Deep in the dark, a mighty Troggoth stirs...

End of the year; end of the road!

If you go down in the caves today, you're sure of a Trogg surprise... 

The Great Troggoth Picnic

As 2021 draws to a close, so too does another of my larger projects.  After a couple of years, I've finally finished the Troggoth king and his various stinky subjects!

I've really enjoyed working on the Troggoths and may revisit the army at some point in the future.  For now though, I'm happy to call my Troggherd complete and move on to another project.

I hope you've enjoyed following my progress on the Trogg king - there were definitely a lot of highs and lows during the sculpting process, but it was ultimately worth all of the hard work and I definitely count it as one of my most successful sculpts to date.

I've included pictures of the King and the final wave of his 'subjeks' for you to enjoy - if you want to see close ups of the rest of the herd (as well as their WIP shots), check out my previous post!  I've also shared my final batch of WIP images for the herd should you be interested in my build process :)

Troggoth King on Dankhold Colossus

I finally completed my Troggoth King on Dankhold Colossus to lead my Troggherd in their rampage across the mortal realms!  I started this project a couple of years ago on a whim after the Dankhold Troggoths were first released.  I loved the aesthetic, but as always, wanted to go bigger!

The king himself is approximately 10% larger than a standard Dankhold Troggoth while the Colossus he rides is... well, colossal!  The base alone is 12" across, so you can imagine how large the creature itself is!

I decided to paint the King a fleshy colour to contrast with the other Dankhold Troggoths in the herd.  I chose to paint the Colossus in a similar palette to the Rockguts but slightly darker and accented with green for his mossy underbelly.  I intentionally chose red for the dorsal crystals to tie in with a number of others found across the army, including those which make up the King's crown.

The Troggoth King next to his throne (which counts as a Badmoon Loonshrine for the army) 

Thundering through the caves, rider and mount make a fearsome slab of stinky muscle!

The theory behind the Colossus is that it is a rare breed of Troggoth which shares traits with the 'regular' varieties found in the deep dank places of the mortal realms 

The warmer underside of the Colossus sports a thick coat of matted green cave moss in a similar fashion to a real world sloth  

The king is armed with both a huge stone pig sticker in one hand.

 The king uses the other hand to pluck puffshrooms from his own grubby skin.  The puffshrooms inflate like a huge air sack before he throws them at an unfortunate foe.

You can see just how large the king is when compared to his 'regular' brethren

I intentionally enlarged the King's snout to mimic the silhouette of the badmoon and sculpted him with his mouth open in a gurning sneer

With such an enormous base, I had a lot of scope to add details such as the two mangler squig skeletons 

The base is dotted with colourful funghi like all places frequented by the Gloomspite Gitz

A Stalagsquig waits by normal stalagmites hoping to snag an unwary snack...

Sores and welts can be found on the rubbery skin of the Colossus

The crystals growing from the back of the Colossus are probably worth a fortune... if you could find any way to remove them!

I used greens as an accent colour on the skin to hint at the growth of more bacteria and moss

Small stalactites can be seen poking through the moss on the Colossus' underbelly - quite possibly formed over a very long period in damp, mineral rich caves

The King uses his huge spear to impale foes, but also to goad his mount into a rage, hence the large bite which has been taken out of the spearhead!

Even a stalagsquig can be found nestling in the scales and crystals on the creature's back

All manner of shrooms can be seen growing up the King's back.  The self proclaimed King also has a crystal crown which he believes marks him as having been touched by the clammy hand.  In reality he probably fell on his head, but he's big and scary enough that nobody's arguing!

Dankhold Troggths

My trio of Dankhold Troggoths

My Dankhold Troggboss strikes a mighty pose

I kept the colours fairly muted on the boss to make him stand out like an Albino

I used yellow as a spot colour to contrast with the skin, but also as it's a 'lucky' colour in Gloomspite society, marking him out as special

My Troggboss wears a large mushroom on his head which I'm sure he believes makes him look taller

This Dankhold Troggoth has just clubbed a huge creepy crawly to death - probably a tasty snack

I had a spare Spiteshroom which I used to add some additional visual interest to his 'trophy hunch'

A couple of snappy Stalagsquigs have also taken up residence on his back!

I had a blast painting the various spores and shrooms on his skin

My second Dankhold Troggoth sports an enormous club, matted with the blood of his enemies...

I added some liver spots and veins to his belly to break up the large flat areas

The discoloration around the spores was really fun to paint!

SPLUTT!  A careless grot pays the price for getting underfoot (pun intended)!

The fluorescent grass tufts and green slimy pools tie the bases of my Troggoths together nicely

Fungoid Cave Shaman and Endless Spells

My second Troggoth Fungoid Cave shaman!

I loved painting the original Mollog so much that I decided to convert another one to make a second Fungoid Cave shaman

I replaced the typical shrooms on Mollog's back so that it's clearly a different Troggoth.  He even has a snail 'famlilya' on his hunched back

I completely re-sculpted the hands to make a spell casting pose.  Between them, the shaman is manifesting a frightening maw from green lightning

No wizard would be complete without a pointy hat - even one made out of a stalagsquig!

