Yet another troll, and a weird magic lady

 This week, I had a go at a couple of nice fantasy miniatures. First up is another troll, based on the Warhammer Stone Troggoths kit. Because you don't get enough legs, I used a cheap Reaper Bones troll to provide some legs, and then trimmed them and sculpted over them to fit the look I was going for. This terrible picture shows how much of the troll is GW's.

Because the Reaper legs are very rubbery, I added a resin barrel for extra support, pinned to his bum.

And here he is with paint. I really like these models. They've got lots of good details and great facial expressions. This guy looks both dim and suspicious, as if he thinks that something is up, but can't work out what.

And now for another weird model. Privateer Press have made some bad miniatures (mainly a long time ago), some great ones and quite a lot that I don't really find very interesting. One of their factions is the Grymkin, which seem to be Halloween-based and leave me very cold (as does most of Halloween).

However, I saw a few of their models in a sale, and one of them was this: Lady Karianna Rose, who seems to be a wizardly type who looks after a mob of small imp-like creatures. I thought it was a terrific model, full of detail, and immediately bought it.

I don't think I've painted such a lot of fiddly detail for a long time. She's an excellent sculpt but tricky to paint properly, and guaranteed to chip. I quickly took a picture before the paint fell off. It's quite hard to make out all the details, but basically she's wearing battered clothes and holding one imp while two others tug at her skirts.

It's nice to paint a model that I particularly like, and to try to do a good job of it, even if it doesn't photograph very well. 

This Week's Monsters

 This week, I relaxed by not painting any tiny checks on any metal Eldar. I had some time off work, so I was able to sit down and finish a few models that I'd had lying about and to tidy up an old conversion.

First off is a troll. I love the look of Games Workshop's trolls, who have a nice sense of cartoony, dim-witted menace. It's a shame there isn't a purely-troll army, as I'd be tempted to make one. Unfortunately, you need about six million goblins, and I'm not as keen on the goblin models.

Anyhow, this guy has the upper body of a GW Rockgut Troggoth (aka a stone troll). You get six upper bodies in the standard set, all of which are very good, but only three pairs of legs. This strikes me as a great waste, so I built the lower legs of this troll out of a Reaper Bones troll (a much worse model), which I sculpted over with DAS clay and green stuff. 

I've done this conversion before: for a better guide, click HERE

Here's a WIP - the black bits are standard GW.

And here's the finished troll. I love all the details on this model, especially the baby bird reaching for a worm that's dangling off the rock he's about to throw. Presumably he's been wearing a nest as a hat. Painting the rock was difficult - is that quartz? - but satisfying.

Then I repainted a model that I made ages ago, as part of a 40k inquisitorial warband. He's a somewhat cartoony demon. His arms and lower body came from tyranid bits; the upper body is an old Dark Eldar part, and the head is a kroot head with a face from a snotling. He looks suitably silly, and a bit sinister. I would not buy a used car from this guy.

Third is a simple plastic beastman from the old days. You used to be able to buy a set of ten identical beastmen to bulk out units. He's not an amazing model, to be honest: perfectly serviceable but to my mind lacking the detail of newer miniatures or the charm of older ones. I think he looks more sinister with a bare human-style chest.

And finally, I ordered some squig faces off ebay, on the grounds that they might come in "useful" somehow (I mean, squigs are basically balls of clay with faces, right?). One of them looked a lot like a deep-sea angler fish, so I sculpted him a body and some fins.

And then painted him to look like something surfacing in the port, much to the disgust of everyone.

Troll 2 - the Conversioning

 Back to the trolls! The Rockgut Troggoth kit is great, but it comes with a weird variety of bits. You get nine heads, six upper bodies, three necks and three lower bodies/legs. Inevitably, you end up with a lot of bits legs over. I wondered if I couldn't sculpt some bits to make an additional troll to join the "official" Warhammer ones (I'll call it a troggoth here, for clarity).

This is one of the lower body parts. They're all very similar.

I wasn't going to be able to sculpt something like this from scratch (if at all). I needed something to base the conversion around. I found this model in the bits box. Ironically, it's another troll, from the Reaper Bones range. It's much smaller than the Warhammer trolls, and like a lot of Bones miniatures, it's not a great model. However, its legs were about the right size, even though the feet were much too small.

So, I took a deep breath and hacked off its head and arms, and cut the upper body down into a cone that would fit into the upper body of the AoS troll.

I then sculpted over the mangled troll with DAS clay to make a suitable belly for the troggoth. I made this, which looks like an egg on legs. The blue pen marks show where the cone would meet the plastic troggoth upper body.

As you can see, I sculpted the new body a loincloth and some suitably huge clawed feet with green stuff. They're both pretty rough. I did a bit more sculpting. I covered the DAS clay with a thinned-down layer of PVA glue to seal it a bit.

