By Old Man MorinWelcome back gang,
I am back with a fourth BIG instalment in my series detailing how I created my heavily converted Orc and Goblin army and how I will be turning this project into my first Kings Of War army. Today I will be talking about the largest and most noticeable part of my army to date. The Trolls!!!
As you can probably recall from article two and three, I used a handful of GW orc and goblin heads, a few armatures and a ton of green stuff to sculpt up a unique looking army. As much as I was now proud of my accomplishments so far I was still using other people's bits and sculpting around them. It was time to go truly out on my own. It was time to create my own models from scratch.
Now, I love the idea of massive horde of furry beasts leaping and chomping down upon enemy troops. I wanted something scarily basic, primitively intelligent and elemental at the same time. I wanted something that I could use as large units of trolls. Creatures with thick fur and gigantic maws that devour everything in their path. Creatures found in the desolate mountain passes by my fugitive orcs and goblins and driven forward by the green skinned masses towards enemy forces as the ultimate wall of shock troops.
Well, in order to get these beasts off the ground, I had to start somewhere. I started with a styrofoam egg shape that I found in a cheap craft shop. 24 of them. I carefully covered each egg with a thin layer of green stuff to work from. I then used a pile of old ork arms as leg armatures. I liked how this gave my egg shapes a lunging/coiling to spring look. At this point I also sculpted the teeth onto the front of the eggs. You can see what they looked like at this point below.
I then added the lips (which made the teeth look reasonable) and added the hoofs to the front of their feet.
I then began the hard part. Adding the fur. I had no idea that this process would take 9 months of on and off work (more on than off) and more green stuff than I could have imagined possible (given that I had already furred up the orcs and goblins at this point). I initially tried to do too much at a time and succeeded in putting my fingers in my "wet" work fairly regularly. Learning from my mistakes, I began to sculpt smaller sized patches of fur on a series of trolls in one sitting. I would then work on the next batch, the next time I sat down.
Here are my pretties almost all furred up. If you look carefully you can see a few bald spots here and there at this point.
Some finished specimens. Remember... these guys are standing on 40mm square bases. They tower over most 28mm models that they stand next to.
Just to mix it up a bit, I added a few open wounds (trolls regenerate wounds and I wanted to represent that somehow).
I also added a few patches of scaly/ scarred skin (this was more of a sculpting experiment than anything else).
You can see a perfect example of the size of the patches of fur I applied to these guys. Here is a bald spot roughly the size of an area I would sculpt on a given troll at a given time. I would sculpt patches of this size on 5-7 trolls in a sitting.
I hope that you have enjoyed this instalment of my sculpting insanity. I look forward to introducing more Kings Of War content into this project log, I received an email over the weekend stating that my 2nd Edition rulebook is in the mail.
Until next time,
