The season of the pigskin! (Dwarf team for Blood Bowl)

Sooo... following the kind and sagely advice of Harry, I've decided to show what's been going on at Casa Pouchon. I've decided to take a break from the Nurgle project, where everything has to be painstakingly converted before it can be painted - I just wanted to paint something that didn't require lots of preparation for a change.
So I started work on the Bright College team. Since this is mostly Dwarfs, I decided to make it a dwarf team with a few add-ons.
For a colour scheme, I decided to convert the original kit of Dungeonbowl's Bright Axes to my needs (since that's the inspiration behind the project). Not sure if I'm really happy with the result, but it's too late to go back now.

Here's the Troll Salyers and some Linemen:


the rest of the Linemen:


and the still unpainted and unprepared rest of the project:


What do you guys think?

Re: Must be the season of the pigskin!

Looking good - nice colour scheme

I'm intrigued as to what is to become of the minotaur head?

Re: Must be the season of the pigskin!

Yay ... don't know what you are worrying about. Nothing to be down about there.
Great scheme/theme for the team. Nice selection of models to make the team special and unique ... (I love those ol' Marauder slayers) ... and nicely painted.
The paint has all gone where you wanted it. You are only a couple of steps away from where I am with my stuff ... honest.

Are you starting with a white undercoat or a black undercoat?

Thantsants":7z0vzwje said:

Looking good - nice colour scheme

I'm intrigued as to what is to become of the minotaur head?

Click to expand...

It is clearly going to sit at the feet of the Dwarf with the chainsaw.

Re: Must be the season of the pigskin!

Thanks for the kind words!
I'm always going from a very light white undercoat, applied so thin that it just takes the shine off the mini.
I'm struggling with metallic colours. Case in point: the pauldrons on these dwarfs: I was going for a metallic red by applying a red wash over a flat gold surface. Re-undercoated the areas black to achieve a nice metallic glow, found out it was really hard to achieve an even coat of gold without caking the mini. Thinning down the metallic colour made the black come through, though. I've recently watched a video where someone was painting thinned-down gold over an ochre undercoat, will try that on the next batch.

As for the minotaur head: no, it won't be an actual severed head. It's going to be part of the "deathroller" which in this case will be re-invented as a "bull-dozer" (ba-dum-pssh). The main part is the chassis of the Epic Gibletgrinda; I've already cut away most of the puny roller that comes with this engine, leaving only the sides as 'wheels'. The minotaur head fits snugly into the resulting gap. Twist the horns to point menacingly forward, add some spikes to jut out of its nostrils - hey presto, business end of the killdozer all done. The trusty dremel has already hollowed out part of the chassis for the driver to fit into, now all I have to do is to decide how to fill in the hind part of the dozer - maybe some sort of gussied-up boiler with exhaust pipes, maybe some sort of roll hoop made out of brass rods.

Re: Must be the season of the pigskin!

I think the team is looking great Ti. The Bulldozer is an awesome idea, so obvious really but not one i have seen before. Full of good old Blood Bowl humor.

All these Blood Bowl posts are going to get me to pull out the cases of miniatures and distract me from painting up my Orc army. I AM going to have to post something now. Only problem is I haven't painted any BB stuff in ages.

Re: Must be the season of the pigskin!

Yeah I'm getting tempted too...

Ah too manu projects so little time!

Love the Bull-dozer idea and clever use of the Gibletgrinder. I reckon you'd have to have a steak pie dispenser and oven in amongst the boiler and exhaust pipes on the back of it

Re: Must be the season of the pigskin!

LOL me too.
I finished up another team this week having not touched Blood Bowl for months.
I will get some pictures at the weekend. I never get home in daylight during the week.

As for the Gold .... You need to work your way up through the metalics .... Black undercoat ... Tin bitz .... Dwarf Bronze ... Shinning Gold ..... Burnished Gold. Its a total pain in the arse but it gives wonderful rich Gold. Obviously thin the paint or four coats of metalic paint will destroy any detail ... and don't worry about the coverage. The colour will build. Final touch .... thin wash of chesnut ink. Bugger to find since they discontinued but it gives it a lovely glow.

Re: Must be the season of the pigskin! (dorf update)

Thanks again to the kind and supportive oldhammerers who have shown interest in Oldbowl! You've persuaded me to continue working on the Dwarf/Blood Axes team. Now, since I can't turn naked lead into painted lead with the snap of a finger like some other people on this forum, I'm using this thread to show step-by-step progress and work methods. (well, at least until people start calling "booooring" on it, then I'll stop).
This will also give y'all occasion to shout "you're doing it wrong!" as soon as you see me doing something stupid.

