REBBL: Painting The Trophies

Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!

For the last couple of years, I've been responsible for painting the trophies for the winners of the Reddit Eternal Blood Bowl League (REBBL). As I've just finished the latest one, I thought it would be the perfect time to have a look back at them. I just have to thank the great Darren Latham for getting me the gig. It's been fun having a go at some very different miniatures over the last few years.

The first one I did was back in 2017 and it was the plastic Troll from Games Workshop. this is a great miniature, posed in mid draw-back, as he prepares to hurl a goblin down the field. It's got loads of little details, like the bones hanging from its belt and the human player's helmet used as a kneepad, but is really difficult to photograph, due to the pose of the figure.

Next up was the Minotaur from Forge World. This is a huge miniature, and is another excellent sculpt. Posed like it's clawing at the ground, ready for charging forwards, it's enough to put the fear of Nuffle into any player foolish enough to get in his way! What makes this sculpt so good is the sheer bulk of it, it's a huge slab of muscle. And I like the fact that it has hooves. To me, minotaurs always look better with hooves.

For the next couple of trophies I was tasked with painting a couple of third-party miniatures, both from Greebo Games, an Italian miniatures company. First up was the Werewolf Star Player, Vinci's Wolf (which appears to be no longer available on their website). This was a metal miniature, so had a fair bit of flash that needed to be dealt with, but it was a nice, clean and well-defined sculpt, in a dynamic pose.

Next up was Greebo's Burning Treeman which came with a couple of little mini-me markers. This is a very unusual sculpt, because, as the name implies, the unfortunate wooden warrior is burning from the inside. This particular feature made it a lot of fun to paint. Again, this is a metal casting so there was a fair bit of mould line and flash to deal with, but nothing that affected the details on the miniature, and it went together really well. There is even the option of different flame effects for the back.

On the basis of these two miniatures, I have no hesitation in recommending Greebo Games. They've got a great range of miniatures with loads of character, at reasonable prices and I'm hoping to have a go at more of their miniatures in the future.

After the two Greebo miniatures, it was back to Forge World with Griff Obervald. There's not a huge amount I can say about this sculpt, really. Like a lot of the new Blood Bowl miniatures, it's a perfectly fine reworking of a classic character and, as it's FW resin, the casting is as crisp as you'd want, with a nice, dynamic pose. It comes with two different heads meaning you can show him with or without his helmet. Unfortunately the helmeted head was requested for this piece, meaning I didn't get to paint those famous handsome features...

Finally, we come up to date with the latest one. This is from Willy Miniatures, from Spain, (Tritex Games stock some of their line) and is called Ramtut, a star player from their Egyptian Undead team. Now, I did have a couple of problems with this miniature. Don't get me wrong, it's a great sculpt- good posing, nice details and it's a big, solid lump that will stand head and shoulders over most players. The problems were with the casting. There was a lot of mould lines to remove, and a couple of lumps of flash meant there was some detail lost. I had to do a little bit of green stuff gap-filling to get all the pieces to go together properly. These are sometimes the issues you get with metal miniatures, unfortunately and please don't let it put you off. there's some really cool miniatures in the range, with a real Middlehammer aesthetic to a lot of them, and I would  be more than happy to try more of their range. Please do check them out.

One more thing, seeing as we're on the subject of Blood Bowl, I thought I'd give a mention to this Vermin Team from Black Scorpion Miniatures I painted a while back. There was a fair amount of clean up to do with these guys (particularly with some blocking behind the hands on the crouching figures) but, being resin, this was easy to do. I recommend checking out the rest of the range, too, as they've made some really nice players. I particularly like the Halfling team. Nice hats.

Please keep an eye on my Facebook page, as I'll try to upload some full galleries of these miniatures soon. Okay, that's all from me today.
Thanks for reading!
-Stu

Warhammer Quest Pit Fighter Tutorial

Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!

My apologies for today's post being a little late. I had a few technical issues, but I promise it will be worth the wait!
Last week I reviewed the latest issue of Miniature Wargames and I may have mentioned that one of my miniatures was featured in there: a Warhammer Quest Pit Fighter. I thought that you, my faithful readers, may be interested in seeing how I did it.

After the model was cleaned of all mould lines (I use a 10a scalpel blade, dragging the flat of the blade across the mould line) and undercoated with a spray of Wraithbone, which provides a lovely smooth surface for the first stage of painting.

