State of the Hunt, week 32/2020: Not dead yet…

Oh my, it’s certainly time for another update! I must apologise for the lack of content over here: It seems like, unlike everybody else in the hobby scene, I didn’t use the Covid19-related downtime to paint 10,000 points of tabletop models — in fact, I haven’t even managed to paint more than a handful of models this year, to be honest. And while I would love to blame current events, world politics or any other kind of external force, the more likely explanation is a mix of my eternal laziness and several distractions.

But once again, my good friend Annie provided me with the motivation to get back to the painting table — albeit for a different reason than usual…

I. All good things…

Earlier this month, Annie left the blasted plains of northwestern Jhermani for one of the big Hive Cities further north. Which is great for her, but actually a massive catastrophe for my personal hobby productivity, because our joint painting and converting sessions were always a shining beacon of “finally getting stuff done”. Under no circumstances does this mean, however, that we won’t be having any painting sessions in the future — quite the opposite, I hope. The logistics will just be slightly more complicated. But that remains a problem for another day.

For now, I wanted to create something nice and topical for Annie to wish her well on her way, so I picked up a brush (for the first time in months, I might add), and made her this:

“Guten Flug” means “Have a good flight” in German, in case anyone was wondering (because y’know, that gobbo seems to be a pilot and everything…). The model itself is a Blood Bowl event model Annie gave to me a few years ago, so it seemed like the perfect choice for this occasion. The plinth was made from a piece of Zebrano wood I got from my uncle (who uses different types of wood to create his own knife handles). I’d say it all makes for a nice little ensemble — and the piece should fit right in with all of the nifty Blood Bowl stuff in the showcases at Annie’s new place.

So all the best, and don’t think you’ll be safe from me ‘oop north 😉

II. Supply drop from the lowlands:

Another shout out must go to my buddy Augustus b’Raass who sent me a lovely bitz drop earlier this year — what a delight!

To my great regret, I have yet to figure out what to do with most of those lovely bitz — but thinking about that is already half of the fun, and also seems like the perfect activity for lazy summer afternoons in the sweltering heat…

At least I have already started messing around with some of the stuff Augustus has sent me: Some of the heads from the Necromunda Corpsegrinder Cult seemed just perfect for some of my models, after all.

For instance, one of the bare Corpsegrinder faces seemed like the ideal piece to add some extra oomph to this 30k World Eater in Cataphractii armour I converted back when “Betrayal at Calth” was released:

The angry expression in combination with the tubes and augmetic plugs seem just perfect for a World Eater, yet the lack of mutations led to me using it one a 30k model, rather than a 40k one.

But fear not, my 40k World Eaters were also able to claim a skull, so to speak: One of the slightly more elaborate, horned Corpsgrinder masks ended up on the rocket launcher wielding World Eater I converted a while ago:

I kept tweaking this model for what feels like ages, swapping in head after head, but now I think I may finally have found the right part to complete the conversion.What do you think?

Oh, and speaking of World Eaters, I have finally started to paint the next member for my “Hateful Eight” project, the icon bearer based on one of the classic metal World Eaters from the 90s. I shared the conversion with you in a previous post:

Having painted the little goblin pilot shown above, I didn’t want to lapse back into utter laziness again, and seeing how I already had the red paint pot before me, I got to work…

This reminds me that I’ll have to share my current World Eaters recipe one of these days — in case anyone’s interested, that is!

Anyway, this is what the model looks like right now:

Still some work left to be done, but I think I am on the right track!

III. Visiting some Islands…

Wait, you didn’t think we’d make it through this post without a mention of my current infatuation with Media molecule’s “Dreams”, did you? Seriously, though: Just a short heads-up, because I have been plonking away at my game, “Islands”, and making small tweaks and updates based on user feedback. So regardless of whether or not the game is actually any good, it’s at least getting better and better 😉

I have also created another trailer for the game that I think gives you a pretty good idea of what it looks like. Check this out:

If you happen to have access to both a PlayStation 4 and a copy of Dreams, I would be delighted if you were to check out my game. It can be found here.