The Plan:
Assemble and paint a complete Dwarf team with enough additions to field it as a Dungeonbowl/Colleges of Magic team of the Bright College.
These are the minis which have to be done:

1 Head Coach (Turn marker)
1 Banner Bearer (ReRoll counter)
1 Cheerleader (Score marker)
1 Apothecary
1 Team Wizard

2 Blitzers
2 Runners
2 Trollslayers (already done, hooray!)
6 Linemen (already done, hooray!)
4 Human Blitzers
2 Norse Linemen

1 Dwarf /w chainsaw
1 Dwarf /w bazooka
1 Deathroller

Total: 26 minis

Let's get started then...

I grabbed all dorfs out of the pile which don't need any further assembly or conversion work, cleaned the mould lines and flash off them and put them in a bowl of water /w a dash of dish soap. Some brushing with the ol' toothbrush and they were ready for the bases. Well, almost. Some of the tabs had to be cut down so I don't end up with wobblies, while some tabs required a little bending and twisting to make sure everyone stands up straight.


Here they are with a thin undercoat of white. I usually work on batches of 4 - 8 minis: any more and it starts to feel like drudgery, any less and I feel that mixing up special colour shades becomes a waste.
In the foreground is one of the one-use-and-discard mixing/painting pots I use. It's actually part of the wrapping tray of a special kind of chocolates called "Toffifee". Since the chocolates are hemispherical, the compartments make great mixing pots for small amounts of paint.

Re: Must be the season of the pigskin! (dorf update)

Thats a nice batch ... plenty of variety.

I work in a slightly different way.
I will probably get the whole lot based then paint some of the main parts of the models for the entire lot as one batch!
Then as I get to the details and slow down a bit I will work in smaller batches.

It's great at first .... getting paint on lots of models ... feels like a lot of progress.

The Bull dozer idea is brilliant .... can't wait to see that.

Re: Must be the season of the pigskin! (dorf update)

The bull-dozer was on its way to the work table when the Missus came in and suggested watching an informative documentary and having some "Blindekuh" (blind man's buff) cocktails instead. I got out of the cocktail part but still ended up watching web TV instead of assembling the 'dozer.
Working on more than 20 minis at once would have me in fits! You, sir, are the better man.

Re: Must be the season of the pigskin! (dorf update)

Alright... I reckon it's reckonin' time!


STEP 2: Skin. I always try to paint areas from "lowest to highest"; that way, I don't have to be super-duper tidy because when I make the inevitable mistake, it's bound to be on some "higher" area which will get overpainted anyway. Lowest area is always skin; nothing too serious with these dorfs - a quick shade and highlight over a base coat and done.


STEP 3: fiery orange. The largest area on almost all the minis in the team, so it's the next step. Base is a very deep orangey red...


...which gets highlighted over several stages to Golden Yellow.


STEP 4: reds. Have to wait for the wash to dry before I can apply the highlights.

To do:

STEP 5: beards/hair
STEP 6: metallics
STEP 7: all the rest and touch-ups
STEP 8: faces
STEP 9: bases
STEP 10: varnish and rejoice

Mmmm ... keeping up the pressure hey?

Great progress ... batch paining for the win!

All I got done on mine today was a base coat on the flesh.

Harry":1xvjxl32 said:

Mmmm ... keeping up the pressure hey?

Click to expand...

Look who's talking... 'twasn't me who set the pace to 'grueling' by starting on ALL the remaining minis all at once and getting them half-way done in a single day.

If I don't finish this batch AND get started on another one before you finish your ginormous group, I might as well concede defeat right away. And I'm quickly running out of players that can just be cleaned and based right out of the box. Why o why can't I refrain from cutting up my minis before painting them? I just end up with broken unpainted lead.

Looking good Ti - keep it up!

I am amused by the different elements that turn up in the background of the photos

You are flying ahead Ti, making excellent progress there

Is it wrong of me to want more Dwarf cheerleaders... oh err..

I thought that about the Goblin ones...

ever onward:


Reds have been highlighted, beards have been painted; hair too. All in the same simple colour with a simple highlight. Unrealistic that they all (including the cheerleader) have the same hair colour? In a game where the dead rise from their graves to play football against sentient frogs from outer space, I don't give a rotten fig about realism. Limiting the palette helps tie the minis together as a team, or so I think.
Also, the metallic areas have been given a new ochre undercoat


And the gold paints up nicely over that! Nice metallic sheen without any other colour peeking through.


Now the metallic areas have been given a red glaze. Still not entirely satisfied with the result, but it's looking better than on the linemen.

From now on, the rest is small details, touching up mistakes, faces and other fiddly stuff. I'm afraid that won't show in this kind of pics, so I guess the next time you see these guys is when they're all finished.

Nice jorb, Ti! Writing more stuff cause I need to!

Ta Daah! Jorb's a good 'un: