Thrower #1

I planned on making 2 Orc Throwers. One of them I wanted to have a rugby throw pose. I had seen the Savage orc big stabba model and the orcs in that set had almost exactly the right pose. I bought the stabba set came as part of a bigger box set for the savage orcs, as I didn't want any of the other savage orc models I went online to buy just the big stabba models.

As you can see from the above photo the model was a bit naked for the blood bowl field, and would need to add more armour to it, for it to fit in with the rest of the team; but the pose was what I was looking for, and adding armour would be much easier then trying to model a new pose in my mind.

The photo of the back of the model shows how naked the Orc was. Yes those are it's buttocks you can see. 

I added the head on to get an idea of how the model would look and to see the space between the top of the head and the hands, as the ball would need to fit in there. I also remembered the lesson I learnt from painting the Orruk Brutes/ Black Orc Blockers and did not glue the head on. I plan on painting it first then attaching it.

When looking at the arms and hands for the thrower model I considered using the pieces above. These came in the Ardboyz set, the arms where in the right position, but the hands needed to be side by side, rather then end to end. There was the potential to cut and re-shape the hands and arms, but getting the big stabba model seemed easier.

I still had some spare shoulder pads from the Orruk brutes set. The Brutes are larger then the normal Orc model so the pads were large enough to cover most of the miniatures back. Orc throwers have less armour then the other orc players so I was happy for the armour to have gaps and look looser on the thrower.

Above are the pieces of armour I had available from the Orruk Brutes set. I originally planned on using the the backplate piece on the left, but it did not fit properly against the raised arms of the miniature. The shoulder plates ended up being a better fir and look.

The use of blu tack through the whole process of putting the thrower together was a big help. I was able to place and position various parts together to see how they fit and looked, with out having to commit to them.

I really didn't want the throwers buttock checks on display and looked for something to use to cover the miniatures bottom lower half. I couldn't find anything at first in my bits box and took the opportunity to try another kit-bash technique with the Green Stuff. I decided to make a cast.

The Ardboyz miniatures I used for the lineman and Blitzers had a chain-mail skirt at the back, as photo above on the right shows. I brushed a thin coat of (olive) oil over the part of the miniature I was going to make an impression of. I made up some Green Stuff  and pressed it into the chain-mail skirt part of the miniature. I only kept the Green Stuff in contact with the miniature for a few seconds and then removed as carefully as I could trying hard not to stretch or squeeze the putty. With the oil it slipped off pretty easily. Above photo on the left.

The putty now had a mirror imprint of the chain-mail skirt which I left to harden over night.

I was not sure if this was the right way to make the cast, if I was supposed to leave the putty in contact with the miniature while it set and remove it once it had hardened. But the cast came out fine so it wasn't an issue in the end.

With the cast set I covered that in (olive) oil and made some more Green stuff putty to press into the cast.  I left the new putty in the cast for an hour or so, I wanted the putty to set a bit so it would hold it's shape a bit better when I tried to remove it.

I removed the putty from the cast by a combination of pulling on the excess putty around the edge of the cast and using blu-tac to gently stick to the back of the putty and pulling on the blu-tac to free the putty from the cast. The olive oil made it quite easy to separate the cast piece from the mold piece.

With the putty not fully set, I was able to trim and shape the edges of the putty.

Above is the final putty cast of the back chain mail skirt. I am pretty pleased with it. The detail has come out clearly, the overall shape could be better, but that probably comes with practice. If doing it again I think I would try to use less putty to get a thinner item.

I really like this process. I will never be a good free hand modeller, but being able to copy bits with the detail intact means I can can make much more detailed and intricate pieces to add to models.

After I had made the chain skirt from the putty I found a  bit of plastic I thought could also work. I think it was a shoulder pad from something. I didn't know which I would go with, but I was kinda pleased that my bits box was still providing me with options.

As you can see in the photo above I glued the arms in place holding a ball. The big stabba models really fit the pose I wanted for the Thrower. 

The fingers on the model weren't quite right. It looked like it had it's hands in fists rather than fingers on the ball. Also notice that I haven't glued on the face. I learned my lesson from the Black Orcs and will paint the mouth/ tongue before attaching the face. I also needed to use some Green Stuff to fill in the gaps around the shoulders as the arm positions were a little different to how the models was intended to have the arms.

As you can see from the photo above the hand holding lacks fingers. I wanted the thrower to have his fingers around the ball.

