Rockgut Troggoth – Part 5. Now with added goblin!

October was quite a month, beginning with my Troggoth workshop in Nottingham and finishing, back in Nottingham, with the Golden Demon Winners’ Day. But the most significant thing by far was my partner Mark’s return to hospital mid month! This was for a planned procedure to, hopefully, sort out the last lingering issues from last year’s illness. I’m happy to say everything went very well and Mark made a swift recovery. We are now looking forward to getting our life back to normal after a difficult sixteen months.

Not surprisingly I haven’t got a huge amount of painting done recently. This is not to say that there hasn’t been any progress because I’ve finally been able to put my sub-assemblies together and it’s great to be able to work on the model as a whole! Most significantly I’ve been able to resolve my ideas for the overall project.

I get a great deal of pleasure from painting a mini to the best of my ability, and I’m happy with this aspect of things; but I felt there was something missing. I need to do more than an out-of-the-box paintjob if I want a viable competition piece. In order for the model to be up to competition standard the Troggoth needs some element of story telling to give it a context.

Often this would involve conversion work but in this case I’d constructed the mini exactly as I wanted it, so my narrative will develop from the basing. This will be done, in part, from the creation of an appropriate environment but I am also going to include an extra mini, to interact with the Troggoth.

The environment was something I’ve already given a lot of thought to. This project is inspired by my 1988 Troll and, like him, the Troggoth will be perched atop a pile of rocks. The difference is that in this case the rocks will comprise of the rubble and broken statuary of an ancient ruin. I’ve made this using a combination of plastic scenery pieces and plaster. The plaster elements were first cast as simple blocks and then smashed with a dirty great hammer, which seems quite appropriate for the Age of Sigmar. I then refined the plaster rocks with some carved details.

The rock elements were pinned and glued together onto a plinth using Superglue. Once the glue had set I filled the gaps and built up a ground surface using Milliput. The addition of a little garden soil, sprinkled onto Superglue, creates a great texture for the ground. The tricky part is making the back and sides of the plinth blend seamlessly with the additional materials. This involves a lot of careful sanding and filling to create a smooth surface. Although a fiddly process it’s well worth the time and effort because sloppy base work will seriously undermine a painted model.

The element of an additional miniature is the biggest change to my original concept but it’s also the most important. The Troggoth looks great on his own but, with a pose that puts him in the middle of the action, I felt that I could tell a more complete story if I gave him a reason to be hurling his boulder. One way to do this would be to show the Troggoth’s intended target and turn the piece into a duel, but that didn’t spark my interest.

The idea that appeals to me is to show the great lumbering Troggoth getting his orders from a diminutive goblin, who is pointing emphatically at some unseen (by the viewer) target. As well as giving a context to the Troggoth it introduces a touch of humour. The story feels appropriate for its protagonists with the goblin making use of the large, and stupid, Troggoth’s strength for it’s own sneaky purposes.

Putting the final composition together will take a lot of care but, even after the roughest of test fittings, I’m getting a good feeling about the new direction for this project.