All the different areas of the model are underpainted with a slightly thinned coat of the appropriate Contrast paint. For years, I've been using an underpaint stage (usually with Athonian Camoshade) to give an indication of the areas of shade and highlight, then applying a basecoat of thinned coloured acrylic over the top of that. Using Citadel Contrast paints, slightly thinned with Contrast Medium, enables me to combine both stages, giving a strong underpaint, and giving me an idea of how the colours are going to look in the end, before putting too much work in, almost like a colour sketch. That effect isn't really important on a simple miniature such as this, with a simple, naturalistic colour scheme, but it's really useful on more elaborate miniatures.
On this miniature, the colours used were:
Flesh: Darkoath Flesh
Leather: Snakebite Leather
Metal: Basilicanum Grey
Wood: Cygor Brown
Brass: Gore-Grunta Fur

The next stage is to apply the highlights for each area separately.
For the skin, this was done using slightly thinned layers of the colour, allowing the pre-shading to show through and define the shapes. It's important to keep these layers slightly thinned, as this keeps the slight translucency and also makes it easier to blend each layer with the previous one. Unfortunately, I use the "brush-licker method", which I really shouldn't recommend, but it's the way I've always done it. Basically I apply a small area of paint, then moisten the brush slightly with my lip, then use it to blend out the edge of the paint to make a smooth transition. I used Cadian Fleshtone, followed by Kislev Flesh with a final highlight of Pallid Wych Flesh. Finally, the skin was finished off with a glaze of thinned Darkoath Flesh. This final glaze enriches the colours and gives them a bit more life, and helps to tie them all together, smoothing out the blends. To add to the finishing touch, a wash of slightly thinned Basilicanum Grey around the chin and head, to give the impression of stubble.


Next up were the leather and wood areas. I approached these differently, giving them a stark highlight of Pallid Wych Flesh to pick out the texture. This was then given a couple of washes of Seraphim Sepia to knock back the highlight before another highlight of Pallid Wych Flesh, just on the highest points. Then another Seraphim Sepia wash was applied, followed by an edging of Agrax Earthshade to give a final deep shade and to define the area.
The wood was also given two washes of Athonian Camoshade. This is my go-to colour for so many things. it goes well over brown, green, red...You'll see me use it a lot. Anyhow, it's really good for wood. After that, this area too was given an edge wash of Agrax Earthshade.


The brass was next. I started with Castellax Bronze and this was highlighted with Runelord Brass and then given a couple of washes of Athonian Camoshade.* This is a really good shade to use over brass or bronze as it dulls the shine and gives an almost imperceptible patina to the metal. A final dark shade of Agrax Earthshade, mixed with a touch of Abaddon Black, gives a deep shade and outlines the area, before small highlights of Runelord Brass and Stormhost Silver finish the brass areas off.


The metal areas were fairly straightforward. A basecoat of Leadbelcher, with a highlight of Ironbreaker. This was then given a wash of Agrax Earthshade then an edging of Agrax Earthshade/Abaddon Black.


The hair was left until last, as it's the topmost point on the figure and it was all too easy to rub the paint off. The black was highlighted by carefully drawing the flat of the brush along the length of the hair, allowing the raises texture to pick up the lighter colour. I used Eshin Grey, Grey Seer and Pallid Wych Flesh before giving the hair a wash of Nuln Oil to tie all the shades nicely together.


Finally, the base was done. Before anyone asks, I can't remember where the base is from. It's a resin one, green resin, but that's all I know. If anyone can enlighten me, please feel free. Anyway, the stone was painted in Stormvermin Fur, then highlighted with Grey Seer and then White Scar. This was done wet in wet, to give a more natural look to the colours. The mud was basecoated with Morghast Bone, then highlighted with Wraithbone. The whole base was then washed with Athonian Camoshade, then Agrax Earthshade and then Nuln Oil. Again , these were used wet in wet and laid on quite heavily to give a strong coverage. a cotton bud was used to pull off any excess on the stone areas Unfortunately I don't have a picture of the wash stage, but you should get the idea from the picture of the finished miniature.).

The edge of the base was painted Abaddon Black. To finish off, some splatters of Blood For The Blood God gave our grizzled Pit Fighter a bit of character, and we're done!

I'm quite pleased with the result. It came out pretty much as I'd hoped, which is always nice. I wanted to keep the paint scheme nice and simple with natural colours. Roughly 8 hours well spent, and on to the next job!


Thanks for reading!
-Stu


*told you