Blood Bowl – Chaos Beastmen

Well, this post was supposed to go out last week. The minis are all painted, but finding the time to blog and take photos has been a bit tough. Also, I managed to anger the Camera Gods somehow, and so I’m just using a hodge dodge of pics I took.

Chaos Beastmen are the grunts (linemen) of the team. The Chaos team itself is kinda ‘bland’. Having only three different types of players.

That might seem boring to some, but it’s also a lot less to remember and allows you to focus on the game. “The game” for Chaos is straight up bashing. Beat up as many of your opponents as you can, to prevent them from scoring. Simple. Bloody. Fun.

Paints wise, I was figuring out skin colors and fur mostly. I actually did all the Beastmen first, because I had a mental block to overcome with what skin tone to use on the Blockers (next week). The uniforms sorted themselves out pretty quickly. I also did the rocky lava bases first, as it was another experiment to make sure I could get those right.

And speaking of experiments…

I had decided to test out three different Contrast skin tones while painting these guys, one on each mini. It was my first test, and while it was ‘ok’, the Contrast skin tones were not quite working for me. They just felt too flat. I finished up the rest using the more traditional GW method of flesh paint, wash, and highlight, plus extreme highlight (the one on the left in the above picture). As you can see, without blending, it gives very stark contrasts. Most noticeably on the shoulder blades. They are likely just fine at tabletop, and some people like that look, but it still seems very weird to me.

So, for the Beastmen on the right, I painted back over the Contrast skin tone. Originally thinking I would just paint over the top of it. But I found I could just add highlights and it gave a really nice smooth transition between dark and light areas. It’s not an easy process to describe, but it’s a practice I’ll likely be continuing on and refining, as I liked the net outcome.

Basically I painted Contrast skin tone as a base (over a light primer). Washed with Agrax Earthshade. Then used a mix of 1:3 paint to Flowaid. Glazing over the lightest areas. The Contrast paint makes it really easy to see those lighter areas, which aids in that last painting step.

The only difficult part is that you have to have a light primer base to work with. I primed these guys in black, which meant going back over (and over) the skin with a much lighter base color. I guess it’s a trade off, and definitely a factor I have to take into consideration when thinking about what color to prime minis in the future.

Future? Hopefully next week I’ll get pics up of the Blockers. I’ve already started working on some more stuff, but it’s taking a good long time. I’m hoping to get an entry done for Ann’s next challenge, but it might not be what I had originally intended.

Till next time, hope your own mini painting projects are going well!

• Blood Bowl
• Miniature Painting
• Miniatures