Dire Troll Mauler + Runeshapers

So, I do a lot of wheeling and dealing for minis on Bartertown and /r/MiniSwap. One of the excellent trades I made not too long ago were for a lot of Trollbloods. The guy stated that he felt they were well painted, and if you've spent a lot of time doing Minis painting, you'll know that that could mean anything from "actually well painted" to "I drank a display rack of Vallejo Game Color and took a shit on these models."

Fortunately for me, these were actually very well painted, and were in an alternate scheme of a light blue grey with yellow accents. I got a pretty good assortment of models, but like any power mad Hordes player, I knew that I had to get all the items I still required to play Runes of War at Tier 4 for great success.

I ordered 4 units of Runeshapers in the new plastics and a Dire Troll Mauler to complete the list out of what other models I had. Here is the first batch of Runeshapers and the Mauler.

I had an absolute blast painting the mauler. Seriously, this was one of the most fun models I've painted in quite some time. I can't really put my finger on why that is just yet, but i'm not going to over analyze it. 

I began by priming him black with duplicolor sandable spray primer, mostly because I was too lazy to drag out the airbrush. 

After that dried, I did a heavy drybrush of VGC Sombre Grey, making sure to leave the recesses black. After that, I did a drybrushing of VGC Wolf Grey to establish the skin color. 

The leather on the model was GW XV-88 washed with GW Agrax Earthshade, and the loincloth was GW Death World Forest drybrushed with GW Nurgling Green (which is one of my most favorite color combos ever). 

The brass was VGC Brassy Brass, washed with GW Agrax Earthshade, and the silvers were GW Leadbelcher. 

The tongue, gums, and mouth were GW Daemonette Hide with a wash of GW Druchii Violet. The teeth were basecoated GW XV-88, then I layered VGC Bonewhite onto them. The eyes were done by painting the entire socket Reaper Pure Black, then using GW Troll Slayer Orange (ironic, perhaps?) for the eyeballs themselves.

For the nails, rocky protrusions, and "hair," I basecoated GW Scorched Brown and highlighted with GW Averland Sunset.

The base is yellow/gray milliput that my lovely wife helped me scuplt into the mounds like the above. This was something that the fellow that I got the original trolls from had done for all his bases, and I thought it was kind of neat, so I wanted to continue it for the entire army. 

I was very proud of how this turned out for the investment in time that I made. From start to finish, it probably took me about 90 minutes to paint him. There were a lot of things that I could have done better. One of the glaring issues that this model has is a smsll gap in the mold on his back, that only gets super accentuated when you drybrush. I will be going back and using liquid green stuff to fix that, then repair the area. I also didn't spend as much time as I probably should have on the protrusions on the shoulders that were really large - I probably could have went another shade lighter on the big rocks, and instead of doing a layered blend on each individual "hair" along the head and back, I got lazy and drybrushed it. 

Now for the Runeshapers!

Again, these were super fun to paint. I started off the same was as the mauler, with black primer and the duo of VGC greys for the skin, and the brown/yellow combo above for the rocky protrusions and "hair."

The Cloth is basecoated GW Mordian Blue and drybrushed GW Ice Blue as a highlight. My plan is to differentiate all 4 squads by painting their cloth different colors. The leather bag and the straps on the gauntlets are as above on the dire troll.

For the runestones, I basecoated VGC stonewall grey, washed with a 1:1 mix of water and VMC Transparent Green, then after it dried, I lightly drybrushed with GW Skull White.

The brassy metallics are VGC Brassy Brass, and GW Leadbelcher. For the armor pieces, I washed GW Leadbelcher with VGC Smokey Ink, which is an amazingly versatile product. You can use it in varying thinness to do a variety of things, here I thinned it about 2:1 water:paint and used it to make the actual armor have a nice warm patina.

The gemstones on the armor as well as the bases are basecoated GW Warpstone Glow and then highlighted with GW Moot Green. Front arcs are painted with GW Averland Sunset.

Again, I was pleased with these, but felt like there were a few more areas that I could have improved. The runestones look pretty good for tabletop, but I have yet to find a good way to paint a "glow" effect. I'm satisfied with this for now, but I need to experiment more and figure it out, there are so many glowing runes on the trolls. Another disappointing thing was that the plastic runeshapers had some pretty noticeable mold lines on the face that went right through the rocky bits on the chin. It was very difficult to trim these/file these without losing a lot of face detail. You can see one pretty plainly on the fellow with the warhammer and his hand stretched out to the side. I've got 3 more sets of these fellas to paint though, I'll be extra diligent on the next ones.

Next up on my painting table is Epic Borka on his sweet Bear Mount, and possibly a Dire Troll Bomber? I've got a lot of Trolls to paint, but I will endeavor to power through the Turkey coma that will surely come this week and have something to show you guys next week.