Black Orc Blocker #1

Building the Orc Bloodbowl team, I decided to start with the Black Orc Blockers. The main reasons for this was that I didn't expect to have to do a lot of modifying. I wanted the Blockers to have a fairly static pose, A big orc blocking the way, rather then a big orc barreling down the pitch heading for the end zone.

I used the the Orruk Brutes set as a starting point. Big Orcs with battered and bodged plate armour.

5 models come in the box and I was only looking to make 2. I hoped this would mean I had some options in how I could put the models together.

I started by blu-tacking one of the models together to get an idea of how pieces fit together and to see how much customisation was available. The Brutes kit has a fixed set of legs and torso for the models, leaving the arm positions and head with options on how to fix them. There are also choices available on adding armour plates to the models.

From the picture above you can see what the leg and body options were. The bare foot one I don't like at all. I don't think it goes well with the idea of a Bloodbowl orc player. The peg leg I find amusing, a black orc blocker playing with a missing leg, still knocking heads sounds fun. I'm going to think about that for a bit before deciding.

I took one of the booted leg options and added the chest, head and belt. See below.

I then added chest armour. The chest armour pieces had a few spikey bits on them that I felt weren't in keeping with the sports armour  style of blood bowl, so I cut and trimmed the pieces to get a less battlefield look. I then looked at pairs of arms and cut/sawed off the weapons. See below.

While looking at the arms and positioning on the model I found that I didn't like the model having 2 closed fists. It just didn't feel or look right to me. Luckily the is a couple of open hand arms in the kit so I went with 1 open hand, 1 fist. On the fist I also used a small drill to put a small divit in the top and drill away the shaft of the weapon from the bottom. Hoping to make it look more like a closed fist then a hand holding a bit of a handle.

Below is the model with arms and chest armour attached.

I'm quite please with the pose, Fist raised back and up, ready to punch the next player standing in front of him. The next thing this Blocker needed was more armour.

Shoulder pieces added on photo below.

And photo of the back of the model. In true orc style there is a lot less armour at the back then at the front.

The model felt close to be finished now. It was now the little details that I wanted to fix.
Firstly I wanted to get rid of the chain-mail. It feels too battlefield to me.
I also wanted to make the armour plates a bit more uniform in terms of shape and area covered.

This meant it was time to try the Green stuff.

I have never used Greenstuff before to model with so I was in unknown modelling territory. I started by trying to change the chain-mail hanging on the belt into a loincloth/tabard. This I did by covering over the mail with the putty and trying give it some folds.

I should say here that the sculpting tools I got were a godsend. without them it would have been almost impossible for me to work the putty on the model.

One problem a came up against was that the little skull on the mail got lost in the putty and I ended up covering that too as it no longer looked like it was sitting on top of the loin cloth.

I then added the putty to some armour edges to make it look more balanced in my eye.

I am trying not to be too critical with myself. This is the first time I have modeled with putty. The results aren't awful, but at the same time I don't think I have captured the flow and folds of a cloth material.

Looking at the model, I still wasn't happy with it, in that it still felt unfinished. The putty loincloth had obscured the belt detail which didn't look right. I wanted the fist to have something spiky to punch with as well.

Looking at the spruces I had I found 2 pieces which fit the bill.

A small armour plate went over the belt area and a set of claws ( or in this case big sharp teeth/tusks) were added to the back of the fist. For me this finished the model off.

Overall I am happy with what I have achieved. I haven't been too ambitious on this first model but as a first attempt at kit bashing  I have learned a lot.

I have realised that you need a good idea of what you want to make. A clear specific vision in your head of what the model will look like at the end. My vision of the Blockers has been a bit woolly, I didn't have a clear idea of what I wanted to end up with. I may come back to the model and add some thing else to it. But for now I am fairly happy.

Minor quibbles I have is that there are no straps tying the armour down, hoding it in place. At the moment it just looks like it is held magically in place. I could add straps with putty, but don't feel confident enough yet to try that sort of fine detail. The more I look at that loin cloth the more I dislike it.

Looking at the model now I also wish it had a helmet of some description.
I tried making a helmet on another head, to see if I could model one in putty, but the results weren't great.

As you can see it is a weird mix of padded rugby/boxing head guard and world war 2 helmet.

Something to revisit I feel.

On a related note I came across bitzbox.co.uk It is a website that sells bits of various kits. This will be really useful to get hold of that odd piece (maybe even get a helmet or two)

Plenty to think about and improve on for Black Orc Blocker #2