Three weeks ago, I put up a post asking what people’s opinions were on how I should rebase this stone thrower, originally painted a hell of a long time ago. Feedback both here and on Dakka was overwhelmingly in favour of round, (as well as my own preference) and so that’s what I did. Unusually in some ways for me, I’ve actually got a follow-up with the finished goods – in no small part due to the “get this stuff finished and outta here” kick I’ve been on lately.

Something I never bothered with back in the day was to paint or even glue on the shields on the front. Something I rectified this time. It took awhile to figure out what to paint on them, which accounted for at least a week of the painting time – in the end I went for “realistic” Red Eyes, given that they can work well enough for either Warhammery goblinoids or the vassals of the Dark Lord Sauron. They also have a suitably “old-school” feel to tie in with the Warhammer Fantasy Battle Third Edition feel of the model – and really create an entirely new, really strong focal point for the model, as we naturally look people and “things” in the eyes. I toned down the original Goblin Face masthead slightly by going over the bright red-orange “sideburns” I’d painted originally with some copper/bronze, though I left the rest of it in the green it was originally painted in, just adding some darkness at the base of the horns.

I also toned down some of the other stuff, like the blue padding on the crossbar, and brightened up the brass metal areas a little as well. I left the bright goblin-face filigree and decoration untouched. As per some of the suggestions, I added some ammo to the base, and some static grass and tufts to make it into a slight mini-diorama – and also left some spaces for crew – though as you can see, the Orcs you see here don’t entirely fit on the base. I used a spare Mierce base I had sitting around since it was more or less the right size and had some kind of direction/facing markings on it, to help mark out the 90 degree front firing arc for KoW.

Some of these Orc crewmen were in semi-painted limbo for years until 2014 when they got finished, others were originally painted over a decade ago. They’ll work as stand-ins for now, since I think I threw away the original Bob Olley goblin crewmen.

Ultimately, I’m very happy with the way this one turned out. It’s the best kind of update, really. Taking a model that I had considered an old piece of junk that I pretty much disliked, and turning it into something that I actually actively like. The last major example of this was Golfag’s Ogres, who had a similar kind of update last year.