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Metsuri wrote:You could basecoat the metal parts with bolt gun and then wash with devlan mud and another wash from the gw wash line, I recommend ogryn flesh for dark almost black metal with hint of red brown visible. This leaves a metallic sheen showing on the metal parts. Then if you paint the leather with black as usual you have two different kinds of black on your fig and it is visible which is which.

Hm. I wonder how that would differ from drybrushing the metal parts with boltgun metal and leaving the leather alone.

So, I sort of took bits of the advice from both Metsuri and Piousman and twisted it a little. Ultimately, I drybrushed boltgun metal over all of the metal plates and painted a thin coat of black (almost a heavy wash of black) over the brown leather bits. So, you can still see a little of the brown of the leather highlighting. I have to say, I really should have started off with a test model. That way, I could've just started off with black all over both the metal and leather and then highlighted the leather with brown and drybrushed the metal. Would've made my life much easier. But, live and learn. With that, I finished off the Orks, added some more Mithril Silver to really enhance the contrast between the black and silver and giving them their team numbers tattooed on their arms and I'm calling them done.







Technically, I've got one more Ork that I need to paint, but I've got 11 here - they're ready to field.

Finishing up the Orks, I turned back to finishing the last 4 Skaven. And I have to say, again, that already knowing how to paint them (using the previous 8 Skaven essentially as test models) made painting these last 4 up a snap! I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out. As with the Orks, I based them up and they're ready to go.







Yay! Two teams completely finished! I've also completed the modeling on the Lizardmen team and have them primed and a coat of Ultramarine blue on them. I'm going for a blue/bronze/orange theme with these guys. They're going to be the Den-Var Brontos. And last but not least, I've managed to model up the first 3 linemen on my Elf team. Super thanks go out to Neal at the Warstore for prompt shipping when I mentioned that I needed these quick for a birthday project! Now I've got all the pieces I need for the Elves - just got to put them together. I'll try to get pictures of the Elves and the modeled Lizardmen team tomorrow.

Thanks to everyone for their continued comments and suggestions on the project - it's greatly appreciated!

The metal on the orcs is looking great and both of the teams are looking good.

Happy I could be of assistance.

Both teams are looking really good, DbM - any chance of a couple of in-game shots ?

Outstanding work

Would rock to have unique BB teams

Old minis and some of them are fairly average - custom made is the way to go!

Inspiring work. As a matter of fact, last night I have started modeling my own Orc BB team, and I blame it on you.

Piousman

The teams look great, nice work!

Thanks, all, for the kind words. Piousman, I'm happy to have inspired you to make a team - that really means a lot to me!

I've gone out and bought flat sealer and put it on the Orcs today. The Skaven will get a coat next. On top of that, I've completed modeling both the Elf and Lizardmen teams. Here are the Lizardmen first. Keep in mind that Lizardmen don't have much in the way of specialization of models - they get Skinks, Saurus, and Kroxigors and that's it. Any specialization comes from developing your team as it goes. First off, the skinks (which you've seen before, but now with a base coat of Ultramarine blue).



Next up, a couple batches of Saurus:





I would really have liked to use the Tricertops-Skull-Helmeted Temple Guard heads on these guys, but the Temple Guard head bitz were way too expensive. So, I went with Cold One Rider heads which are more ornate than the standard Saurus Heads, but less so than the Temple Guard - but also less expensive.

A Kroxigor (not that I advocate their use, but hey, I've got the model, so I might as well make one up in case I want to play with it, right?) The hands on this guy, btw, are from a Skaven Rat Ogre mutant arm with two hands that I got for cheap. It was a quick cut and paste to move the thumb to the other side of the open hand and use a little GS to make it look right.



And finally, an uncompleted test model. This is roughly the color scheme I'm going to use for the team, although the big difference will be that the big bulky scales on the back will be based black and then highlighted up to bleached bone to give more contrasting colors. As I mentioned previously, these guys are the Den-Var Brontos and so the orange armor plates will go with the blue skin to give Broncos colors.




Next up, the Elves. I'm really happy with how using the Eldar Guardians as the base for most of these guys turned out. For heads, I used Dark Elf Knight heads (both helmeted and bare) and High Elf Charioteer heads (two bare, one helmet with some modifications). The throwers both have Dire Avenger torsos, but Guardian legs and arms. The left hands on all but the throwers are the GS casts I showed earlier - the throwers got the originals from the Guardian heavy weapon guys. So, first up, the Throwers:



Next the Linemen (oh yeah, and there's one Wood Elf head in there, too):



Then we have two Catchers. Because of how -fast- these guys are (MA 8 for Elves, MA 9 for Wood Elves) I really wanted these guys to have a speedy, dynamic look to them. The best thing I could find was the new Swooping Hawk models. I cut away the guns, shaved down the back, ground off the grenade details and removed the heads. I replaced the heads with Dark Elf Knight heads and gave them GS hands. I was a little worried about how they were going to look after all the grinding I had to do to modify the Swooping Hawk models, but with a coat of white primer on them, I'm pretty happy with the results.



