2.0 here... It has been a loooong time.
I had a long vacation, and for the most part, my hobby drive was non-existing.
For the last month or so, I have been working on getting a fully painted space marine army, but more on that another day.
For now I want to talk about something fun! BLOOD BOWL.
This is the beginning of my Orc Allstar team which is going to represent some of the NFL teams, and I can tell you - it is pure fun to paint all these colourful uniforms and logos. The freehand is especially rewarding and it is what's keeping me going.
Each piece takes about an hour to paint, and I would like to share my technique with you all.
Let's look at the dolphins logo.
This logo can seem quite complicated (especially when you think about how small the shoulderpad actually is), but the key to any sucessful freehand is to divide the work into smaller pieces.
On this one for example, I started with the orange sun in the background. It can basically be described as a circle with a bunch of triangles attached to it. A nice trick is to look at almost everything as basic geometrical shapes - that way you won't get stuck trying to outline a something extremely complicated. First we have the circle.
Then we add some triangles.
Here's when it gets a bit trickier. See the dolphin itself is too freeflowing to divide into basic shapes, but looking at a picture of the logo, you can still spot some pretty simple shapes, that would be some good starting points. I chose this one.
I thin my paints down to something like 2:1 water to paint. This is especially important when you start stacking layers upon layers as you don't want the piece to be in 3D. It is also good to thin your paints down because of the fine detail brushes. They will dry up very quickly even with this water-heavy mix.
Next step is to fill in the first shape and add the next like this.
You don't have to be to be all too neat with the paint as long as you use several thin layers. Mistakes can be corrected later on if they stand out.
From here on you can just add on more shapes and colour them up.
Now that all the basics are done, it isn't too hard to add in the detail work. It is a big help to know that you can always tidy up or start over with the background colour. Just remember to keep the paint watered down and it's smooth sailing from here.
This is pretty much done, but I didn't think it popped quite enough, so I finished it off by highlighting the sun with some brighter orange, outlining it, and filling it with white. I think it makes a huge difference.
And that's about it. This isn't easy by any stretch of the imagination, but it is something everyone could do with some practice.
Well that was a long post. Hope you enjoyed it as much as me ;)
/2.0