 

Anf that’s it for today. I certainly hope this update finds you all well! If you have any thoughts or feedback, I would, of course, love to hear them!

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more! And please stay safe and healthy!

State of the Hunt, week 52/2019: Cleaning house…

Hey everyone, it’s the last day of the year (at least on my side of the planet), and I sincerely hope you’ve all had a wonderful Christmas! While I will have to postpone my annual Eternal Hunt Awards for a couple of days, I still want to share an update with you, as I actually managed to get some painting done during the holiday!

Before we get to that, however, there’s one more thing I want to share with you: This wonderful Christmas card from the Brothers Wier over at Between the Bolter And Me that actually landed on my doorstep right in time for the festivities:

What a wonderful surprise indeed! Cheers guys, and another year of blogging and successful hobbying to you as well! 🙂

 

Now, as for the actual painting, it was of course really hard for me to break through my usual holiday lethargy, but I did want to do something creative and hobby related before the end of the year, so I looked for things that might be quick and fun to get me back into painting. The first thing I came up with was this small cogitator terminal, an objective that comes with the Necromunda starter set:

It looked like it might make for some quick painting fun, and indeed it did: I had a blast spongin on the rust and base colours, then spent a bit more time painting the displays and buttons. Just a delightful little appetizer to get me back into the swing of things!

Next up, I came upon this little guy whom I had wanted to get painted for ages:

This is a captured slayer that was originally part of the “Battle for Skull Pass” WFB starter set. It’s a weird little sculpt, something that almost looks like an afterthought to be added to the plastic sprues that came in the box. It’s a single piece with fairly few (and soft) details, but I still liked the quirky nature of the model and thought it would make for a cool little optional marker to add to my Orkheim Ultraz Blood Bowl team, so I quickly painted the little guy.

The main point here was to get a nice and bright orange colour for his impressive slayer hairdo, but I also tried to make it look like da boyz had given him a black eye during the brawl that must have led to his capture:

He makes for a nice addition to the smaller bitz and bobs I have painted as hangers-on for the Orkheim Ultraz over the year:

When the time came to decide which final model to paint this year, I was drawn back to Khorne’s Eternal Hunt, of course — no surprise there 😉 To be fair, though, I already had a partially finished World Eater that needed completing, so that definitely helped. One of these gentlemen built (or, in some cases, refurbished) for my “Hateful Eight” World Eaters kill team project:

All of the models were built quite a while ago, and I have endeavoured to finally get some of them painted! The two guys on the right were finished back in October, so I next chose the second model from the left: an older conversion based on one of the Dark Vengeance Chosen models that was loosely based on this illustration by Diego Gisbert Llorens:

illustration by Diego Gisbert Llorens

I had already started the paintjob during one of my painting sessions at my friend Annie’s place, so it was mostly a matter of picking up where I had left off. So I made pretty good progress…

…before finally putting the finishing touches on the model yesterday. So here’s my final model for 2019. Blood for the Blood God!

Seeing how this guy has been part of my pile of shame for ages, it feels good to finally see him painted! And I think the finished model works rather well, too, if I do say so myself.

So that’s four World Eaters down for my “Hateful Eight” project (although somehow I doubt I’ll be able to stop at eight…):

But in any case, this was the final spurt of hobby productivity I have managed to wring from 2019. I hope you have all been able to get some hobbying done over the holiday season! I would love to hear any thoughts you may have (or learn about any hasty last minute painting you may have performed before year’s end), of course! And I wish you all a Happy New Year! See you on the other side, when I finally begin this year’s Eternal Hunt Awards series in a couple of days!

Until then, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

For the love of Grot!

My previous post showcasing my finished Ork Blood Bowl team must have been my least successful post this year, both in terms of views and comments, unfortunately enough. So, in a move that probably borders on being suicidal, I am following it up this week with yet more Blood Bowl content. Oh well, what can you do…

Anyway, painting that little snotling with the hammer recently – this little fellow here -…

…must have lit a bit of a fire under me, because I really felt the need to add some more, slightly humorous, grots to my collection. And sometimes you just have to go with what feels right in this hobby of ours, right?

