It’s hard to believe it was so many months ago when I painted the Storm Troll. I’ve been dying to talk about him! I love trolls. My own army is a troll army, and I plan on having this guy in my ranks. Trolls are great because they’ve got character and even a bit of snarky sass, and the Storm Troll doesn’t disappoint on either count. He’s a storm cloud blue-grey color with bright-blue lightning marks all over his body, and he is electrified with lightning!

I really enjoyed painting this model because I was able to deviate from the standard blue skin tone unique to trolls and create something a bit stormier. In addition to the skin color, I had some fun with the glowing lightning effects that are all over this guy. Here are some of the recipes I used to paint the Storm Troll.

Skin: Mix Trollblood Base, Murderous Magenta, and Ordic Olive together until you get a dusky purple color. When you make your mix, paint it into your notebook for later reference in case you need to mix more. Use that color as your basecoat. Add more Trollblood Base to the previous mixture for the first round of highlights. For successive rounds of highlights, add Trollblood Highlight to the previous highlight mixture and keep going until the highlights are almost pure Trollblood Highlight. You can glaze in some shadows by using the basecoat and mixing in a little bit of Coal Black.

Lightning Glow: I used Meredius Blue as the base for the lightning marks and glowing effects. I mixed in Frostbite for the highlights; a little at a time is good, and eventually you’ll want to bring up the highlights to pure Morrow White for a really bright glow. The key with glowing bits is to achieve a bright color that contrasts with the darker colors on the model. Once you have enough contrast, you can go back in with a glaze of your base color to add the glowing light effect to neighboring surfaces. You want to do this sparingly; don’t go overboard.

The recipe I used for metallic surfaces and leather can be found in the Forces of HORDES: Trollbloods book.

I hope everyone enjoys this model as much as I do, and I look forward to sharing more of my work with everyone in the future.