Trollkin Champion Update and Haqqislam from Infinity

So! It's been a busy few days for me. I travelled home from Durham on Friday on a surprisingly smooth, and, even more surprisingly, on-time, train journey. There's been a lot of packing and unpacking, a lot of washing and clearing away but I'm more-or-less settled in now and happy to be home. Family occasions and visits have meant I haven't had a great deal of time to paint recently, but there are some things to show you...

To start with, there is some progress on the Trollkin Champions. First, they've all had their bases painted (don't worry, they'll look more interesting when the grass and snow is added). Secondly, their armour is now pretty much done. After I got a look I was happy with on my test model I applied the same techniques to the others and I'm quite happy with the dirty, rusty look I think I've achieved.

Now, I've also been working on the test model, who is a little way ahead of the rest. This guy has had the brass/gold bits of his weapons completed as well as his skin. I'm happy with the gold and this will be the next thing to be applied to the other four Champions. The skin was a little (read: a lot) harder because I was ambitious (read: stupid) enough to attempt some two-brush blending...

Yeah, it was harder than those videos made it look. It's a very difficult technique - a combination of getting the right paint consistency and then applying just the right amount of water to it in order to blend it into the layer underneath. I started with a solid layer of Trollblood Base, which I then darkened by mixing it with some Midnight Blue and painting this into the recesses. That's where things got a bit messy. In trying to use the wet brush to blend the shade into the mid-tone I ended up making it into something of a wash... Which was not my intention at all.

So I had a bit of cleaning up to do before I attempted to highlight the skin. This I did in three stages. The first layer was something like a 2:1 mix of Trollblood Base and Trollblood Highlight, the second was a 1:2 mix and the last layer, applied only to the very highest bits was pure Trollblood Highlight. Finally I painted on a very thinned-down glaze of Hormagaunt Purple Wash mixed with some Scab Red on to the knuckles, to suggest some bruising and natural colouration. I'm not too appalled by it, it is a first attempt after all, but I'd really appreciate hearing what you guys think of the skin.

I'm going to keep working at my test model in order to figure out my 'paint-recipes' for the Trollblood force. I'm still no wiser on to colours I'd like to use on their tartans... I'm think about just going for a green base with stripes in red and perhaps another colour at the moment. Has anyone got any suggestions? What would work and, more importantly, contrast well in this colour-scheme?

Finally, just another little thing to show you all here. This is the first model I have painted for a small Haqqislam skirmish group for the table-top war-game called Infinity. I have six more to paint before I have a little force that I can feasibly have some games with, so you'll hopefully see some progress on those in the future. I tried out a bit of non-metallic metal on this guy, just on the metal parts of the gun. It's not great but it's something I'd never tried before and something that I want to use my Infinity models to work on. I really like the desert-camo style and I chose these guys mainly for the painting-variety that they would offer me.

See you all soon and, as always, thanks for reading. As it's Mothers' Day, I'll leave you all with this: