Introducing The Tlanxla Titans

It's been a while since I've introduced a new Blood Bowl team. These chaps got purchased when GW did a limited run recast of some of the old third edition sculpts. Sadly I am not going to be the one getting these guys on the pitch, fortunately a friend of mine is borrowing them for a league he's in and they will be facing off against a rather intimidating Human team.

So how did I get these chaps from primed to finished in just 3 days?
I'm glad you read that sentence; here we go:

Prime with Stynylrez Black:

Generous zenithal of Minitaire Dark Green
Selective zenithal of Minitaire Fresh Grass
- Minitaire paints have a gloss finish... don't freak out - the matte varnish will fix everything!

The next few stages are a bit out of order. Normally the shitty bases I do for my Blood Bowl minis come at or near the end of my painting however I needed to have these guys playable for my friend's game so I knew I needed to get the bases done early with the numbers for game play and also glue the flock to give it time to dry before varnishing if I got that far.

I've said before that I hate the basing scheme I have for Blood Bowl. I started with it back when it was by far the best basing I'd ever done and I really feel like I should keep all my teams consistent. For those that want to reproduce the effect, please seek psychiatric help or post a comment for suggestions on better options. These bases are:

Army Painter Fur Brown (In lieu of the old GW Snakebite leather), laid down pretty thick to help fill the slottabase. It doesn't have to be even as the flock will mask many sins.
P3 Thamar Black (In lieu of the old GW Chaos Black), thinned and rimming the bases in two layers.
Tree Fella's Light Grey (or any light grey) as a strip front and back to help lay down an opaque white background for the numbering.
Army Painter Matt White (In lieu of the old GW Skull White) over the light grey.
P3 Thamar Black thinned for the numbering.

For flocking I use undiluted PVA applied liberally and then dunked in some of the GW Flock mix that I horde jealously for these figures. Leave it overnight and brush off the excess in the morning.

AK Interactive WW1 British Uniform Shadow on bone/gold areas
The bone, claws, rope, leather and Gold areas were all base coated with AK Interactive WW1 British Uniform Shadow... a super exciting name for great dark brown colour... The main problem with this paint (and AK Interactive in general I find) is that it rubs off the miniature very easily but it has a great matte finish and excellent coverage.

Coat D'Arms Bone was used for the bone areas... for this test model I tried using a wet blend application but realised that it was giving a similar enough effect to dry brushing that the extra time wasn't justified.

Army Painter Greedy Gold was painted on all the metal plates, bands and shoulder pads. The opacity isn't 100% allowing patches of the brown underneath to give some depth to the metal. This works particularly well for the beaten shoulder pads and Saurus chest plates.
Army Painter Plate Mail thinned with water was then used to pick out the brightest points. This only reduces the chroma a little but still helps increase the reflection at these points. I rarely paint TMM so my selection of paints is limited making it harder to get a great effect on these (particularly as mixing metallics is a little tricky at times).
Army Painter Strong Tone to pick out the details or the carved shoulder pads

Reaper HD Maroon Red for the loincloths
Army Painter Pure Red to highlight (sparingly)

Coat D'Arms Bone was drybrushed on helmets etc where there was bone - including the coach's shoulder skeleton thing.
Coat D'Arms Bone was also stippled onto the centre of his turtle shell shoulder pad (then washed with Army Painter Strong tone for a great shell effect)

Army Painter Matt White for the eyes
Army Painter Daemonic Yellow over the top to help the eyes pop and look more reptilian

At this point they were pretty well done. My last step was to pick out the scales on the Krox and Saurus. At first I wasn't sure if I should go in for this but I decided to forge ahead.

Army Painter Ultramarine Blue for the brightest plates
Meng Dark Grey was mixed in in varying amounts to increase the shade on the more recessed plates. This paint, like the AK paints is prone to wearing off so be careful touching it!

I've omitted a few details, mostly on the Head Coach who had some shrunken heads and things on his belt.

- Raggy, signing out