Scrapscuttle's Arachnacauldron - I was pleased with the gloopy smoke effects and the flames under the bowl of the cauldron 

Mork's Mighty mushroom was so much fun to paint - I really went wild on the smoke, using colours instead of tints for shading.

  I also used florescent paint make a sickly green glow from the centre of the smoke and the stem.

Group shots

The whole stinking herd!

WIP images

Colossus Sculpt

I spent a lot of time working on the musculature for the Colossus' arms and legs.  I bulked them out a lot more while still trying to keep similar proportions to the Dankhold Troggoths

Sculpey was a blessing and a curse with this miniature - it's easy to work with on larger models and can be baked several times before it starts to deteriorate.  On the downside, it can be very fragile!

Detailing the skin on the Colossus was very time consuming, but I did work a number of techniques to speed things up.  Using Isopropyl to smooth the surfaces saves time, but it can remove a lot of oil from the clay if you over-use it, making it prone to cracking

The 'naked' side after I'd started bulking out the thighs again.  Annoyingly, Super Sculpey (soft / pink) was very hard to get hold of during the pandemic, so I had to mix it with original white sculpey to eek out what I had left before I could obtain some more!

I took to sculpting details while the whole piece was on the baking tray so that I could avoid handling it and adding more stress to the joints which cracked when handled too much 

I plaited aluminium wire which I textured with pliers for the reins

Sculpting the skin folds and lumpy toes was oddly satisfying!

Size comparison to Dankhold Troggoth

A big beastie requires a big base!  In the end, I had to buy a solid bamboo chopping board and cut out the circular base as it needed to be so large!  I also needed the depth to pin the model to the base as it's quite heavy and I didn't want it to fall off!

Once I'd positioned and detailed the arm over the squig skeleton which would be on the base, I could then sculpt the missing hand

This hand went through so many iterations... it was probably the single most challenging part of the build to get right as it's in such an unusual extended pose

A quick test fit with the hand in place before final assembly.  I sculpted most of the underbelly including the moss in epoxy putty as I wanted it to be durable underneath and didn't want to compromise that with more firings.  I also used putty to reinforce any joins on the model for the same reason.

And primed, it really all comes together!

Mangler Squig skeletons

While planning the base for this model, I knew I wanted to add some larger points of interest as there was quite a large area to fill underneath the creature's body.  After much deliberation, I settled on decorating the base with a Mangler squig skull, but after completing the skull, I couldn't resist making the rest of the skeleton...

I sculpted the jaw separately as the intention was for it to be placed as scattered bones 

While sculpting, I used cat skulls for reference as they were about the closest I could get to a squig skull in real life!

Getting the teeth to line up when the jaw was in place took quite a lot of sanding and re-fitting!

I decided that I just had to sculpt the rest of the body!

I added spikey squig scales to the head of the skull

What a little cutie!

Ready to bite your legs off!

Here's how it scales up next to a Dankhold Troggoth

After finishing the sculpt I decided it would be best to cast the skeleton so that I could use a pair of manglers on the base!  I broke it down into components and made a silicone mould

The first rougher skeleton cast in resin

The second cast was a lot cleaner than the first although both would need a fair amount of cleanup

No Mangler squigs would be complete without their chained legs, so I carved two links from styrene (one open, one closed) and glued them to a flat sheet.  I then made several press moulds with blue stuff (a thermoplastic which is malleable when heated) then cast a number of links to form the chains

While regretting my life choices, I painstakingly assembled these tiny, fiddly, hateful little chain links and vowed never to use this process ever again!

Base detailing

From above you can see the full base layout including the contact areas for the colossus' fingers and feet.  Note the pinning holes which were pre-drilled

The scattered remains of the mangler squigs look great on the base without pulling focus away from the main figures

As I'd already marked out the placement of the Troggoths, I was able to fill the remaining areas of the base with stalagmites, shrooms and a lovely green slime pool!

Again, the same colours and tufts were used to make sure the base fit in with the rest of the herd

Various skulls and a spare Stalagsquig were dotted around the cave floor

In this image, you can see that I did a little re-sculpting on the skull of the second mangler squig to add variation

Cave grass and shrooms were added around the foetid pool

Details like the pool tie the base to other models like the Troggoth Hag

Final Thoughts

I've thoroughly enjoyed working on the Troggoths and can't wait to have a game of Age of Sigmar 3.0 with them - they may not be that competitive, but they're certainly fun to play with!  I've even put together a Warscroll for the Troggoth King which should be really fun to play with and against!

I hope you've enjoyed following along on the Trogg-train as much as I have!  As I've had to pack the Imperator build away for Christmas, I've been working on a new project deep within the steel corridors of Necromunda. Stay tuned as I'll be posting again soon! :)