Test GobboGames Workshop Night Goblin Boss, completed August 2008

Officially this model was painted as a test of greenskin flesh tones for another project, though I've yet to actually get around to that one. Unofficially this model was painted out of spite; I'm not especially proud of that fact, but there it is. One of our local game stores was holding a single mini painting contest with a 30-day time limit and over the course of the first 20 days or so I grew progressively more irritated by random staff and patrons gleefully announcing "Borer can't even clean a model in a month, let alone paint one!" and decided to give the lot of them a nicely painted "flock you". I readily admit I hedged my bets by deliberately picking a small figure, but it's one I liked and expected to enjoy painting. Plus I could salve my conscience with the whole "green skin test" pretext.

Despite the short deadline, I ended up puttering around with the conversions for almost a week, converting things that didn't strictly need to be converted (like his sword, shield, hood, belt, eye-patch, right foot, base…) and didn't start painting this mini until Sunday night at 9pm, painted the next three evenings after work, and turned it in just before 5pm on Thursday to meet the 30-day deadline. Four nights might sound like a long time for a single goblin, but I assure you this is insanely fast for me. I have to admit the mini itself helped a lot - dark colors, strong facial caricature, physically small figure, and so on…

I'm especially pleased with the face. The first time I painted the eye, it was much less crazy looking, and didn't really match the facial expression. I think this revised version fits the model much better. As for the flesh tones I was supposed to be testing, I honestly tried to use the GW green skin recipe from their website - Dark Angels Green, Goblin Green, Snot Green, etc. - and just didn't like it. It was so very green, I just couldn't suspend my disbelief long enough to think it was a skin tone (and I've been in this hobby a long time). So I started over with more tans and browns. In the end, I believe the recipe is a base coat of GW Camo Green with Catachan Green for the primary shadow and Kommando Khaki for the primary highlight. There are a great many other colors glazed in there too, especially Rotting Flesh, Scorched Brown, and Scab Red. In retrospect, that's the kind of thing I should have written down.

It doesn't bode terribly well for the theory of karma that my most spite-fuelled miniature has rather accidentally become my most widely competitive miniature. He participated in the local store's contest, Adepticon 2009, and then Games Day Chicago later that same year. He placed progressively lower in each contest, but that's to be expected as the competitions grew more challenging. Nevertheless, I have a surprising amount of affection for this little guy, who was only supposed to be a test. And by the by, his little display base is a resin 35mm mini-plinth from Dragon Forge Design.

This was only my second greenskin project ever, the first being a Blood Bowl Snotling from way back in the 80's, but I will say that after my usual [space marine] subjects, working on a greenskin model was very… liberating. Something's askew? Asymmetrical? Just plain broken? No problem, they're goblins; they're not supposed to be tidy, symmetrical or well-maintained - very liberating indeed.