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PAINTING·WHITE DWARF 343

’Eavy Metal Masterclass: Mordor Troll

July 2008·pp. 84–89

THE SHORT VERSION

Fil Dunn uses pale, horizontally lined flesh to suggest a huge animal’s loose skin, contrasting it with dark armour and worn leather. Shared brown foundations unite the surfaces, while different kinds of highlights distinguish rough skin from scales, metal and straps. Repeated black washes tarnish the iron before silver chips and rust restore detail. Bloody steel, lined nails and small facial accents finish an army centrepiece whose apparent scale comes from texture as well as size.

AT THE PAINTING DESK

Paints in this article

Every named colour below is searchable across the archive.

Chaos Black SprayChaos BlackBestial BrownBleached BoneBlood RedBoltgun MetalDwarf FleshGraveyard EarthKhemri BrownFortress GreyMithril SilverScab RedScorched BrownSnakebite LeatherVermin BrownTallarn FleshBadab BlackDevlan MudGryphonne SepiaLeviathan PurpleOgryn FleshArdcoatMatt VarnishGloss VarnishSkull White

Materials list and all later steps are combined. Printed ’Ard Coat is normalized to Ardcoat. The final blood recipe explicitly says Gloss Varnish, so that source name is retained alongside the opening Ardcoat listing.

EXPLORE RELATED TOPICS

Painting armour Painting cloth & leather Painting skin & faces Painting techniques

Back to the original

Find this article in White Dwarf 343, pp. 84–89.

This is an original summary. Refer to your magazine for the complete article, rules, images and painting steps.

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PaintingWD 343 · p. 85

Painting the Troll’s Skin

Fil builds the flesh from dark brown through progressively paler skin mixtures, applying each stage in horizontal marks that preserve creases. The texture draws on large mammals and helps the model feel enormous. A glaze combining flesh and purple washes with matt varnish ties the area together, while cooler shading changes the face. The guide also explains painting from the inside out to protect finished outer details from earlier messy work.

Middle-earth Strategy Battle GameMordor7 paint colours
July 2008Read summary
PaintingWD 343 · p. 86

Painting the Scales

A brown base and liberal dark wash prepare the Troll’s rough skin patches before fine bone-tinted lines pick out individual scales. A final sharper edge increases their apparent hardness, while brown lining avoids the excessive contrast black would produce against the flesh. The accompanying advice distinguishes hard glossy surfaces from matt skin or cloth. The same basic sequence can therefore be adapted to other scaled creatures without applying identical highlights everywhere.

Middle-earth Strategy Battle GameMordor3 paint colours
July 2008Read summary
PaintingWD 343 · p. 87

Painting the Armour

Bright metal is deliberately darkened through several fully dried black washes before carefully placed silver chips and edges restore its shape. Further shading ages selected damage, and a thin brown wash adds rust in recesses. The sword uses fewer wash layers to stay brighter than the armour. Varying the treatment of individual scratches makes the damage appear accumulated over time rather than inflicted all at once.

Middle-earth Strategy Battle GameMordor4 paint colours
July 2008Read summary