Three more Fellwater Troggoths join my Greenskins

Ever since painting the old metal River Trolls Fellwater Troggoths I've been meaning to paint some of the new plastic ones as well. I like the way GW has managed to keep the mix between comical and evil on the faces of the newer models. Besides, when you're on the battlefield, you can't go wrong with pot bellied monsters that puke all over the enemy. Last week I got my hands on three second hand Troggoths.

Warning, troubled stomachs ahead!

Now luckily I have a plan and a paint queue, otherwise I would've had nothing to ignore when I slammed the three new trolls on my painting station and got to work. These models where already assembled but the price was very right. So no choice in how they look. But I can actually add 'getting three more' to my list of 'to do, somewhere in the future' because I want to paint one of the puking plastic ones at some point in my life. I've set up the new and the old together in the picture above to get a nice sense of the old and the new models together.

This guy has the nicest potbelly of the lot. I really sticks out on the gaming table.

It turned out to take a bit of skull sweat as I wanted to paint these models in the same colors as the previous three. But I had no notes as to how I went about painting the previous Trolls Troggoths. Luckily I vaguely recalled using Cam. Dark Green and Cam. Light Green bij Vallejo on the older models. Having a solid green base to work from, I could just wash with Athonian Camoshade for the skin and Drakenhof Nightshade for the scales.

I had a lot of fun with this face, and it took some convincing myself to actually blast it with red and add the pustule. Now I'm glad I did. 

Next up was a bit of highlighting. I went for Skarsnik Green this time as it seemed to match quite nicely with the Vallejo colors. I added Ushabti Bone to give the face an extra highlight. I may not be the worlds greatest painter, but a simple trick like extra highlights to the face helps mask it a bit (I hope).

This guys stomach really wins prices for most disgusting thing outside a Nurgle army...

My favorite bit of painting Trolls Troggoths (and Nurgle types) is getting the pustules right. I use the airbrush to blast a thinned down translucent base of Vallejo Scarlet around the area, then I go in with Averland Sunset and add some juicy white heads by mixing a bit of Pallid Wych Flesh into the Averland and dotting around. Tasty!

The first of my old River Trolls Fellwater Troggoths I glazed his nose red (a habit I should start picking up again I think).

As I was photographing Trolls Troggoths anyway I thought it might be nice to get some more proper shots of the older metal ones as well. I still think these have just that extra bit of character to their faces the new ones lack, and I'm very curious if any extra fish are included in the box with the plastic ones (the downside of second hand is a lack of choice, meaning I really need three more in my life).

Even after all these years, this guy still wins prizes for 'most evil face'. I still rather like the zombie bits I added to his base as well.

Another difficult decision was what to do with the bases for the new trolls. I want them to match my slightly smaller old ones and that meant 50mm bases, but the new ones actually mount slightly better on bigger 60mm rounds. In the end I decided to go for 50mm. Mostly because I'm rather happy with the basing itself. I did edge the base with German Grey instead of Steel Legion Drab. I've recently taken a liking to German Grey rims, the paint applies easier and I know maintaining base uniformity over armies you collect and paint over decades does not work anyway (at least not for me).

Previous winner of 'most disgusting thing outside of a Nurgle army'.

As for the base itself, I produced it by sticking a few bits of cork to an empty base (ripped up Ikea coasters). I then superglued some beads onto the empty bits between the cork. After this dried (really important) I added PVA to the top of the cork and sanded it. Then I  had to wait another day for this to dry before adding a blob of PVA between the coasters. I used a Q-tip to spread the PVA out unevenly between the cork. This helps the beads sink in a bit and gives some texture to the fetid swamp water. Next up (after drying and basecoating) I airbrushed camouflage greens on the beaded sludge, making sure to hit every bead with a light color. This was sealed with a really copious amount of (cheap) Gloss Varnish. Then I painted the sanded cork with Dryad Bark and drybrushed it with Tyrant Skull. I used Grass tufts after sticking on the models to both look cool and to hide obvious gaps between the feet and the sanded base (a disadvantage of preparing base and model separately). I think it works, now back to my humans (probably).