My best figure of 2021

Continuing the tradition started last year, I am going to repost the miniature I like the most among the ones painted in 2021.

I did not paint too many miniatures this year, but some of the ones I painted are among the best I have done lately. I really spent quite some time on some of the Blood Bowl ones and tried plenty of new techniques, so it is only natural I pick one of them!

After careful consideration I have chosen...

Varag from the Black Orcs team.

Although the Troll and Ogre came on a very-close second place.

One thing I really need to get better at is taking photos :)

I hope you like it as much as I do!

Blood Bowl: Black Orcs

Behold the Gloomfangz Rebelz!

The team is inspired by the Berlin Rebels from the GFL.

When I bought the Blood Bowl Second Season box, I had an idea to paint the teams matching some real-life teams as I usually do, but trying to find teams that are either in the same city or very close-by so that they can play against each other in a local derby.

In the end I chose the  Berlin Rebels and the Potsdam Royals. Both teams play the same league and they are conveniently located next to each other.

After having chosen the real teams, I then took a look at a map of the Old World to find them a suitable spot. I needed to find a relatively big Imperial city in the vicinity of some Orc tribe.

Take a closer look at Talabecland. It is a big city, big enough to host a few Blood Bowl teams, including Nobility, and to top it all the colours are yellow and red, like the Potsdam Royals! To the North of the city there is an Orc & Goblin Tribe, the Gloomfangs. That ended up being the natural choice for my Black Orc team.

The only downside for the Orcs is the poor selection of colours the Rebels have, they are white and grey so not too much to pick from when painting them! I think I paid the price of that choice as the team is not looking as good as it could. I could have chosen different colours of course and just use the logo, but I liked the idea of representing the real Berlin vs Potsdam. After all, Berlin is quite grey and black so that is at least accurate :)

More pictures can be seen in each of the individual posts:

• Orcs here, here
• Goblins
• Troll
• Varag

All painted in 2021

BB Second Season Challenge (VII)

And to round up the Black Orcs team, here is Varag Ghoul-Chewer

Here is the post from DarthBLU and here the post to vote for them (Spanish forum).

This time I tried to go on step further and attempted gold NMM. I am by far not there yet, but I think that every time I do it a little bit faster and easier, so hopefully at one point I will reach a level that I am satisfied with.

Once again, I spent way too much time on this one for the end result, but I guess it is part of the learning process. I am not satisfied with the face and the zombie, but I am not going back to fix it now.

Painted during 2021

And starting next week, a new team, the Imperial Nobility!

BB Second Season Challenge (VI)

Here is the painted Troll.

I decided to paint him green as I already have a blue troll and I just wanted to keep the same colour scheme as the rest of the team.

I think that by far this is the miniature I have spent more time in the last 2-3 years. I am not sure, but on and off I spent about 10-12 hours on it. I tried lots of new things as well as kept on learning with the same techniques I had tried so far. There are a few areas that I am quite satisfied with, the texture of the ball, the gold of the moon and some parts but not all of it of the grey cloth. I am slowly, very slowly, getting more confidence with the blending and it starts to show off in the nice smooth transition and blend of colours rather than sharp contrast and highlight.

Here is the post from DarthBLU and here the post to vote for them (Spanish forum).

Painted during 2021

Next week the last miniature of the Black Orc teams, Varag, the Star Player.

BB Second Season Challenge (V)

Here is the post of the week, all the goblins of the team!

Even though they are small, it was by far not an easy task to accomplish considering the time and techniques applied. It was not my regular speed-painting. If you have been following my previous posts, you will know by now that I am trying to make them look nicer by spending much more time and care on them.

Still, the skin was rushed a little bit compared to what I did with the orcs. I am in any case happy with how they turned out, but I think I could have done it better. Slowly getting more confident with wet blending...

Here is the post from DarthBLU and here the post to vote for them (Spanish forum).

Painted during 2021

Next in line, the Troll! I have a whole week for it and I am thankful for the much needed respite, but I get the feeling it won't be easy.

BB Second Season Challenge (IV)

For this week we needed to paint another three Black Orcs.

I painted them faster than the previous ones as I did not need to experiment so much with the techniques and colours, but still took me more than twice the time I used to spend. Sadly, the photo quality is not up to the task and the effort is almost impossible to appreciate.

This is the first time I changed my photo settings because I got so many complaints and frustration from it that I made an effort on improving it.

I added another source of light with super bright lightbulb and took them with Lightroom and Photoshop editing... I think they look nicer, but let me know your thoughts on that!

Here is the post from DarthBLU and here the post to vote for them (Spanish forum).

Painted during 2021

Here are the other three orcs.

Now, let's get some paint on those goblins!