Fortuntately enough, I didn’t have to dig deep into my cupboard of shame, because there was this little guy here, set aside as a part of my Blood Bowl project years ago:

I loved the idea of having a massively overburdened little greenskin lugging around the team’s extra equipment/trophies/snacks, and the model perfectly fit the bill! It’s basically a stock model, one of the “bonus gnoblars” that came with most of the Ogre Kingdoms kits. It was already quite characterful enough and didn’t really require any conversion. Even so, I grafted an ornamental wing to the head sticking out from the backpack, making it look like the remains of an unlucky player from an opposing team…

When it came to painting the model, it was mostly a question of blocking in some base colours, then adding a heavy wash of Army Painter Dark Tone and watch it do most of the work for me:

Not bad, eh? And a few more tweaks and touchups later, I had a mostly finished model:

At this point, it was mostly a matter of adding some subtle “special effects”, so I added some Tamiya Clear Red to the severed (?!) human head, and yet more Tamiya Clear Red, albeit thinned down, to the big chunk of meat on the model’s left shoulder, making it look suitably juicy and …erm “tasty” 😉

All that was left was to quickly finish the model’s base. And afterwards, the Orkheim Ultraz’ “Kit-Git” was finished:

In terms of gameplay, this little guy could be a model for an assistant trainer (haha, yeah right! 😉 ). More than anything, however, it’s a characterful little piece with just the right amount of humour, and hence an ideal addition to the Ultraz! 🙂 Also, seeing how I’ve had this guy in my bitzbox for ages, I would say he also qualifies as a neglected model for Azazel’s June challenge.

But wait, there’s more! For instance, I still want to address this mystery model I shared with you a while ago:

Now what is this supposed to be, I hear you asking, some kind of sneaky special weapon?

One thing I immediately noticed when playing the Blood Bowl II video game were the little goblin cameramen appearing in every other scene (and during the actual games):

I thought these were such a wonderful little touch, and – avid kitbasher that I am – I couldn’t stop wondering how difficult it would be to come up with a little “camgrot” of my own.

Before I actually started converting, I tried to get a couple of proper screenshots of the camgrots from the game (which turned out to be rather tricky, seeing how they are only ever in the frame for a couple of seconds, or so small that you cannot get a good enough look at them), but I ended up capturing a few pictures of the sneaky gitz…

Blood Bowl 2_20190504160150

including a closer look at the actual camera setup:

Blood Bowl 2_20190504161300

My own model was then painstakingly grafted together from all kinds of odds and ends, mostly bitz from the Ogre Kingdoms catalgoue, really, that came from a rathe big job lot of ogre bitz I bought a couple of years ago. Those gnoblars are just incredibly useful conversion fodder!

Anyway, here’s the conversion I came up with:

There was no actual necessity to make the camera look mechanically sound, but I did want to add just a dash of plausibility, so I added a little crank on the side there, to hint at some kind of inner workings — in all honesty, though, the cameras from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series (with little gremlins inside actually painting the pictures *really* fast) was foremost on my mind when building this model 😉

The candle was added as a last little touch, either to suggest the “red light” on modern TV cameras, or to simply make the whole thing look even more like a weird magitek contraption.

The camgrot itself is not even the end of the project, however, because I had another idea idea: A couple of years ago, I picked up this goblin hut (that used to be part of the “Battle for Skull Pass” WFB boxed set) as part of a bigger bitz drop:

And, thinking of the camgrot, I asked myself whether this could be used as a cool “camera tower” for him, the better to capture the best possible footage. So I made him a little platform from a couple of odds and ends:

I definitely want to keep the platform optional, though, so I can still swap in that huge half-moon and use the hut in, say, HeroQuest or similar games. But it’s a nice way of making the most of that pretty characterful little piece of terrain:

For now, I wanted to start by painting the actual camgrot, though:

The undercoat did a wonderful job of pulling all of the different parts together into a coherent whole:

