To tell you the truth, I am actually quite addicted to painting models for my Blood Bowl team at the moment: Rarely has a painting recipe ever worked so well for me, and the fact that I do not need to be 100% accurate when painting these guys makes this small project a tremendous amount of fun. So expect a rather massive update today, with lots of new players for the Orkheim Ultraz. Here we go:
Blitzers
My first Blitzer was actually the first test model I painted for the team. In the meantime, I’ve built and painted three additional Blitzers to bump their number up to four. Here they are:
In order to make them recognisable as Blitzers, I gave these guys quite a few pieces of armour. Not as much as you would see on a Black Orc, mind you, but I wanted them to look reasonably similar to actual football players. As a matter of fact, I did actually use a couple of Black Orc parts to achieve that effect. And I quickly found out that bog standard Space Marine shoulderpads work really well to approximate football gear 
I also tried to use what Space Ork parts I had on the Blitzers, since the parts look more heavily armoured and really fit the football look.
Anyway, here’s a closer look at the individual models:
You may have spotted this model during the team’s WIP phase. Since then, I added a couple of the aforementioned shoulderpads to bulk it out a little. I also used a spiked armour plate to make the helmet resemble a football helmet. I rather like the static pose on this guy: He looks like he’s daring his opponents to make their move…
As you can see, I used quite a few more Gorkamorka decals here, and they really make the armour pieces look more interesting and believable. The key point in using the decals was to add them right after the base colours were done, but before the washes and weathering effects were applied. That way, I was able to “age” the decals along with the rest of the model’s kit, making them look quite a bit more realistic.
Next up, this guy:
Since you last saw him during the WIP phase, I swapped the head (which was slightly too large) for that of a Space Ork nob. His right arm (which, looking at it now, is a tad too short, by the way: seems like this player is just a little challenged when it comes to proportions…) came from the Black Orc kit. All that piercings make him look like a pretty tough guy, don’t you think?
Realising that I had yet to add a model wearing one of the Orcs’ fabled metal jaws, I built this guy:
As you can see, he’s in the middle of some kind of maneuvre that is sure to make somebody hurt pretty bad. Getting more dynamic poses on these guys was achieved by simply adding some leftover sprue to their base that, even after being covered in the basing materials, could still be used to glue the model to the base in a more interesting position. I wanted some of these models to be really dynamic, and I guess we can call this particular mission accomplished.
The fact that this model already had that huge metal jaw meant I could assemble him with a helmetless head, to get some more visual variety across the team.
Thrower and Linemen
When building these guys, my two main ideas behind them were to make them look less heavily armoured than the Blitzers and to pose them rather dynamically (making it look like most of them were trying their best to catch a ball). To achieve those aims, I used more fantasy Orc parts on the models, since some of those are less armoured. I used bowmen from the WFB 6th edition starter box for the models, just replacing a hand or arm here and there and cutting off the bows. By attaching these to the bases at more interesting angles, the poses were really easy to get right and took almost no conversion at all!
Let’s take a closer look:
You cannot help feeling sorry for these guys, as one can almost imagine the ball sailing right past their outstretched hands. In any case, they add some goofy humour to the team, so they’re definitely pulling their weight after all.
I also built a thrower, using a very similar recipe:
I wanted him to be striking a fairly iconic, athletic pose, and I think that worked. Plus I finally got a chance to use that old head from a metal special weapons Ork boy from the late 90s — easily one of my favourite heads ever! I even added a touch of gloss varnish to his goggles to make them look more like actual glass.
When it came to attaching him to the base, I added a skull to make his pose a little more impressive. It may be Blood Bowl, but it’s still the Warhammer world after all — when in doubt, use a skull!
So with that, nine models of my initial team roster have been completed. That leaves only the two Black Orcs and an additional Lineman for now, although I can easily see myself painting some more models for added tactical variety. And I’ll still need to finish those fans, of course. Not a problem, though, since working on these guys is really a blast! Here’s the team so far:
C&C always welcome! And, as usual, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!
Filed under: Conversions, Orcs & Goblins, paintjob Tagged: bb, blood bowl, conversion, greenskins, orc, orc team, orcs & goblins, orkheim ultraz, paintjob, team