Here's my only issue with the team. I can't decide on a color scheme for them. I know I want to keep the palette to a base of red and white (that way they can look like the 49ers, the Cardinals, Chiefs, Redskins, etc), but I can't decide how I want it on the model. Part of me is tempted to just go the Saim-Hann route and just have the entire body red and give them white helmets. But first I wanted to try making it look more like a traditional football uniform. So, I went with the red pants, white shirt, red shoulderpads, black boots and gloves, and in this case a gold helmet. Sorta 49ers-ish. But I'm not sure if I like it that much. What do other folks out there think? I really wanted to try to use GW's interactive Eldar Guardian painter, but I can't find it up anywhere anymore. Does anyone know where an active one is these days? Help!



This is as far as these teams are going to get this week. I leave tomorrow to go to NYC and they'll all come with me. I expect I'll be leaving the Orcs and Skaven with my friend in NY, but who knows - he may fall in love with the Lizard or Elves and I'll need to finish them up and send them on to him. Gotta pack these bad boys up for the trip! We plan on getting some in-game pics so you can see the teams in action once I get there.

I was a little concerned by the Guardian bodies but with the High Elf helmeted heads they look really good.

Ozymandias wrote:I was a little concerned by the Guardian bodies but with the High Elf helmeted heads they look really good.

Yeah, actually what gave me the idea to do it was a picture in the 2006 Citadel Bitz Catalog of a Dark Elf Blood Bowl team made up primarily of non-warrior Dark Eldar models (Drazhar, Hellions, etc.) with Dark Elf heads. It looked surprisingly cool. I figured if they can make Dark Eldar models look good as a Blood Bowl team, I can use Eldar models for Elves!

I think the red-white-gold scheme would work, you just need to modify the paints a bit. Switch the white to bone or similar warm white and the red also to more warm tone by adding some yellow to the paint. Now the cold red and white are clashing with the gold at least in the picture.

here is a basic version of the painter program:
http://www.freewebs.com/grimdarkness/painterprogram.htm

For me (at this time) the bronze of the helmet is too strong, next to the Red and the white. Maybe blending it some towards a yellower gold (bronze contains more red pigmentation)...


- Piousman

Piousman, you rock - thanks for posting that. It was exactly what I was needing.

I think you're both right about the bronze/gold conflicting with the harshness of the scab red/skull white. The scab red/skull white combo was coming more from the color palette of the Arizona Cardinals.



I was a little at a loss of what to do with the helmet as the plain white helmet with the torso and shoulderpads above just looked funny. So, I jumped to the 49ers color palette.



But, you can see the difference between the reds used by the Cards and the Niners. In line with what Metsuri pointed out, the 49ers red is a warmer red than the Cardinals.

Here's the question, though - is the gold helmet that great? If I just went with straight Saim-Hann red with white helmets would it be too boring? I mean, as I'm playing with the painter program, I'm dropping the colors into it straight out of different football uniforms (as best I can translate them) and frankly, they just look funny on a Guardian. I mean, here's the 49er Guardian:



I think I'm going to have to play with the painter some and see what I can come up with.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I played around with the painter program trying to translate NFL uniforms into Eldar Guardian color schemes. Some look really funny (Baltimore Ravens turned out very poorly), some look 'meh' (NY Jets, Packers - which looked good until I added the yellow helmet - bleh!), but a few turned out looking pretty good.

Here's the Arizona Cardinals colors done up as a Guardian. I think it's pretty cool. Not mind-blowing, but sharp and good looking (certainly better than that 49ers scheme I did earlier).



And then this is a move away from the red and white color schemes, but I'd also been thinking about some green schemes as well - this is how the Philadelphia Eagles uniform translates. Pretty good stuff, IMHO. I'm kinda tempted to go this route, now.



What are folks thoughts on these? And any other uniform color schemes you might recommend?

I would go with the green and white as it is atleast as good looking as the red variant, but will be probably a lot easier to achieve in timely manner.

I concur. At least compared to all the Red alternatives, the Green-white comes off as a welcome change.

Another thought on the "Gold Helmet": you may need to make NMM Gold. None of the uniforms are using actual "Gold".

- Piousman

I think once I get back home and get painting on these guys again, I will do the green color scheme. I hadn't even thought about doing NMM for the gold - I've never done it before and am a little intimidated by trying it.

And unfortunately, while I've been here in NYC and was happily able to present my friend with his teams (which he thoroughly digs), we've been unable to get the time for a game with them yet. We're still planning on getting one in, though - and we still plan on getting some in-game shots.

Get some games in!

on NMM: I was not thinking that you do a full NMM job. But use the NMM equivalents: i.e. use Vomit Brown instead of the gold, with maybe some VB+white highlights. No need to try to achieve a "metalic" look. In fact, in the picture you showed of the 49's uniform, their helmet was not "gold", but a "vomit-brown" color.

- Piousman

I'm back from NYC - it was a great time, but it's good to be home. My wife and I brought our own two girls (ages 1 and 3) to visit my friend, his wife, and their 4 month old twins. While we had thought we were going to be able to get in a bunch of games originally, we were a little unrealistic about how that would fit in with the kids and family time. Consequently, we were really only able to fit in 3 games: Orcs vs. Skaven, Skaven vs. Elves, and Orcs vs. Lizards. And sadly, we just weren't able to get any pictures from the games. We had a terrific time, though, and my friend is itching now to introduce Blood Bowl to some of his other friends there in NYC.

As for my own future BB plans, with the pressure off to get the teams completed, I think I may take a little break from them, although the new Skaven plastics are squeaking at me to put together a team from them. Thoughts about my IG army are starting to resurface so I may turn to them next. Don't be surprised if this thread hibernates for a while....