One effect I want to point out is the camera lens: I covered it with several coats of Tamiya Clear Water effect, which I think makes for a somewhat deeper and “glassier” look han mere gloss varnish would — but maybe that’s just what I would like to imagine…

And here’s the finished model (without a finished base, seeing how the little guy is going to end up on that camera platform of his):

And because there’s always time for a little fun, I even added a little Cabal Vision logo to the back of the little guy’s shirt:

All in all, these two models were a really cool way to explore the Blood Bowl universe beyond the borders of the actual pitch! Here’s a picture showing both of the finished models:

And while I was having a roll anyway, I also worked on a couple of “fanz” for the Orkheim Ultraz: These will be used as cheerleaders for the team:

The two guys on the left were built ages ago, and they are basically just the repurposed standard bearer and musician from an old mob of Orc boyz. They seemed like a great match, though — I merely turned the standard by 90 degrees, turning it into a flag. The guy (or rather, guys) on the right I am pretty proud of, however, because that was quite a finnicky conversion:

I loved the idea of carrying a spectator carrying another model piggyback, and while this is obviously an Orc carrying a Goblin, I did very much want to invoke the impression of a dad taking their kid along to a game — just look how happy that little guy seems! Dad, on the other hand, already has a bottle of fungus beer prepped and ready 😉

So yeah, that’s it for today: Just a couple of weird greenskin models. I surely hope this week’s update won’t perform quite as abysmally as the previous post… So it goes without saying that I would love to hear your thoughts on these models! Please feel free to drop me a line! 🙂

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Orkheim Ultraz: Pitch-perfect

It’s time for another showcase post this week, as I have managed to finish another long running project of mine: As some of you may remember, I recently completed the last two Black Orc blockers for my Orc Blood Bowl team, the Orkheim Ultraz.

With the last two player models completed, all that was left to do was to give the entire team one last round of fine tuning. And that’s exactly what I did earlier this week, during one of my customary joint painting sessions at my friend Annie’s place:

I spent most of the session cleaning up the paintwork on some of the models, adding a few details here and there – especially painting the eyes on all of the models – and, maybe most importantly of all, painting a player number on each model. This turned out to be a slightly finnicky job, seeing how most of the models hadn’t been assembled with this step in mind, but in the end, I was able to wedge the numbers in there somewhere, even if I had to get creative in some cases 😉

So it is with great joy that I can finally show you the finished team in all of its “pitch-perfect” glory. Meet the finished Orkheim Ultraz, everyone:

The Orkheim Ultraz
“Ultra ‘ard! Ultra-violent! Go Ultraz!”

 

I am really happy with the way the finished team looks. It’s also pretty cool how most of this team was basically assembled from leftover models, bits and pieces from my cupboard of shame, and cheap second-hand pick ups. I am not usually an extremely thrifty hobbyist, but this project was very much a case of producing a lot of bang for the least possible amount of buck 😉

So, let’s take a closer look at the various models, shall we? I think we’ll just take it from the top:

 

Star Playa Gitgrim Sharptoof

The official line is that this guy was intended as my version of the “official” star player Varag Ghoulchewer. To be perfectly honest with you, however, I mostly just wanted to build a Blood Bowl model using the highly dynamic feral Orc boss back when I started my team, so that’s what I did. I am still pretty happy with this guy, even though I would probably do some minor things differently if I were to build him today (I think I would be a bit more corageous with the arms).

Anyway, with his eyes painted in and a few tweaks here and there, he is still a very nice focal point for the team, from a visual perspective.

 

For the rest of the team, my plan was to build the models in such a way that each model’s position and gameplay role would be fairly obvious just by looking at them.

Throwers

Gugmar and Rikkit are the Orkheim Ultraz’ Throwers, proud to perform the team’s first move during kick-off — although they are usually happy enough to have seen the last of the ball for that turn…

When it came to actually making these look like throwers, I decided to use pretty light armour and suitably athletic poses. The sports glasses were a spur-of-the-moment idea when building the first thrower, and I was lucky enough to find another head with glasses for the second model.

