Troll

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Reddit.

This troll by Reaper should be more upright. I bought the Bones plastic version to — you guessed it — get free shipping on Amazon as part of another order, and it turned up in the mail squashed almost flat by the box it was jammed up against in the envelope. Thanks, Amazon. After trying to reset the plastic by the usual hot water-ice water method and failing miserably, I entertained the idea of cutting through his ankles, drilling holes in the ends of the stumps and using bits of wire to reposition the legs. After I'd finished laughing I decided to just leave him as he was. He looks fine, as if he's lunging towards his victim.

Apart from the bent plastic, Reddit is a pretty clean mould with only a couple of small bits of flash that were easy to carve off.

I kicked off by priming him black all over. I was stuck for colours as usual so looked up images on the google and saw a couple of trolls that had been painted in more aquatic tones instead of the standard greens, so I decided to rip that off as it looks great.

I started on Reddit's back and legs with a coat of Vallejo Dark Blue Pale washed all over with a couple of coats of Army Painter Blue Tone. Once it had dried I thought it looked too blue so I gave him a couple of coats of Green Tone to give a more turquoise look. Once dry he got about three drybrushes of Dark Blue Pale with increasing amounts of Rotten White added to lighten it, and then another coat of Green Tone.

The scales on his back were next. I thought about doing them in a darker blue, but plumped for an orangey colour for some contrast. Each scale got two thin coats of Orange Brown and a dab of Red Tone to give them a bit more depth. Reddit's hair is Dark Sea Blue washed with Green Tone and highlighted with a mix of Dark Sea Blue, Emerald and Rotten White.

With his back done it was time for the front.

Three thin coats of Vallejo Medium Flesh covered the black primer and plastering it twice with Army Painter Flesh Tone gave me the muddy yellow-brown I was after. I added Rotten White to the Medium Flesh and drybrushed all the yellow areas a couple of times before switching to thin layers to tidy it up a bit. At this point I painted his nails and claws black, drybrushed them with Neutral Grey and washed them with Green Tone.

His teeth and mouth were the only bits that worried me, as I'm not too good at painting bone shades. I used a couple of thin coats of Bonewhite on his fangs and washed them with Flesh Tone, then layered on some more Bonewhite. His gums are Red washed over with Purple Tone and highlighted with Purple with a bit of white mixed in, and his tongue was done the same way but highlighted with Pink.

Reddit's eyes went so well that I thought I must have mucked them up before realising they'd actually worked.

Much like Gutrags, I should have hacked off Reddit's integral base but totally forgot to do it until after I'd superglued him to a 45mm base. I filled in the gaps around the edges with Liquitex Modelling Paste and left it overnight to dry. I painted it Flat Earth, gave it a thorough wash with Sepia Tone and highlighted it with a mix of Mahogany and Light browns. I should have added some sand to provide texture, but too late now.

While walking the evil ones yesterday I picked up a twig and some small leaves (pines? I have no idea what they're called) to decorate the base. After slicing them into smaller strips I layered on some Yellow Green. It might sound ridiculous to paint real leaves to make them look more realistic, but that's what I did. The piece of twig just got a coat of matt varnish and I finished the base with a spare mushroom I'd made for Tinley Isobel's base.

The base is a bit sparse, but I'm crap at planning them out when they're 20mm, let alone bigger. If it makes it to New England in one piece I'll eat my dog.

Reddit is a great looking mini and I'm really happy with how he turned out. My only one small complaint is that he's another Reaper figure that, like QT, looks like he's going for a high-five.