"Altdorf Acolytes" - Blood Bowl Human Team - Part I

Although Human teams do not have the individual strengths 
or outstanding abilities available to other races, 
they do not suffer from any outstanding weakness either. 
This makes Human teams extremely flexible, 
equally at home running the ball, passing it, 
or ignoring it and pounding the opposition into the turf instead!

- Blood Bowl Rule Book

Hello sports fans!! Welcome to an action-packed week on The Art of Caesura!

After years of owning the game and playing it with my wife, I've finally painted my first Blood Bowl team!! I've previously posted about how I made all my Blood Bowl bases as well as the Halfling and Goblin Refs, but now it's time to look at my first painted team: the humans. 

Painting 12 models at once was quite an undertaking for me and has happily occupied me for the past few weeks. Today we'll look at the kit-bashing and painting of these models and next week we'll do a showcase of the completed team. And we're off!

The box-set comes with 6 pairs of miniatures. I wanted each of mine to look individual without too much converting so I opted for headswaps. I started by carefully removing the heads of all the duplicates (with much swearing and gnashing of teeth - see my post on Yar Umbra for more details on this). This was trickier than expected, with their big pauldrons in the way making it impossible to get clippers in there. 

Next came the fun part of selecting replacement heads. I went back to near the beginning of my hobby journey to the 6th Edition Warhammer Fantasy starter set (...I will finish it someday...). I took a bunch of appropriate Empire heads as well as a few Goliath heads (from Necromunda) which I think suited the meathead jock look. 

I even went to the trouble of drilling out the Blitzer's old head to make it look like an empty helmet (but it turned out that when I glued it back onto his belt you can't see the interior - oh well, we know it's there...

With heads firmly attached, it was on to the painting. From a black undercoat, I started with the undersuits which I painted in the same way as those of my Kharadron Overlords: namely Ushabti Bone -> Agrax Earthshade -> Ushabti Bone. 

Next came the skin and I tried a new trick: I painted the skin Cadian Fleshtone, but rather than shading with Reikland Fleshshade (as I would usually do for Caucasian skin) I shaded with Contrast Guilliman Flesh vastly thinned with Contrast Medium (1:5 paint to medium). I really like how this turned out, to me it looks more natural and less ruddy than the Reikland mix. 

For the faces on the (now) helmet-less players, I added a few layers of highlights with Scale 75's Basic Flesh with a bit of Pale Flesh added. 

Onwards to the armour!

This was the part I'd really been waiting for! I knew I wanted to paint my team like the Reikland Reavers in the Blood Bowl 2 video game - namely with blue-chrome armour. Researching how I would obtain this effect, I had looked into Scale 75's and also Turbo Dork's metallic range but never took the plunge. Now that I've had a good bit of experience with Contrast Paints I wanted to try enlisting them for such an application.

I started by painting ALL the metal bits on the models Leadbelcher. And then I hit a huge roadblock. I couldn't decide whether Contrast Talassar Blue looked better over Leadbelcher (slightly darker and more gritty) or over Stormhost Silver (brighter and maybe more cartoony). I did a test on the lineman below, his left knee pad is over Stormhost and right is over Leadbelcher). After sleeping on it for a few days, I ended up settling on the brighter of the two; although it is not my personal style, I felt like it would suit a bombastic game like Blood Bowl better and really pop on the pitch. 

So I went back and painted all of the areas that would be chrome blue with Stormhost Silver, keeping the bits that would stay steel-coloured (the spikes etc.) Leadbelcher. I then finished off the bare metal bits with a Nuln Oil wash and highlight of Runefang Steel. 

Then came the fun part! I coated all of the Stormhost Silver bits with Contrast Talassar Blue. Compared to painting 12 guys worth of silver tones (twice!) this step was really quick and yet totally changed the appearance of the team. Because the Contrast Paint has a satin finish, this gave a really nice soft metallic glow. I was thrilled with how this effect worked out, they were starting to come together now!

Now that the vibrant, metallic blue was in place, it was just about adding in the last few details: the red arm wrappings, chest tie, gloves and socks (Mephiston Red with Carroburg Crimson wash), black shoes (Abaddon Black with Ushabti Bone "Adidas" stripes), and beige stripes on the thrower and catchers' helmets.

The balls were a 50:50 mix of Doom Bull Brown and Skrag Brown shaded with Agrax Earthshade.

For this catcher's feathers on his illustrious hat, I started by painting them Stormhost Silver then painted the red ones Contrast Fleshtearers Red and the white ones Contrast Apothecary White. 

And the non-metallic padding (the thigh pads on throwers and catchers and shin-guards on blitzers) were Altdorf Guard Blue shaded with straight Talassar Blue

I wanted to differentiate the Blitzers (below) from the linesmen (above), so painted more of their armour bare metal and the trim on their pauldrons and crest on their helmets bronze (Leadbelcher covered with Contrast Snakebite Leather). 

The last huge part was applying the decals, and the resultant need to varnish the models but I'll dedicate a whole post to that process in a couple weeks. 

I started with the decal for the number on their back...

...Then I put one on each pauldron and on on the chest. By this point I was going hog wild for decals and added one to the left thigh of my test model...

...but I decided it looked a bit too busy, so I just painted over it using the same process listed above for the armour: Leadbelcher...

...then Stormhost Silver...

...then Talassar Blue. Aaaand good as new, no harm no foul!

As I mentioned, I will dedicate a post to talking about applying decals and varnishing, but a summary of the varnishing process for these guys, was that I coated the whole completed model with gloss varnish. Once this was dry, I then coated all areas except the armour with satin varnish (Stormsheild). Finally I coated all cloth areas with Lahmian Medium for a matte effect. 

After I finished the team and took a bunch of "studio" photos, I decided to add the pitch line-markings. I felt like these would just be quick details to further ground the models in Blood Bowl.

Painting the lines was super easy. I just painted a matchstick and pressed it onto the base. Done!

Huzzah! My first Blood Bowl team is complete! Let me know what you think of the chrome effect achieved with Contrast Paints.

Tune in to The Art of Caesura next week when we take a proper look at the finished product. And in the meantime, why not bust out Blood Bowl for a few matches of this brilliant beer and pretzels game for those in home isolation. I've found it's a pretty friendly game for non-gamers as well! 


Reading: The Porpoise - Mark Haddon
Watching: Les Miserables - Tom Hooper


Next Week:

Spotlight on the players...