Don't feed the troll

You can find trolls all over the internet, that's a fact. Even here, on this blog! Don't you believe me? See by yourself, today I bring a commission. Just in the same fashion of the Blood Bowl Ogre turned into Necromunda, I was given this Blood Bowl Troll to turn it into... well, Necromunda.

I didn't get many specific instructions, just to make it grimdark and menacing. In the beginning I toyed with the idea of a huge, massive two handed weapon, something like this:

At what point does something become 'too much' even for Warhammer?

I discarded that as I found the Goblin King hand from the Hobbit starter box. This could work better...

Five fingers on the right hand, four clawed fingers on the left one... Necromunda muties, man

The front part of the mini was painfully clear, something needed to be added. I thought of a canister of some kind, instead of the original wooden sign he had hanging from his neck.

I think this is the first time I intubate anyone ever

Best way to WH40K-ize a mini

In the end I turned the weapon into a spear. That helped with the original pose of the mini, throwing a ball.

It had a more natural flowing pose this way

I had been asked questions about the green stuff tubes. Far from my intention to make a 'tutorial', I'll just share my ideas on a way that works for me, I hope someone finds it useful.

More than enough for most of the uses on a 28mm mini

 The roll maker is kind of easy to use, but it can be deceiving. Try not to abuse of yellow stuff in the mix, though the key here is about constant pressure (and speed) when using the tool. If you press harder  at some point (or stop the movement halfways) you will likely smash the roll and make it lose its shape. Worst case scenario is having greenstuff stuck on the plate itself, that's a pain in the ass. In case of need, keep the tool wet.

A tube, long enough. Pay atterntion to both ends

Now the issue is to give proper shape to this and to add it to the mini. My hint is to never use your bare hands, as you inevitably will leave your prints or smash the tube. You can work with the tube immediately, as long as you don't touch it directly. You can use different tools (mainly burins) to manipulate the tube. Let's keep it simple and cheap, today I'll be using a mere toothpick. Just take the excess on the end apart.

This way you'll have only proper tube on one end

Stick the toothpick on that 'new' end (on it's very edge, we don't want to make a mess with this useful part)

Now we can manipulate it

Stick it to the desired part of the mini. Roll the toothpick to free the greenstuff.

Don't worry if the joint is a little mess, we'll get back there later

Now you can take the other end of the tube wherever you please. In this case there was enough so I could use my hands, but you may want to use the burin/toothpick again. At this point you may want to make complex forms or whatever you fancy. Work now that the greenstuff is not cured.

Be careful and avoid harsh movements so the tube joint remains in place

Use the toothpick to fix the tube to the other end at will. You will inevitably have to smash it.

Damn, it's /%&%$ difficult to take pics like this one

 This way the tubes stay in place. Just let the greenstuff cure, we'll manage later with the ugly ends.

It works for now

 Let's repeat the process quickly:

Enough for my purposes

 And again:

So you get the idea. I don't want to give the impression that I'm speaking the truth or giving a lesson. It's just the way that works for me. But OK, we have a problem, all those dirty, messy joints. What can we do? Once the greenstuff is cured, we will have to add a small 'ring' around the tube, just on the joint, to hide our previous mess. Look at the spear:

Do the same on each one

 It works the same way for fine wiring. Glue the thread and once everything is safe add the small ring to hide the thing, giving the impression of the proper plug:

This will be pretty much the mini

It also works on bases or wherever

Painting wise, the main direction I was given was making it dark and menacing, and specifically wearing kind of gothic makeup, the kind of The Crow one. So...

Grrrrrr

There she snorts!

The shoulder pad comes from the Blood Bowl Ogre!

This is how we hunt in our tribe

Told ya, Jim, this pest control job in the underhive sucks

 This is it!

At this point I can only wish you a merry Christmas! Enjoy the holidays with your beloved ones; I'll try to bring a last post before the year ends. In the meantime, best wishes to you all!!

The man who painted his Catan

There are two kind of people. Those who paint their minis and those who are able to play with soulless, inert, inanimate, dull, unpainted plastic. I hope you don't think I'm biased, of course, it was just but a perfectly neutral sentence (monocle on).

