Madrak [7] Thrall Completed!

After much work, I've finally completed Madrak / Thrall. In his final days, I got pretty into the work and didn't get nearly as many WIP shots as I would have liked.

Because of this, I'll cover what I can before showing off the final photos.

I wanted to have something that would stand out, so I used a nail jewel. Step the first was drilling an indent into the surface of his trinket. I put a small amount of green stuff in that gap and pushed the jewel in. This created a trim out of the green stuff dislocated.

After varnishing, this jewel totally frosted. A little scraping with my knife later solved that.

Just wanted to zoom out here and show some contrast.

While I used non-metallic metals for most of him (aka, used browns and yellows to paint his armour's gold trim) I used some actual silver paint for the tiny loops on the strapping around his wrists. In the larger pictures take a look as well - just an example of how some subtle differences go a long way to adding to a model.

You'll recall that after creating the first spearhead for an Impaler, I got an idea to create Thrall's hammer out of Turquoise. The first steps of the hammer, were pretty basic.. after finding stones large enough to use.

Take a Turquoise stone, the cut it to shape. That meant a box for the center piece and a trapezoid(ish) piece for either end of the hammer.This is a softer stone, so it also wasn't an ordeal to drill holes for pinning. (Full disclosure: I accidently drilled through both sides... hence some while/blue shock painting on the hammer fronts to cover the putty up)

After cutting the pieces into around the right shapes, I used a coarse (rough) grinding stone in a dremmel to grind the shapes carefully how I wanted them. Follow that up with a smoother grinding stone to polish the stone and add a shine. I ended up doing this a few times, as TheWife helped me realize the hammer was a liiiiittle too big and had to be shrunk what I could.

Once the hammer was assembled, I layed a couple VERY THIN strips of green stuff around each side and glued tiny beads to it like bolts. Some Gesso to prime them (remind me to get black Gesso), then painted black, then highlighted strongly. I also free-handed the Frostwolf Emblem on the facing side of his hammer.

Between some blue pigment powder and the varnish, the tone of the stone hammer was reined in to match that of the model.

not a perfect before and after, since the left is a few steps behind,
but close enough

A final step was varnishing... this can be dangerous for many, but I swear by Liquitex Matte Varnish. (A paint-on art brand)

For Madrak, because of the pigments I used, I was worried about painting on the varnish as usual.

Instead, I used straight (un-diluted) varnish and airbrushed two light coats on.

Look at the areas I've circled. Note how there's no loss of colour or quality, and how the pigmented areas (such as the dark brown on his gold) remain strong.


Basing was as simple as some sand, strawberry seeds (the larger stones... found in the soap making section of Michaels hobby store), some static grass and larger face straw/grass. I used super glue to base.

Take a gander at the finished model...

Now, to remind, I wasn't trying for "replica". I want my Hordebloods to have a distinct character of their own and still portray the Troolblood roots. Instead, you get this:

As a bonus, I entered him in a painting competition during a tournament the day after I finished him and won! (a mini and a gift certificate to grow my army!)

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Take a look at my Step by Step page for the entire Hordebloods project. Here you will find each model broken down into links showing each step: Concept, Works in Progress, (for both modelling and painting) and Final Shots