it much less sticky than green stuff.  For the shoulder joints which will be supremely visible, I really took extra time to smooth it out and try the add any wrinkles or lines to make the joint invisible.  After priming I think it’s hard to tell where the joint is and that for me is a massive win.

Left shoulder, gap filled and primed.

The right shoulder had the worst gap of all and again it filled nicely.

After gap-filling I primed the King in black using P3 Spray Primer, then did a little zenith highlighting with white.  I’m not sure this helps highlighting show through my paint, it didn’t seem to with the Stormwall, but it does help visualize details as I get those first coats on. Maybe I’ll keep my layers translucent enough that it’ll help me this time.

The other pieces were cleaned up at the same time as the main body.  The two whelps that will go on each arm got pins that then I drilled into my standard wood dowel model holders. The remaining whelp and the two head components are just attached with double-sided tape.  All of the smaller bits I primed with brush-on primer.

Three of the whelps, the King’s head and lower jaw

These two whelps defied easy pinning and for now I’m just using curved hemostats to hold them.  The rear loin cloth is also pinned, which I left long to use for holding while painting.

Two whelps held by hemostats and the rear loin cloth.

And a giant pile of chains that I will tackle toward the end.

Not only do you have to paint all these, you then have to attach them to the model somehow.

That’s where I am currently.  Can’t wait to start the painting.