I was having a dig round my loft the other weekend and found a load of old 1990s era metal Games Workshop Wood Elf miniatures (the majority of which I’m selling on eBay right now – check the shop page if you’re interested!) and found a treeman i’d never painted.
I decided I’d like to convert it in to a Bloodbowl player for a Wood Elf team. Having never done any real conversion work with green stuff modeling clay before I thought this was an ideal time to experiment!
There are quite a few guides on YouTube ( I found this one very useful) on how to work with green stuff (the yellow and blue air drying modeling clay that is favoured by miniature painters) so after watching a few I decided my treeman needed a tabard to affix a squad number on.
Firstly I took the treeman off his original square base and stuck on a round one that matches the rest of the bloodbowl teams. I drilled a small hole in the front of base to allow him to carry the ball (not that this would be likely to happen in a game!)
I then took a reasonable sized ball of the mixed green stuff and flattened it between two slightly wet plastic bags (to prevent the green stuff from sticking). This created something that looked like a coin which I then cut off the sides to make a square which i stuck to the treeman’s front. I then repeated the procedure for the back.
To make some ropes I rolled a thin sausage of green stuff, folded it in half and then twisted it. I then stuck this twisted sausage over both shoulders on the treeman. You can find a video showing this technique here.
Finally I stuck a spare ball into his outstretched right arm to make it look like he was throwing a pass (or perhaps intercepting one).
I then painted him, airbrushing a dark brown followed by a few quick passes of a forest green to break up the colours a bit. I then picked out the exposed areas of wood and mossy bits with a paint brush before washing the whole model with agrax earthshade.
Finishing touches included adding static grass to the base and also a few mossy bits to various places.
I decided to leave squad number transfers until a wood elf team appears from Games Workshop (hopefully soon but who knows!) – they are likely to include transfers in a elven font in that box.