I guess that today's title gave me away. Yes, I did it. I had thought of that for some time, but never started. Hey, don't look me like that! What's up, didn't you paint your Space Hulk? Didn't you paint your Sadespire? Your Blackstone Fortress? This is just the same! Red & blue coloured plastic pieces! :D

Blah blah, I can't hear your reasons above my painted Catan :P

Of course it's the most basic paintjob imaginable, but here it is:

A couple of close-ups:

And the Robbers:

But that's not all! There was a time, back in the day, in which my regular gaming group was so large that we even needed the expansion set for a couple of additional players! Those days are sadly gone, but well, that's life, so there's no point in mourning. The thing is that I also had these other colours, so I had to paint them too:

Well, the least I can say is that now I have quite a variety of colours to play with! Here you have an example of the whole display:

Yes, I'm aware that there are 3D boards and, of course, that's the natural evolution of this madness. But for now storage is still an issue; if we at least played it regularly I could think of it. Hmmm, maybe some day...

Some day...

I also play games!

Who would have told? I not only paint, but I finally also got to play some games! Hooray! At last! [Insert generic mumbling about current life, etc., blah blah]

In recent weeks I've been able to host a game of Shadespire. I really wanted to test the boards for real. I guess there's no point in making a full review of such a well known game these days, so I'm just leaving you with a few pics.

Oh, I did want to see the boards assembled

To battle!!

I played my undead Sigmarites, while my pal used his Skaven. I played aggressively, but I was heavily outnumbered. Wow, those rats are hard to beat!

I totally lost, but well, the pics were worth of it

I learned some important stuff, not game related. My pal thought that my scenery was misleading, given the number of ruined buildings. Though I clearly stated that 'only these three tiles all over the board are blocked and the rest are clear' I can understand that it's not as visually intuitive as I should have built it. Well, lesson identified, lesson learned.

I don't care, the pics are enough for me

But that's not all! Last week I learned to play Twilight Struggle:

There are no minis! What's this?

I would have loved to write a full review of the game, as it totally deserves it, but I played the Americans and was totally wiped out at the beginning of the Mid War by my more experienced Soviet rival. The game ended sooner than desired, but I promise we will play again and I plan to take pics and make a proper review.

Ouch, I lost all my influence in South Korea, not sure that the actual events turned out this way...

The game drives you through the Cold War and it's incredibly amazing. I mean, anything I could say is just such an understatement. Go discover the game by yourself.

We were too close to DEFCON 1 too many times, glups

I didn't pay attention to this area and was defeated when the Soviets staged a coup d'etat in Mexico! Seriously?

I mean it, it's one of the most elaborated boardgames I've seen in ages, if not the most one. Everything is weighted carefully and the dynamics are incredibly developed. I guess that two experienced gamers can enjoy a single game for endless hours.

Anyway, this was just but a brief reminder that I still play games (a reminder mostly for me! Ahem). I hope this turns into a more regular routine!

Orlock Ogryn

You may remember that a few weeks ago I did some conversion work on the Bretonnian Reliquary, as a commission for a friend. His intention is to use it as part of his Cawdor gang for Necromunda. He liked the work, and he also asked me if I could arrange something regearding a few specific ideas he had in mind for his Orlock gang. He particularly wanted to use this mini:

Blood Bowl Ogre

He had seen a conversion on the internet and wanted to kind of reproduce it, replacing the right arm with the genestaler cult chainsaw.

Not that different, I'd say!

He wanted me to take the big skull out of the front, so you canb see I came up with a silly idea. Yes, that is a chubby model wheel. But my idea was to make it appear as some kind of generator, some Iron Man like.

Now we're coming to something...

I thought it could be funny if I gave him a bionic leg, so...

Good old staples and greenstuff trick

Some touches here and there later, this is the result:

Extra wiring from the shoulder to carry the chainsaw

Yes, he's running with that

If you repaint the bullets as a plasma generator, it will look better

I also sculpted an Orlock seal over the shoulderpad

People you can find around the Underhive

So this is my part; my mate will paint it, as well as the Reliquary. Well, those will be a couple of gangs with personality, I can't wait to see both minis with some colour on them!