Painting Challenge: Blood Bowl - Da Jestaz

Time to get my latest entry from the Painting Challenge up. Blood Bowl Orcs from the new plastic box set from GW. I had originally planned to get these done before New Years, but as it would turn out these were deceptively simple looking and took way more time than expected. I almost got them ready for last week, but couldn't get the decals and basing done in time. Well at least they are ready now!

Thinking about colour schemes I decided to go with my local hockey team, Jokerit (Jesters), which is currently playing in the KHL as the only Finnish team. They used to be one of the top teams from the Finnish league, but a couple of years ago they signed up for the Russian equivalent of NHL. First two seasons went pretty well with them being one of the top teams from the league, but honestly this season has been pretty embarrassing. I was thinking between this and the team I played most my years in junior hockey, but in the end decided to leave that scheme for the human team. As Jokerit was the local rival back then for us it felt better to picture them as the brutes.

As I said they ended up much harder to paint than expected. As they are push fit models with connecting points in visible areas they really had to be put completely together before painting, which made reaching some of the detail extremely difficult. My method of painting them was also pretty suboptimal. I normally paint all the areas with a base shade before washing and then doing the highlight layers, but I guess on these picking a proper order and doing an area from the start to finish starting from the recesses and working up would have been far better. There were countless times when I messed up some area I had already gone over when I tried to do something in a small crevice and had to go back and touch it up again. Also the combination of red and yellow was far from ideal. It's pretty unbelievable how you can get a shade that doesn't cover a lightly washed version of itself  in under 4 coats of paint. Needless to say they were a pain at times to paint.

I was thinking quite a while about adding weathering on them, but in the end I ended up with leaving them cleaner and with a more cartoony look. Just seems to suit Blood Bowl minis better. Plus if I get fed up with it it's always easy to go back and add scratches etc. on them. However to break the monotony of the armour I decided to paint the checkerboard pattern that somehow is so iconically orky. Another thing that got left out was the team logo. I tried to freehand a suitably Orkyfied version of the Jokerit logo on them, but my brush skills just weren't up to it. Luckily it was easy to remove the shabby tries from a varnished surface.The logo will be added at a later time when I've gotten around to ordering suitable custom decals for them. It's just so much easier to design it on the computer and get it printed out. I'd do it myself, but I want it to be white and haven't  found any place where I can use a printer that is capable of printing white. Luckily Fallout Hobbies does custom decals for a reasonable price and I've used them in the past and liked the quality, so I'm gonna get a sheet from them when I've figured out the logo for the human team as well. Player positions and numbers are from the normal GW sheet that comes with the box. As a more ideal team composition would have 4 Black Orcs and 4 Blitzers I left my player numbering empty for them in preparation for the future whenever I end up buying reinforcements.

Since taking these pictures I've gone back and added some pigments to their boots to vary the tone as suggested by Martin on the challenge blog. Definitely ups the look of the minis. With these done it's back to Flames of War for the last couple of vehicles I need for the end of the month. I've also got the two Blood Bowl referees to paint up that are about half way through, but that I didn't get ready for last weeks entry. We'll see about this week. Painting time is a bit limited with a business trip and the whole renovation thing disrupting my free time.

Painting Challenge: Armour Theme round - Jagdtigers

The first themed round, armour, is up and my entry with it. Go to the themed round page to check the other entries out: http://analogue-hobbies-theme-rounds.blogspot.fi/

Being the boring engineer that I am I went with the obvious choice for the Armour themed round. Still to mark the occasion I couldn't just go with any old tank, but had to have something special. So the biggest and meanest of them all, Jagdtiger. 128mm gun that could punch through anything and everything and armour that could withstand nearly any shots from the front. Also far too expensive, too heavy, too few and not very practical. What's not to love :)

I haven't taken part in themed rounds the last few painting challenges, but with a house renovation having me painting walls instead of miniatures I need any extra points that I can get. I still don't think I'll take part in all of them, but rather take part in those that fit into my ongoing projects. As I need some big kitties for a tournament coming up in a few weeks these were the perfect choice for the first bonus round.

I painted dark yellow with modulation in a few shades to make them pop followed by camouflage. I want to do all my big kitties a bit different to show the haphazard way units were put together in the last desperate months of the war, with vehicles pulled in from everywhere they could be found. The simple green stripes turned out rather nicely, not too happy about the other one though. The camo patches ended up a bit too large for my tastes, but going back and repainting it would have meant I would not have gotten it done for Sunday. Still after the washes it's looking a bit better now.

 
I like my vehicles quite worn looking so heavy enamel washes were used as well as some streaking effects. All of this was topped of with liberal coating of a couple of mud effects. With a tight schedule these guys were actually photographed before the mud effects had dried. It was getting closer to midnight already so I decided to just varnish them later and get the entry ready before going to bed. With a few days gone past, they are now finally done and will be getting their first outing next week to have a few test games before the tournament.

State of the paint desk

Well it's been quite a busy 2017 until now. We had friends over on New Years eve and the aftermath had a considerable impact on my painting efficiency on the next day. Somehow finding a good painting mojo seems a lot more difficult when your head feels like someone is banging at it with a hammer :) My holiday is also over and work has been busy with slightly longer hours trying to catch up on tasks left undone over the holiday period.

I was trying to finish an Orc Blood Bowl team in time for my thursday slot at the painting challenge, but it was not to be. There was just so much detail and loads of hard to reach places with the snap-fit minis that picking everything out and cleaning mistakes where my brush had touched something that was already finished that I wasn't able to get them done. They are nearly done now, I just need to do highlights on the armour pieces and paint logos on them. I decided to give up late on thursday and instead started on my entry for the Armour. I have just managed to get that one done in time and it should go up with the rest sometime tomorrow.

With this done it's time for bed. We have another Over the Hills game tomorrow to test out the rules further. And after that it's a little over a week until we get the keys to our new apartment and can start renovations. Should be a busy month ahead of me. Unfortunately I will mostly be painting walls and not miniatures then, but with the new place I have dedicated hobby room and enough space for a gaming table as well!