The next problem was that I needed a neck for the troggoth. I found a piece of blue casting clay (it's called something like Onymatsu) and used it to make a cast from green stuff. This stuff doesn't hold fine detail all that well, but I waited for the green stuff to dry and carved it with a knife to get a suitably bumpy neck. You can see the ridges on the example on the right below.

The neck was added to the plastic body and the joins hidden with watered-down DAS clay. I chose this particular body because it was holding its weapon across its stomach, which would hide some of my ropey work.

Then it was time to assemble the entire thing, give it a head, and paint it.

One thing I'd not factored in is that the Reaper Bones models are made from some kind of bendy plastic. The weight of the troggoth threatened to bend the Reaper legs. I cut up some cork and a model column, and stuck it to the base to give the model some more support. The rocks touch his ankles and loincloth, and strengthen it all a bit.

And there he is! Was it worth all the effort? Well, sort of. It was a fun project and I'm pleased with the end result. At close inspection, his feet are much worse than the Warhammer once, but he'll pass a quick look, and it's nice to get to use the extra body. It was a lot of work, so I don't know if I'll do it again (I'd have to get another Reaper troll to hack up, for one thing). But I'm happy.

Troll Number One

 Having been ill, and having saved a few train fares from not going to work, I thought I was entitled to a present. So, I splashed out on some Warhammer trolls - or, as they say in Age of Sigmar, Rockgut Troggoths. 

These are lovely models. You get three lower bodies, three necks, six upper bodies and nine heads. All are really well sculpted, and have a dim, goofy menace that I really like. They've got loads of great details. One of the bodies has a bag of rocks on his hip, for throwing or eating. Another is about to hurl a chunk of a dwarven statue. My favourite detail, though, is the troll head which is wearing a bird's nest as a hat. If you use the right head with the right set of arms, the birds can be just about to eat a worm dangling off the rock that the troll is about to chuck. Brilliant.

Anyhow, I assembled one of the trolls without any conversion. He was a real pleasure to paint. I've not put him on his final base, as I ordered some textured ones and they've not arrived yet. Here he is.

Mordheim/Frostgrave Odds And Ends

 A few more random Mordheim/Frostgrave bits and bobs. I decided to paint some of the old stuff knocking around in various boxes. None of it filled me with wild enthusiasm, but I thought it might be the kind of thing that proves useful in fantasy games.

First we've got a couple of piles of bones. I bought a plastic troll off ebay recently: it was from an old  Warhammer boxed set called Battle of Skull Valley or the like, and the seller sent me a few extra bits with it. They included two bone piles. I assume they're some kind of objective markers. The skulls would seem to be from trolls, as they're the right shape and size. I accidentally spilled some glue into one of the eye sockets, so I painted it to look like an eyeball. They're not very exciting, but I like the models and I'm quite pleased with the painting.

Next up on this thrilling tour of the underworld are four plastic rats. They came with a truly ancient plastic set of swarms, in which you got snotlings, rats, bats and spiders. I cut them off their lumpy bases and stuck them onto some Renedra bases, which make them fit with my skaven. They're not amazing miniatures, but they'll do the job. Their skin was painted in the red undercoat style, for maximum unwholesomeness.

The quality now gets worse, because we're in Reaper Bones territory. The rest of the models came with the first ever Bones Kickstarter, so feel free to look away now. I painted two piles of spiders (lovely) and two giant spiders. Frankly, the spiders look as if they fell out of a Christmas cracker, but what the heck. I did what I could. Actually, I probably could have done more, but it's hard to be inspired by models you don't like.

That's it for now. I've got some more skaven to paint, some human adventurers, and a pair of bonkers vehicles, which will be fun. 

Troll Wizard

 Happy new year! Let's hope this one is better than the last.

For my first miniature of the year, I took out a conversion that I'd had lying around for ages, and got to work on finishing it.

Years back, I got a Mantic zombie troll necromancer as part of a kickstarter. The original model looks like this:

I'd tried to paint it several years ago, but I'd not been happy with the results. I thought I'd try to paint this creature as a normal troll, to go with my family of big blue monsters.

First, I filed down some of the more ragged wounds and filled them with DAS clay.

Then I added an old head from a GW river troll that I had lying around, and used green stuff to make a nose for it. It's a cool head, with teeth like a bear trap.

Then I painted it. Maybe I should lighten the skin on the face, especially the nose.

I really like this guy! I think he fits well with the rest of the trolls. He's probably the brains of the group (comparatively). I imagine that he can do some primitive magic, tapping into whatever crude power the troll gods provide (it probably involves farting).

Here are the others:

Throgg (again)

Yesterday I posted a new post about making a model of Warhammer's Throgg the Troll King from a plastic Age of Sigmar Khorgorath. For some odd reason, Blogger decided to post it later down the blog instead of at the top. So, here's a link to the actual post: The Throgg Conversion

And here's a couple of pictures of the result:

Throgg the Troll King

 Throgg the Troll King is a character from the old Warhammer Chaos army. I think he got killed off in the Age of Sigmar reforms/purges, but he still appears in the Total War game. Basically, he's a huge troll with delusions of nobility. In the old rules, he enabled you to take an army based around trolls: probably not very effective, but a lot of fun. I thought I'd have a go at making my own version.

