Snotling Pump Wagon

I had a bit of luck a few days ago, I located the missing handcrack from this model among a collection of Warhammer bric-a-brac. Truth be told, I was concerned that I had lost it during the move as this was the last model I worked on at my previous residence. 

With the missing piece in my possession, I spent the odd minute here and there this week finishing off the piece. This time was mostly spent touching up the painting on the snotlings (using this colour recipe) and sticking the tiny models onto the surface of the pump wagon. The finished result, I am sure you will agree, is great fun and easily ranks this model as amongst Warhammer's craziest moments. 

Painting wood has always been one of those bugbears all painters have for me. The finished result being either too artificial looking, or too washed out. It took me a while, and plenty of washes, to get a look I was happy with here and I think the completed effect suggests manky, half-rotten wood quite well. Just the sort of stuff snotlings would no doubt build with. 

This is, of course, the single story version. I have had be eye out for the more substantial two decker of this model for sometime but I have yet to be successful in acquiring one for a decent price. 

All in all, an iconic 'must have' Warhammer model painted, based and now part of my collection.

Jolly Japes and How I Paint Old School Goblinoid Skin

When you gotta go, you gotta go!

One question that I have been asked a great deal over the years is how I paint goblinoid skin. Or more precisely, how can you paint goblinoid skin to look like the classic orcs and gobbos of the 1980s. My answer was always the same 'I really don't know' as all of my previous attempts to capture that slightly radioactive tone have fallen short. Usually, my orc or goblin skin looks too pale, at least to my eyes. Have a look here to see what I mean. 

As well as being a common snotling, this chap was also part of an amusing set. have a look here to find out more. 

I quite liked my darker skinned orcs I produced recently for McDeath (look here) but they were a deliberate departure from the light green stereotype. In my heart of hearts, I still wanted to find a satisfactory method of achieving the '80s look until today, I just couldn't quite reach the desired result. 

According to Kev Adams, this model originally had a finely sculpted turd hanging from his bumhole. The sight of the offending faeces was allegedly too much for one Studio Manager and the helmet was added to cover up the naughty nugget!

As you can see, that all changed with Jolly Japes. I was feeling inspired by my little trip to Salute and with the wife and kids laid up with a tummy upset, I spent this afternoon tinkering with my paint station. I had Jolly Japes based up since I found him in a small Car Boot lot last summer. Whim took me, and I started painting him up using whatever paints I had to hand. It was with the addition of Bilious Green to the mix that I knew that I was on to something and over the next twenty minutes or so it took to finish highlighting the tiny model up I knew that I was closer than ever to achieving the classic 'look'. 

Warhammer's equivalent to that scene in 'Every Which Way But Loose!' Right turn, snot!

As promised so many times, if I ever found a simple way of creating that '80s goblinoid look I would put together a little tutorial and share my method. So here we are! As always, you will be needing a short shopping list of bits and pieces to get started. Have a look at the paints I used: 

From the left we have Citadel Colour Khorne Red, Evil Sunz Scarlet, Foundry's Yellow 2B, Bright Green 25B, Citadel Colour's Bilious Green (1985), Rich Butternut 115B, Boneyard 9A and 9C and last but not least, Citadel Green Ink (1985).

All these paints are very easy to get your hands on, save Bilious Green and the Green Ink, both of which turn out to be key colours in my little recipe. Not that they are impossible to collect - scouring eBay for a couple of weeks will result in several opportunities to get your hands on a pot. There are a number of modern similar equivalents but there is nothing to my knowledge out there that is a perfect match. I am sure that many of your will have a pot or two hidden away somewhere. Go on a hunt! 

Step One: Undercoat your model in a single layer of white acrylic paint. A spray coating or brush on will be fine. As you can see, I brushed on - proper old school that! 

Step Two: Basecoat with Foundry's Bright Green 25B. Ensure that there are no bubbles clinging to the model before setting it aside to dry. 

Step Three: Dot the eyes with Khorne Red and paint the loincloth with Rich Butternut 115B. Once dry, wash over the entire model with green ink. 

Step Four: Repaint all the raised areas of skin with Bright Green, try and leave a suggestion of the darker ink shade in the deepest recesses. 

Step Five: Add a little Bilious Green to your Bright Green paint on the palette and mix it in. Your new shade should be fairly brighter but don't over do things. Try a ratio of 4:2 Bright Green and Bilious Green.

Step Six: Final highlight of the skin with a 4:3 mix of Bright Green and Bilious Green. I toyed with adding a final mini highlight to the face and hands using just Bilious Green but decided the effect was too stark in the end. There is nothing stopping you trying it out, of course!

Step Seven: Paint the eyes using Khorne Red as your base, followed by the Evil Sunz Scarlet while the previous paint is still wet. Use a tiny dot of yellow to create a pupil in the centre of each eye. 

Step Eight: Use Rich Butternut 115B, Boneyard 9A and 9C to highlight up the lion cloth, though in truth you could do with with any colour you devise. I just think that mouldy browns and oranges look best on a gobbo. 

And here is my little snotling snapped on my photography set up. A little blurry I know but the light was going by the time I took the picture. He blends in well to his surroundings and more importantly doesn't look too pale or washed out. You may be wondering why he is just plonked there on an undecorated base? Well, you will have to wait and see where he ends up as I am also working on an other project involving snotlings - quite a lot of them actually. 

Hopefully, someone somewhere will find this little tutorial useful. Before you go, can you do me a favour? If you have a nifty little recipe for orc/goblin skin that you regularly use could you share it below in the comments? I wouldn't mind trying out a few more techniques in future and who knows, yours might be the perfect tone for some grizzly old orc I have lurking around in the leadpile!!

Thanks for reading.

Orlygg

A Warhammer Bestiary: Snotlings

Despite life throwing everything at us at the moment, I have managed to get a bit of painting in recently. One thing that I have lacked is decent light to take photographs of my efforts. As some of your with know, I prefer to use natural light to capture my work and favour a printed out background to add depth and character to the image.

This morning saw a few rays of sunshine break through the eternal grey of November, so I took advantage of the sudden illumination to take a few snaps of my work. Regular readers will already know about my long term painting project 'A Warhammer Bestiary', in which I try and paint up a model for each entry in the Bestiary section. This model, or should that be models, represent snotlings, a race as 'Warhammer' as can be in my opinion. 

Why? They are rather loony, frankly, and tongue in cheek lunacy is a key element of the earlier editions of Warhammer, and GW generally in the 1980s. Puns, silly ideas and in-jokes abound. Comedy is great foil to horror. 

In researching this paint job I took the time to learn a little bit of background to the snotlings. Obviously, they are the smallest and weakest of the goblinoid races and are perhaps the most cunning and sneaking of their species. They have to be, for they live off the scraps to be found from goblins, orcs and even wild animals. Orcs are even known to farm these small creatures and use them as a food source. When desperate, they even herd them into battle!

Surprisingly, Snotlings are not evil in alignment. They lack the cruel streak to be found in their closest relations and should really be considered more of a nuisance than a threat. Their stats certainly reflect this, though interestingly they are immune to poison, perhaps due to the fungus they grow and use a weapons. 

The miniatures themselves, sculpted by Kev Adams, are great fun. Which is what you would expect from the goblinoid range of the 1980s. They models you can see here were rescued by me from a car boot sale last summer. Its amazing what you can find when the winds of luck blow, isn't it? I would certainly want to collect more of these tiny greenskins in the future as they are varied and amusing to work with. If you don't own any or haven't yet painted any, I really recommend that you do!

Next, a zoat!