Painting Blood Bowl Miniatures: Re-thinking my approach.
I’m painting up another Blood Bowl team as a random prize for a local Blood Bowl tournament, BrisBowl. Because of the time frame I have I was using my standard “recipes” for colours and what I paint various items. However, when I came to paint the linemen of the team I found that the areas I was painting the team colour didn’t exist. This lead me to rethink the approach I took to painting Blood Bowl teams.
In the past I’ve painted some nice looking miniatures, but they haven’t really looked like fantasy football players. More like standard fantasy miniatures that just happen to be playing football. Once I came to this realisation, I had a quick look on the internet for American Football teams. Since Blood Bowl is loosely based on this game I thought it a logical place to start. I noticed that the team’s uniforms were completely made up from the team colours. Looking at the miniatures I normally paint, it was immediately apparent that I use a lot of neutral colours with a smattering of the team colours. To make my miniatures look they were part of a sporting team I needed to change this approach.
Another thing I noticed was how bright all the team colours were. My painting style has been described as “realistic” in my choice and application of colours. Having spent many, many years painting model aircraft the realism I was trying to achieve there has flowed over into my miniature painting. I figure another way to make my team appear more “sporty” is too use brighter team colours. Keeping the colours for the remainder of the miniature painted in my usual style, should emphasise the sporting element…I hope.
Instead of repainting the miniatures I had already started, considering how far through painting this current team I was, I adopted a more median approach. I changed the blue to a brighter blue and added this same blue to the shoulder pads. I didn’t have time to change all the metal areas to another colour, so they stayed as is.
I am happy with the end result and the miniatures definitely look more like a sports team than fantasy miniatures. This project has been eye opening for me, in that it’s refreshing to have the way you do certain things challenged once in a while. In future I will definitely be keeping the end result in mind whilst painting, rather than just relying on standard ways of painting.
They look great! I started doing the same thing last year, and think that more focus on a ‘sporting strip’ really makes them pop. Gloss finish on armour really helps too. I think my “Deathvalley Dreadnoughts” are probably my best effort in this regard, though they need some nice number decals to really finish them off.
http://tasmancave.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/deathvalley-dreadnoughts-orc-blood-bowl.html
Now to start trying some sponsor signage on their uniforms!