My version wouldn't be terribly exact - he'd look more like an orcs and goblins troll rather than the more warped chaos version, and he'd probably be pretty chunky. So, as the basis for Throgg, I would need a large, solid model that would give space for sufficient conversion. I went for the Age of Sigmar Khorgorath.

I think with Games Workshop these days, there are generally no really bad sculpts, but some pretty weak ideas. The Khorgorath gets close to being a weak sculpt, and is a really bad idea. It's just a mess: a great big lumpy body that looks almost too chunky to move, with a load of weird and wonky details on top. Strange snake/pincer/vertebrae things are rising from its back. There are skulls apparently pushing their way out of its kneecaps (why?). It looks like a lot of slightly half-cocked ideas put together because they seemed cool.

Huh?

So the first thing was to use thinned down DAS clay to cover most of this nonsense up. The big khorne symbol on its chest went too, as did the head and hands. The hooves (again, weird hooves) were cut off too. Eventually, what I had was a smoothed-down version of the original without, er, extremities.

The hands came from leftover giant parts that I bought on ebay. I shortened the giant's club somewhat, and stuck a brazier from a scenery piece on top. I painted the brazier as full of rocks, to function as Throgg's "sceptre".

Then I took a deep breath, and started sculpting him a new head and feet. I sculpted the feet on bits of paper.

Yes, that's his face: a ball of DAS clay with a frown drawn on it. I only did this to get the rough idea of where his features would go. Then I started sculpting a face. I'm not very good at this, but thankfully, trolls are fundamentally ugly. I did this over several days, allowing the green stuff to dry overnight. Then I stuck a little metal crown on his head. I bought it at a steampunk event about ten years ago. Goodness knows why.

I stuck the feet, the hands and the club onto his body, along with a couple of spikes on his right shoulder.

Then I added his head, sculpted some ears and painted him. I happened to have an old cloak from a chaos chariot in my bits box (thanks James) and I added that to his right shoulder to give Throgg a suitably "regal" appearance. The cloak is meant to look as if it's tied to the spikes jutting out of his body.

Here he is:

And here is Throgg with his subjects!

Troll Number Four and a Black Scorpion Scholar

 I suspect some projects never end. I thought I'd finished my group of trolls when I painted the third of them a few weeks back, but soon enough I found myself buying another one from Ebay. This one is the plastic model that came with the Battle of Skull Pass Fantasy Battle set many years ago. He's got slightly different features to the others, but I expect that trolls are pretty accepting of anything they can't eat, so he'll fit in fine. Here he is, unconverted, about to lob a huge lump of masonry at anyone he dislikes.

Some of the detail on the model was a little soft, but I'm pleased with the shading on his face and arms.

Next up, I've finally got around to painting one of the Black Scorpion pirate models that I bought at least five years ago. Black Scorpion made some excellent miniatures, and this guy is a great sculpt. He seems to be some kind of scholar or navigator, with his piles of books and similar paraphenalia. I think he could make a good wizardly character for Frostgrave or the like. 

The shading on resin models comes out a bit harsh sometimes, perhaps because the edges are sharp, but I like him a lot. 

Anyhow, I've got plans for the next troll in the horde, which will involve converting what I consider to be one of the worst models of the last ten years. Should be fun!

A Pack of Trolls

 Just a quick post. I dug up an old metal troll that a friend gave me and repainted him. Here he is:

He fits in with his larger brethren to complete the gang of trolls.

A while back, I bought Hardwired, a single-player cyberpunk skirmish game by Patrick Todoroff. It was a little rough around the edges but a lot of fun. I've just got hold of his fantasy game, Nightwatch, and I might well give that a try soon. It uses a variety of increasingly large monsters, and I think the trolls could be quite good as mid-level baddies.

Troll!

I've always liked trolls. I'm not quite sure why, but I think it's the mixture of comical gawkiness and crude brutality. People might laugh at trolls, but I reckon they'd do it from a safe distance. Ages ago, I somehow ended up with an undead Mantic undead troll. I liked the shape of the model, but I thought he'd look better alive. 

First, I removed his existing, rather orc-like head and replaced it with a head from the recent GW trolls (or whatever they call then now). I then spent quite a lot of time filling up the various rotting holes on the model with green stuff and DAS clay. 

After that, it was just a matter of giving him a suitable paint job. I went for the same blue and grey colours that I'd used on an earlier metal troll, in imitation of the old GW stone trolls. I quite like the main body of the miniature but, as often happens, the really nice new head makes up for whatever errors there are in the sculpting of the body. 

All ready to bash his enemies with his favourite lump of stone!