I also didn’t want to just mimic Rikkit’s pose for the second thrower, so I came up with a model that was preparing to throw a squig — because there are days when you just have to haul an ill-tempered mass of teeth into a gaggle of players, simple as that.

I am still rather happy with the way the squig turned out, by the way:

I just love painting those little guys…

 

Black Orc Blockers

Certainly the ‘ardest hitters in the team, Morglum Bruis’Arm, Grimgork Bucket’Ead, Borzag Ironskull and Azhag Ironjaw (from left to right) are as massive as they are resistant to fun.

The first two Black Orcs I assembled were mainly built right out of the box, with the removal of the weapons the only major change to the stock models. I got a little more adventurous with the other two, both because I wanted to make sure they looked suitably different from their buddies, but I was also influenced by the rather impressive new plastic models that had been released by then.

Anyway, these are definitely one of my favourite parts of the team: They look like a massive wall of muscle, scuffed armour and ill temper, which is exactly the look I wanted for them. The scratches on the armour also make for a rather effective look, if I do say so myself.

Blitzers

Gabnaz, Gorgrim, Gulgrit & Urrzag (from left to right) are the Orkheim Ultraz’ Blitzers and always the first ones into the fray. What they lack in tactical acumen, they make up for in sheer enthusiasm!

The Blitzers were built fairly early into the project — in fact, Gorgrim up there was actually the very first test model for the entire team. This is why they mostly use standard Orc boy parts. At the same time, I used three visual cues to try and differentiate them from the Linemen: The aggressive, dynamic poses on at least two of them. The armoured gauntlets on all models, save for Urrzag. And the American football-esque shoulder armour (simply repurposed vanilla Space Marine pauldrons) on all of them. In hindsight, they may seem just a bit too conservative, especially when compared to the “official” new plastic models, but I am pretty happy with them, nevertheless.

 

Linemen

At the lower end of the team hierarchy, Bolg, Urrg, Hergh and Garg are the team’s Linemen, referred to not so much by actual names, but rather by the amusing noises they make when going down during the game (Young Bolg there seems like he could be Blitzer material, though…).

Blood Bowl provides a great opportunity to inject some humour into the models, and the Linemen were my attempt at doing just that: I loved the idea that Orc Linemen should look like they were fairly incompetent when it came to handling the ball, so I made most of the models look like they were doing their darnedest to catch the blasted thing 😉

Even better was the fact that most of this was mostly achieved by exchanging some hands and carefully posing the models on their bases — it turned out the monopose archers and boyz from the sixth edition WFB starter set were just perfect material for this particular project.

Bolg was built a good while later and maybe just looks a bit too competent for a lineman? I still like the fairly iconic, Blood Bowl-like pose he has, though. And whenever I look at those guys, I just have to smile, so I think I can call this mission accomplished 😉

Goblins

Don’t tell it to the boyz, but these sly little devils probably have more cunning than the rest of the team combined. Zatnig and Nogbli (on the left) are from the old neighbourhood and fit right in with the rest of the team. Snikrit and Skaskul come from one of the shifty underground tribes, and have yet to earn their own player numbers, as some of the boyz just won’t trust them…

…I knew right from the start that I wanted some goblins as part of my team, yet when I started out, I only had the old Night Goblin plastics to work with — which wasn’t really a huge problem, because I still like the looks of them a lot, and their poses worked pretty well for Blood Bowl. Even so, I was happy when I later managed to get my hands on some parts from the vanilla Goblin kit from the same era, as the models already look like they are wearing old-timey sports gear.

Apart from that, I tried a mix of models that look truly, almost comically, determined (Zatning and Skaskul) and two models that channel the rather mischievous nature of Goblins (Nogbli and Snikrit). I really like these guys, and it’s not even that noticeable that the four of them only share two facial sculpts between them 😉

Big Guy

There aren’t many things, on or off the pitch, that Spleenrot has not yet confused with a ball. He is, after all, a troll…

This guy was a bit of a lucky discovery: While searching for suitable big guy models online, I found the old plastic troll from the 7th edition WFB starter set and thought he would be brilliant for the job — only the model was long OOP by that point. So it was a delightful surprise to discover him in a bag with second-hand models at my old FLGS — and for a song, no less.

