I mentioned that the Troggoth kit comes with plenty of spare arms so I bashed out a practice piece. Here I was testing 3 things – the idea of clearly deliniating the soft and hard parts of the trolls skin with markedly different colours and hard black lining (result – a resounding yes); the purple/beige colour scheme (result- not bad, but not 100% sold); and, how to go about black lining the scales (result – some hatch marks on the underside and a few lines to deliniate the upper edges of the scales).
As I wasn’t totally sold on the purple troll I ended up making an outline of the troll that I could print lots of times and quickly colour in with felt tips. I did this by overexposing a photo and turning it to black and white, printing it, then hand drawing the black lines, scanning that back in, and overexposing that until it reached a pure line drawing.
I did a blue one too, not shown, and while I did like the original purple idea a lot, I ultimately decided to settle on the green troll. Both should fit well with the rest of the teams colour scheme so it really comes down to nothing but personal preference.
In the picture below I’ve got most of the colour blocking down on the troll (the head and hands are obviously being painted separately). The green has been particularly challenging as I’m three thin coats in and I will need to apply a fourth before I can add the lighter green highlights – the paint is Warpstone Glow and it’s very translucent.
I’ve found this is the stage where the comic book style really looks at it’s worst and there is a high risk of getting dispirited. Got to power through and trust the process and get to the black lining ASAP. In the meantime, to keep up the excitement, remind me what I’m aiming for and keep my ink lining skills sharp I finished the base for the troll, a much easier job that gives me a bit of a completionist boost.
The base follows the same formula I came up with for the test skaven. I built it with plasticard and a suitable grim dark skull and bone from my bits box. The colours for the base are mixed as follows:
- Dark Grey = 1 part Goblin Green, 5 parts Mechanicus Standard Grey, 1 part Wraithbone
- Light Grey = 1 part Goblin Green, 6 parts Administratum Grey
- Dark Bone = 1 part Wraithbone, 1 part Tallarn Flesh, 1 part Goblin Green
- Light Bone = Wraithbone
Doing the ink black lining on this base totally reminded me of how fun the process is, what a pleasure it is to use very high quality artists ink, and how it really brings the otherwise mediocre looking paint job together, so with that as carrot I powered through with the rest of the troll, highlighting the green and painting in all the details. Now I’m ready for black lining, a process I’ll cover in part 3…