I used a little Green Stuff putty to fill in the gaps and shaped it to fit the muscle. I was surprised how easy it was to reproduce the muscle shape. I used the side of a shaping tool to roll over the putty to match the size and contour of the rest of the arm. I then used the edge of the tool to define the crease/ line in the arm where the muscle ended and another started. I feel I am starting to get comfortable with the use of the modelling tools.

I wanted to add fingers to show the Thower holding the ball. I spent a bit of time playing around with how to do and didn't take any photos of my experimental modelling mostly because it was a very organic process one idea morphed into another without me thinking to stop to record it.

I started by looking at the other miniatures I had to see if I could cut the fingers off and attach them to the Throwers hand and ball. I didn't have anything suitable.

I then attempted to make them out of Green Stuff putty. This was way to ambitious. I tried rolling tiny pieces of putty between my fingers to make tiny thin rolls of putty that I thought I could fix to the end of the existing fingers and be grabbing the ball. It was far too fiddly and it was always the wrong thickness or length. I quickly gave up on that. And then the happy accident occurred.

Having failed with the putty fingers attempt, I was clearing the putty off the ball, it had all turned into a long strip. Using a modelling/shaping tool to scrape off the putty I ended up scoring perpendicular to the strip of putty which ended up removing a thing line of putty. This thin line luckily ended up being in line with an outer finger and the scored putty looked like the gap between fingers.  It just looked right. I tried the technique on the other hand. I put a thin stripe of putty across the ball touching the fingers, scored away from the hand in line with the fingers and got the fingers on the ball I wanted.

Quite please with the thumbs also.

A bit hard to see the green stuff finger ends against the green ball.

The fingers may have ended up being a tad long, but still pretty please with size, shape and how they line up with the hand of the model.

The front of the Thrower. I added a breastplate from the Orruk Brutes set. The only thing I dislike is the bare feet.

The back of the Thrower. Used shoulder pads fro m the Orruk brutes to cover his back and the Green stuff cast of the chainmail skirt. The legs are a bit bare in terms of armour but I couldn't find anything to suit the model.

Will paint some of the model and then attach the head and paint the rest.
One more Thrower and then the Troll to finish off the team.

Painted line up so far

It has been a long while since I posted anything. I have been slowly painting up the team and wanted to share where I am up to and some thoughts I had on painting in general.

First things first, I am not very good at painting. It is not part of the hobby I particularly enjoy. Because of this I tend to spend the minimum amount of time as necessary to get miniatures to the table. This time around however, I took a bit of time and even spent some time on the web to watch a few videos and to look at the best GW paint combinations to use for oranges and Orc skin.

My general method of painting is to do a light coloured base coat and then use inks and Glazes to finish off. I just find it quicker that way. This time I followed the layering method.

Photos have been taken with my phone, so I can only apologise for the poor quality and composition.

 This was the first team model I painted, a Lineman. I was really please with the way the orc skin shading and highlighting came out.  The "tiger" stripes were a bit too thick.

 The 2nd Lineman was a massive improvement on the first I felt. The stripes looked much better to me.

A Pair of Goblins for the team. I varied the areas that were painted black and orange compared to the Orcs. I also didn't give them any tiger stripes, it was more of a back ground decision. I felt that the Goblins would not have 'earned' the stripes the eyes of the Orcs.

The Goblins also gave me a chance to try a lighter skin tone.



I am really pleased with the four blizters.

Even though the Black Orcs were the first models I put together they ended up being the last to paint out of all the models I had put together.  I learnt an important lesson when trying to paint them. Most of them had face guards, or bits of amour on top of other bits of armour. When trying to paint these models I found the faces and upper body areas hard to get to with a paint brush. Obviously I painted inside and worked out, but it was still a bit fiddly. I guess I should have painted some of the model while it was still in pieces.

I have to say that I am really please with how the team have turned out so far. There are a few more touches that I need to do the models. Add transfers and numbers, base all of them etc.

I think these are the best I've painted and quite proud of them. I feel I got a little better with each model I painted. I began to notice little details in technique. The consistency of the paint, the size of brush to use, amount of paint on the brush, brush control, using the the point or the edge of the brush for different areas.

Using the layer method was also easier then I thought it would be. I think the key for me was when I realised where I wanted one layer to end and another to start. making sure each layer was visible in the right place.

I'm not an expert painter now, not even close, but I do feel a lot more confident in my own ability.

Next is to work on the throwers and then decide how I want to paint the troll.