The model may be a little small by modern standards, but I still think he’s the perfect big guy for the Ultraz. Converting and painting him was also a blast!

 

So much for the actual players — but wait, there’s more!

 

Da Medikal Krew

Doc Nipptakk & Medikal Assistant Whakkit

A gnarled veteran of the infirmary, Doc Nipptakk is an expert when it comes to getting players back on their feet. Whether his success is actually based on his famed injections of “Vitaminz” or players are simply afraid of the monstrous syringes he uses to administer them, and would rather stay healthy in the first place, the results speak for themselves. Whakkit is Nipptakk’s trusty assistant, and a practitioner of the fabled art of “‘Nasty-Easy-o-logy” — whenever he isn’t relaxing during a round of “Whack-a-Squig”, that is…

 

The Goblin medic is a wonderfully characterful Kromlech model and was given to me by my friend Annie. Painting this guy was a lot of fun, even if the many nooks and crannies of the sculpt lead to some swearing on my part 😉

Whakkit, the little grot with the massive hammer, is a very recent completion, even if the model has been in my collection for years: It came from a mostly complete metal Doomdiver Catapult that I picked up as part of a larger job lot, and the model was so characterful that I simply had to rescue it from its somewhat drab older paintjob.

Before:

And here’s the freshly painted model again:

 

Da Ballz

These are actually my only concession to “modern” Blood Bowl models, although this was an easy exception to make: The balls were another gift, for one, plus there’s also the fact that Maxime Pastourel’s wonderful squig ball has to be one of my favourite models from the last couple of years! So including it in my collection was a bit of a no-brainer 😉

 

Re-rolls, tokens and turn counter

The new Blood Bowl teams come with themed re-roll tokens and turn markers, so it was obvious to me that I had to come up with my own versions as well. Building these using all kinds of orcish bric-a-brac was a fun project, indeed!

 

Squig-themed dice/tokens

These, along with the next model, were another gift from Annie. I really love suigs, so those delightful two critters above were a much appreciated additon to my collection, even though they cannot really be used as dice. Oh, Annie basically painted about 70% of them, too, to give credit where credit is due!

Da Fan

Sourbelch is a huge fan of the Ultraz, even though many – if not all – of the game’s finer points escape him. But as long as he can wave his flag, get drunk on mushroom beer and watch some skulls getting caved in, he considers the game a great one.

This massive guy was a birthday present Annie converted and painted for me a couple of years ago. The troll isn’t a GW model, yet it perfectly fits the vintage GW look. The beer barrel and straw setup was the result of an idle conversation about maybe converting a fan model wearing a beer hat. And now Sourbelch is here, proudly waving his flag and waiting to be joined by some additional fanz — hopefully you won’t have to wait for too long, buddy! 😉

 

So that’s it — my entire Blood Bowl collection, at least for now. This project has been running for quite a while, but now I have a finished team. Incidentally, since I have recently started to re-familiarise myself with the rules by way of the Blood Bowl II video game, here are the Orkheim Ultraz in their digital form:

And here they are, once again, on the tabletop:

Of course, as Doctor Manhattan tells us, nothing ever ends. And while I am happy to call the actual team finished at this point, I will just as happily keep adding models to this collection: I still have plans (and WIP models) for some more hangers-on (a “kit-git”, as it were, plus some more fanz), a display base for the team or some smaller or bigger pieces of terrain. Plus there’s also that mystery teaser model I shared with you in my previous post…

And who knows, maybe I will even actually get to play the game again? We shall see… 😉

 

For now, I am very happy with the finished team, however. And I would of course love to hear any feedback you may have! So please leave a comment!

