Diesel DM

Pyre Troll

As part of the “alternate” battle box, the Pyre troll was up for getting painted during the Journeyman League. I had so much fun painting this guy.  I used an air brush to lay down the base purple color, then used the air brush to apply some gross highlights from the top, as well as the pink belly area.  Then I went in with two-brush-blending and added additional contrast.  I was quite pleased to have made use of the airbrush for something beyond priming, basing or sealing.  Then came the fists and the real fun began.  For the uninitiated: painting yellow is about as hard as it gets.  You need to thin it way out to get it go on smooth, at which point you can easily need 5 or more layers to get coverage, and if it’s a dark color it’s essentially impossible.  You need to base with something lighter first (MWB or MWH, Moldy Ochre, something with coverage to it.  For this model in order to get a solid base coat of yellow I turned back the airbrush.  I masked off the body of the model using plastic cling wrap.  I can’t remember what I based the fists with now, probably MWH or Jack Bone.  Then I laid down several coats of Cygnus Yellow until it was a solid yellow.  Using the airbrush allowed for lots of very thin layers, whereas using a brush would have clogged details by the time I got solid coverage.

Flaming Fists!

Once I had a solid yellow base I went with ember orange for where the flame starts to cool off as it gets farther from the fists, then some Khador Red Hightlight and Base and eventually mixed with a bit of Thamar black for the extreme tips.  The mouth interior of the mouth took a couple tries as it first was too flat yellow, so I added additional orange red to give it some visual interest.

As is often the case with PP plastics, the only downside to painting this model was the awful mold lines that I apparently failed to completely remove from the arms and shoulders.

Janissa Stonetide

Every Troll player’s favorite character solo: Janissa. She puts down walls, she Force Locks, she has Armor Piercing and perhaps the greatest victim of character restrictions. This was my first attempt at the albino Trollblood skin color and it went well. Struggled to get some good contrasts while keeping it pale.

Runes, swamp grass and a pink dress

I really like how the dress turned out. Similar to Taryn’s cloak, I pumped up the contrast going both darker and lighter.  Then adding some Menoth White Highlight/Base trim to the dress, gloves and boots really made it pop.  Tried for blowy runes on the axe, but I’m not thrilled with the results.

Runebearer, aka Troll Moses aka Trollses

No Trollblood force is complete without the Runebearer, who can reduce the warlock’s casting cost of one spell by one and cast one of the warlock’s spells himself (cost 3 or less). While he doesn’t get a lot of active work done himself, he is in the backfield supporting the warlock.  I went with some glowing runes which makes me want to go back and do the same to the stone bearer.

Really tall swamp grass

I left the swamp grass incredibly tall in the back just to add something unusual to the model. There’s not much uncovered base to be had, so I had use of what was there.

Hoarluk Doomshaper, Shaman of the Gnarls

We’ve just wrapped up a Journeyman League at the new store (Storytellers in Utica, NY) and I decided go with Trollbloods, a chance to get some more play and painting time in.  I went with the alternate battle box which consists of Doomshaper1, Mauler, Pyre, Storm.  First up I tackled the warlock, having previously painted Doomshaper2, I was on familiar territory with this one.  Overall it was a fun model to paint, but I’m never a fan of painting the “bundle-o’-scrolls’ that some trolls come with. As with all my Troll warlocks I put Doomie on a resin slate base and finished it off with a swamp motif.

All the scrolls!

I had a great time playing Doomshaper1, as the league grew I evolved my list into Runes of War.  I never managed to get work out of my Runeshapers, but Doomie was an all-star.  Stranglehold was cast many times, particularly in those initial low point games.  And the feat is a great way to protect my beasts either from the opponent’s alpha strike or from reprisal after my alpha.  Rampager was also a great spell to have in the Hordes match ups.