This year I had taken on quite a lot of projects, looking back maybe too many. However I simply couldn’t turn down a chance to do another NAF GT team after enjoying painting them the previous 2 years. I had already done teams for Topper, Wilf and Jan and had a good creative working relationship with whilst I knew Duke from the WIL and had met him in person. I have 2 projects lined up for the 1st half of 2015, but will probably take things a little easier the rest of the year.


The main Halfling team was finished a while ago, but there were 2 outstanding models left over. I took a break as I was struggling for inspiration with Deeproot and I wanted him to really stand out from the other trees as he plays for flings more often than other stars do for “lesser” teams. He was already a suitably bulkier and more powerful model but needed a paint job that match that. My initial thought was to paint him a very dark almost black brown, but that was difficult to highlight and ended up losing some of the great detail on the model. I had given him a dark brown base coat and was settled on making him a darker shade of brown than the other 2 trees with light grey leaves and fungus, but as I was painting him the more highlights I added the better he looked.
Since the team colours were green white and yellow I changed my mind and continued highlighting his bark until it was a very light almost white brown, the grey fungus/leaves would have been lost in this so I switched the leaves and vines to dark green and the mushrooms to red with white spots for a dash of colour. His few bits of armour and clothing were painted in mid green and yellow to match the team colours.


Topper had asked me to make him a marker for the team using a fan with the team banner. Luckily I had the perfect model as one of the treemen was initially holding an Ultimate fling, ready to throw, he even had a scarf. We’d rejected using him since he didn’t fit the conquistador theme of the other flings, but with a small bit of greenstuff I was able to convert his helmet into a bobble hat and added a banner from the empire flagellants to his base. He was painted in team colours and the team “Bad Pies” name along with logo onto the banner.


With those 2 model complete the team was now finished, 14 flings, 2 trees, 2 stars, 2 coaching staff and a fan. It took us a while to settle on a colour scheme that was strong and worked for all player types but kept to the softer image that some have of flings. Of course anyone who has faced an experienced fling coach knows this is all an act and what vicious little sods they can be.



Topper had also asked me to do him a couple of stars for him to use, the first of these was Roxanna. I had made her a while back, using a very simple conversion of Morathi’s torso with a dark eldar arm and legs from a metal witch elf and some greenstuff filler. He wanted pale Caucasian skin and black hair so these were easy enough to do. As she wasn’t wearing a lot of clothes so her uniform choices were limited, Topper’s dark elves had black and dark blue as their main colours I used these for most of her armour, along with blue loin cloth.


The other star was Morg, as he is such an iconic player I wanted to do something a little different from using the standard model. I had already got some of the new GW plastic Ogryns for an ogre team I was working on and their legs and torso were ideal for Bloodbowl ogres. I thought the legs were a little stumpy so chopped the knees off and extended them with pins, filling the gaps with greenstuff. I added Morg’s head, arms, shoulder pad and chestplate along with a couple of armour plates from the black orc plastics.
Since he plays for all the living teams Topper left me free to choose my own colours, Blue has always been my favourite colour to paint so I went with that for his trousers and shoulder pad. I was tempted to add the yellow stripes but thought they wouldn’t work for full trousers. A white shirt completed the strip and provided a good contrast with the blue and his skin. On reflection I could have made him a bit flashier, but nothing I tried really suited him. I am very pleased with how his skin turned out, especially the stubble on his head and chin as it’s the first time I think I’ve got that right.

With the flings done that makes 6 teams I have completed in 2014; Savage Orcs, High Elves, Circus Goblins, Dark Elves, Nurgle & Haflings. The Orcs were mostly done in 2013 and the Nurgle started then, so that’s 4 and a bit really but still a very productive year.