Before I tune out for today, thanks must go to my friend Annie for keeping me motivated during this project and for providing neat little additions to my collection every now and then — one of these days, I’ll know the rules well enough be able to steamroll over that gorgeous Dwarf team of yours, by way of thanks (Ha-Ha, fat chance…) 😉

Oh, and lest I forget: The fact that these guys had been waiting for their finishing touches for years at this point probably qualifies the finished team for Azazel’s “Neglected Models June” challenge as well 😉

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

State of the Hunt, Week 21/2019: Meanwhile, back in the Dugout…

Back to Blood Bowl for a bit this week — if it seems like I am frantically jumping from project to project in full hobby butterfly mode at the moment, the truth is that I am rather making the most of my current hobby motivation and productivity in order to complete some long-running projects. Case in point, my Blood Bowl Team, the Orkheim Ultraz: I started these back in 2013 and have kept adding a few models here and there ever since. After my latest bit of working on the team, I was basically down to two last missing players: These Black Orc blockers here:

While the models are based on the standard WFB plastic Black Orcs, they were still built with the new, rather more massive Blood Bowl models firmly in mind — hence the added bulk and extra-vicious look. And when it came to painting them, I hoped that my recent success with painting hulking monsters in jagged red armour would pay off here as well 😉

So I took them along to one of Annie’s and my frequent hobby sessions and got to work.

One was my painting water, the other my drink. The colour match is obviously far too close for comfort…

The main challenge with the models was to make sure the paintjobs matched the colours of my first two Black Orc blockers. Since my Orkheim Ultraz have been such a long running project, maintaining the same look across the entire collection can be a bit tricky from time to time — but the fact that my recipe for these models is a rather fast and loose affair really helps: At the centre of it all is still the recipe for green skin I nicked from A Gentleman’s Ones many moons ago, and still make frequent use of. The skin is also just about the most sophisticated part of my recipe.

Apart from that, it’s mostly a case of blocking in the main colours (various browns for the leather and cloth, rusty silver for chainmail or similar metallic parts, and Mephiston Red as a basecoat for the armour), then adding a heavy wash of Army Painter Strong Tone over everything that isn’t skin and letting it do most of the work. After that, I only need to add lots of metallic scratches with a bit of Leadbelcher. And that’s about it, really.

Fortunately enough, the first Black Orc blocker I painted seemed to fit right in:

I also really liked the brutal look of the model, even more effective now in full colour 😉

Here’s a picture with all of the Black Orcs in a neat row — neat for Orcs, at least. The model on the right was still about a third through the painting process at this point, as you can see.

Like I said, the main ingredient for my Orkheim Ultraz painting recipe is a liberal use of Strong Tone wash. To wit, here’s what the armour plates on my Blood Bowl Orcs look before and after washing:

Anyway, the two Black Orcs turned out to be a blast to paint, so I just needed to finish their bases (using the contents of the exact same bag of static grass I bought at the Cologne GW store about 20 years ago), and the two last player models were finished:

All in all, I am really very happy with these. They fit right in, as you can see from this picture of all four Black Orc blockers:

What a delightfully brutal looking bunch! Now these are certainly the least humorous of my Blood Bowl models — but that’s really as it should be with Black Orcs, right?

And, like I said, the completion of these last two models means that all of the player models for the Orkheim Ultraz have been painted. So meet the finished team:

I really rather love the finished collection, if I do say so myself! And with the exception of the balls (including Maxime Pastourel’s brilliant squig ball, one of my favourite Blood Bowl models of all time), each model in this army has been customised and kitbashed from non-Blood Bowl models, which almost feels like a matter of perverse pride to me 😉

Of course this doesn’t mean that I am done with creating Blood Bowl models now — far from it! I have all kinds of ideas for cool hangers-on, fans and sideshow pieces. But it will be nice to be able to build them around the solid core provided by a finished team!

In fact, I have one last teaser picture for an upcoming, Blood Bowl related project to share with you:

Also, while all of the Ultraz’ players have now been painted to a reasonably high standard, there are still some tweaks that I want to perform on the team (such as making sure all of the eyes are painted, adding player numbers — stuff like that). And when I am done refreshing my knowledge of the Blood Bowl rules (my current experimentation with the Blood Bowl II video game I picked up during a recent sale has been …encouraging so far), I might just get in another game or two…

Until then, I would love to hear your thoughts on the finished team! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!