Painting the Black Orc Team's Trained Troll

The Blood Bowl Troll model has a bit of a weird pose. You can see the sprue and assembly instructions here. I did some minor adjustments to the model, as can be seen here.

Due to my laptop breaking down, some of my previous posts were done with new pictures, rather than the ones I already had. So, this may seem a bit out of sequence but I will attempt to walk you through it. For example, you may have already seen the guys below painted. Here is the priming stage. 

Blood Bowl Black Orc Team work in process painting priming with airbrush

I wanted to practice using the air brush on this team so started with giving them a prime and zenithtal highlight. I tried applying some Talassar blue contrast paint for the skin with the airbrush but I wasn’t impressed with the results so did a couple with a brush. 

After coming to the revelation that I do not have any green Greenskins, I decided to backtrack and do this team green with a colour scheme relatively close to the box art. You can see a bit further progress in this previous post with a test model and established colour scheme, (sorry for the jumbled order). 


Blood Bowl Troll Work in progress Painting back view


With the colour scheme established, I painted in the armour and cloth on the troll to see what it would look like and help decide on which skin colour to use. I painted the armour pieces black and the white cloth being painted Ulthuan grey. I did try mixing in a little drop of apothecary white contrast paint to help with smoothing things out and help with coverage and had quite good results. I decided to go for a similar skin tone on my troll as the official painting guide. 


Blood Bowl Troll Work in progress Painting front view


I mixed up some different greens I had to get something like the hue they used. I had some Elysian green and a hobby paint that was close but a bit more yellow and brighter. I mixed them and airbrushed the troll, then mixed a paler colour for the stomach and face. I then spotted that some of the joint lines were gaping open. To try to fill them I brushed on some gloss varnish. I was a bit heavy handed but it doesn’t show if you aren’t looking for it, yet some how I didn’t manage to sort the foot out entirely but it’s too late now and you shouldn’t see it in play. 

I applied some Ork flesh contrast paint to each scale. When I was giving them a bit of a dry brush I brought the colour difference too far towards white. So, I loaded up the airbrush and tried to hide the gloss patches and applied a filter of the original green skin colour over the scale and the highlights and it tied them back in with the model. Then I gave it all a wash of thraka green to shade things a bit.


Blood Bowl Troll Work in progress Painting right side


I liked how easy it was to apply a filter using the airbrush but of course, this makes it difficult to be accurate. I don’t see how I would be able to do anything more than one colour or something blended like I did on the stone trolls. I have massive overspray or the colour isn’t covering up to the edge where the paint needs to go. I've seen people talk about using a card as masking but that doesn’t seem like a practical or feasible solution for doing for a full model. I don’t know how much is me or what is down to the quality of my airbrush. I'll keep practicing. 


Blood Bowl Troll Work in progress Painting left side


I went over the cloths and armour again and picked out the remaining details. I painted the knee pad helmet in the colour scheme of the Bad Bay Hackers (green and yellow) as that’s my plan for my human team. The wooden sign I painted with Dark Wood speed paint. I wanted it to look like both the sign and the helmet had been sloppily painted over by a green skin, roughly painting them in team colours to match their team kit. 


Blood Bowl Troll Painted Right side


I realised that I didn’t write down the recipes for the test model, probably thinking it was just a test and then thinking it wasn’t a complicated recipe and I would remember it. Not sure what I did to the wash but I had to redo the white cloth a couple of times because it didn’t look right. I think I managed to get something passable, although I still prefer the test model. On the troll I used 1 part gryphon sepia wash to 2 parts contrast medium, I might try bringing that to 3 parts when painting the rest of the team.


Blood Bowl Troll Painted Back view


I don’t know what I did for the basing either! I remember testing different things, adding to it and tweaking to get it how I wanted it, not expecting the long timespan before doing the other models. I didn’t manage to recreate the original base but replicated the testing and tweaking process and got something close enough. I did all the remaining team at the same time so I wouldn’t run in to the same problem again. 

It was some mix of browns, a tiny bit of dark wood speedpaint and a bit of Magmadroth flame contrast. It was a little too orange at first, so I dulled it down with Iyanden Yellow contrast, then dry brushed a bit of beige brown on top to calm everything down again. 


Blood Bowl Troll Painted Front view


I still need to add the decorations on the armour. Triangles seem the easiest option but I'm wondering if I should challenge myself and attempt some checkered patterns. Don’t know if I should do the highlighting on the black before or after. We'll see. 





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