Trollbloods in black. Highlighting, Drybrushing and the Tartan

  This morning started off strong with a solid cup of coffee and a fresh air tank.  If you hadn't seen below, I'd picked black/dark dark batman brick grey as my Trollblood base, with highlights of blue.  The main tartan will be St. Andrews, with variations.  I'll probably mix in some other tartans as well, trying to portray the idea of multiple kriels uniting under the same flag.  I also got away from the Desert terrain with these guys and am looking for a Scottish Highland look.  Lots of whitewashed rocks and tufts of wild grass.  So, let's take a look.

  I started with sealing my Axer.

  First off, I like how this turned out.  I think I pushed the highlights too hard on the armor, but was pleasantly happy with the Tartan, skin tones, and the base.  I actually used the P3 Armor wash on the armor, and it turned out pretty dark, which I like, but I still overdid the highlights.  The base is just cobbled together tree bark with Army Painter grass tufts, and extensive white drybrushing.  The Warpaint is something my wife started with our Nyss, and I carried it over to my Trolls.  The Tartan is a bit more subdued than I like, but I think eMadrak pulls it off better.  I mixed tones of blue too similar to eachother, and just really can't see the differences.

  I haven't decided if I like this sculpt yet or not.  It's a lot of armor for a trollblood caster, but it's ok I guess.  I did like the Warpaint here as well, and I think my tartan was considerably more successful.  I went straight out of the Vallejo Game Color bottles, using Electric Blue, Magic Blue, and Night Blue, and of course, Dead White.  This turned out considerably better than the Axer, and I really liked it. 

  Drumroll, please

  

  I wasn't planning on doing the Earthborn yet.  This model came painted, and I hated to prime it, but the Earthborn was a model I was looking forward to painting.  I kind of just cut loose on it, and absolutely loved it.

  So, let's hit the Tartan first.  On the Axer, I painted his cloth, highlighted it, then tartaned it, which completely destroyed the highlight...  So yeah.  The cloth here is painted a 1:1 Magic Blue/Electric Blue mix.  Then I did a crosshatch of Electric Blue.

  Then I stuck of dot of Night Blue in the middle of every square.

  Now a real thin white line through the middle of every Night Blue dot.  I worked my Army Painter "Insane Detail" brush to death on this.  I'll be using it a lot on these trollbloods.  I love my Master's Touch brushes, but that Insane Detail brush is awesome for tiny lines.

  Highlighting.  It was really easy.  This is basically the part where I brag about my Airbrush.  I highlighted 60pts of Trolls today in a half hour.

  Straight base color (Probably 1:2, 1:3 black grey).  Airbrushed 1:1 mix from above.

  Catches all those muscles, folds, everything.  Mixing up another one.  2:1 grey black.  Keep the brush farther away, lighter spray, just catch the tops.

  And tada!  After all this, my Earthborn was sitting here:

  

  I love this model.  Very aggressive, very detailed.  I'm not one that normally likes metal sculpts.  I hate most of Cygnar's (Except the Centurion), and the light trollblood sculpts are silly.  I have a Pyre troll now that's smaller than my Kithkar.  I do, however, love this sculpt.  Here, it's highlighted, and based by it's previous owner.  I'm going to leave the skintone pretty well alone, and focus on everything else.

  I have an old GW brush that I beat the heck out of today drybrushing.  My goal is to essentially look like like this guy came from the white cliffs of Dover.  I also painted the loincloth.  I thought about the tartan, and I might still go back over it at some point, but a rough brown leather cloth seemed more in line for this guy today.  

  Now I drybrush straight white.  I did my rocks below too, leaving the grass as much as I could.  

  

  Then I washed it with a black wash I made awhile back.  Mainly just trying to get into the recesses in the rocks and really outline them.  One more quick drybrush of white focusing on where the light is going to hit more, and we're done.  I came back through with Magic blue to add the warpaint, which I really feel added a lot to this model, and sealed it.

  That's all I've got for today.  My painting desk is still full, but the work week starts again for me tomorrow, and if I want to get these guys down to the shop Saturday for the league, I gotta figure out a way to pack them.  Look for more regular updates from here now that we're through the rough side of winter.