The Lethal Lemons. This is a concept that has multiple meanings and appeared across more than one of my online spheres of babbling space. First off, the ‘Lethal Lemon Division’ is one of the divisions in the blood bowl league that I am the commissioner for. I even made a logo for it. A few logos actually. I just like to have a simple illustration to represent things and can churn out a reasonable product in a short time because drawing is also a hobby of mine although I don’t showcase it much on this blog.
The (Sour) Spark
So in my infinite desire to spread the plague that is blood bowl across the planet, preferably near where I am, I made another website trying to share about what blood bowl was in general and be a hub for folks to try and find fellow blood bowl players in the nearby area.
During the process of writing the ‘What is blood bowl’ section of the site I was describing vaguely how to make a roster and decided that I needed an example roster and didn’t feel like stealing one off the internet. Decided to make a human team since it was one of the two team examples I put up and I loathe all greenskins so orcs were out. Just hate them and think they are unfair and dumb. (Yeah I play elves so I would think that wouldn’t I?) Anyway, all teams are valid but I have preferences is all and I do have some human models I was planning on making into a team in the near future…. more on that later.
Here is the roster I came up with:
Nothing fancy, 3 rerolls, 4 blitzers, two catchers, a thrower and a single player on the bench. Can’t ask for more than that for a million GP. Frankly I think it’s a steal since if these were elves I’d be down a reroll, have no bench and one of those catchers would be a lineman. Ayyy. Anyway.
Needed a simple name and recently split the league into divisions so just decided to call them the Lethal Lemons. Went with simple Pun names, giving a little more oomph to my positionals although I kind of like them all. Then I drew the little logo dude. Gives me slight fallout-style vault boy meets a box of lemonheads vibes and I like it.
Besides the fact that I might have to obtain a small surplus of lemonheads off the internet after doing that websearch and my mouth watering uncontrollably, I think you can see the what I am saying. Instead of a yellow blue vibe though, I am going for a yellow green to be more similar to the Tochigi Lemon and also because I prefer that color combo personally.
Juicy Details & Further Inspirado
So there is already a human team in our league and they are orange. I love the look of the bright colored teams in blood bowl and I can’t help but paint all my dark and grim, not counting my dark elves which are orange and white of course, but that is another matter. I want a super bright team and I want them to look like modern football players. I love the idea that all these ruthless and war-torn nations filled with soldiers and monsters and various races of differing history and temperament all gather to play this glorious sport. I have teams that play up the ‘Literal Foot- long Wolverine-claws are just armor decorations’ angle with lots of semi-weapons, but I want a clean team. I want a team that (looks like it) is just there to play the sport and whose blocks aren’t just stabs in the gut covered in overtly deadly spikes ready to impale folks who bend down to pick up the ball nearby.
I have seen one or two human teams online by coaches who did simple mods like that and snipped blades and spikes to make them look more ‘normal’ and less fantastic. While I am in favor of spikes and pseudo weapon armor in spades, for some reason I just want this team to be different. Also, I saw this halfling team, The ‘Margarita Manglers’ by a hobbyist called ‘Campbell’ and kind of fell in love with the bright colors and simple designs. Take a look at their tumblr to see more cool stuff.
The beautiful freehand and easygoing nature and theme of the team is just relaxing and refreshing to me. It is ok to put the grimdark down once and awhile, this is why we aren’t playing 40K. It’s blood bowl and we can have some fun with it without being scoffed at, and rather be complimented for doing such a theme.
This team will ultimately end up being kind of a posterboy for the league I will guess. When I start to do streaming more properly. I want to have a simple, relatable, easy team that people can follow along home with. Big dreams as always, but who knows it could (and shall!) happen. Gotta keep busy somehow. But that is for another day.
My previous project was a gigantic undertaking with tons of conversions, kitbashing, and sculpting pretty much making three undead teams from scratch. Needless to say it was an effort which kind of drained me! (Currently in the painting process of that project right now and the going is slow! But I am enjoying it very much! 2.24) So the next team project I want to undertake I want to be kind of vanilla, and what better than a human team. So while the build and prep for the team will be fairly simple, of course I want to add in some challenges and goals mostly for the painting aspect of the team.
Challenges and Goals for the Project
A human team, especially one with a more ‘simple look’ to them after clipping spikes off here and there and making the helmets more smooth is pretty much the ultimate blank canvas as far as blood bowl is concerned. So while my undead were an undertaking in conversions and modding, this will be an undertaking in painting. I don’t know how well my undead look painted because as I write this they are just barely basecoated. Regardless, here are the main goals I have for the project:
- Paint them well so they can handle some close up camera shots.
This means a few things. I want the colors to be smooth and creamy. I am going to have to take my time with them. (Which I usually don’t do since being impatient and striving to just get shit done because ‘progress’ is literally one of my main working tenets)
This yellow is a bit too ‘sour’, but I don’t mind it that much. Doesn’t form a perfect match to the Tochigi lemon, but might be a nice representation of the brighter highlights.
I do really like the squared off numbers though and that black outline. Might be stolen, might not be.
Similar Color Schemes (Click images for source)
There have been many many many human blood bowl teams painting and showed off online thanks to them being the pack in for the BB 2016 starter pack and being a popular team overall for many coaches new and old.
Further thoughts on color. What needs painting and what colors they should be.
Chest Armor will be green and the shirt underneath it will be…yellow maybe? I don’t like how the full green looked on the thrower in the above picture. Leg armor will most likely be yellow. Pants will most likely be yellow as well. Maybe if I do the shirt under the armor yellow, I can do the pants under the leg armor a more whitish color. I have a super bright white-yellow color which might do the trick. I will probably do them up completely in white and then do a little yellow at a time and some green on the chest and see if I want to change things up as I go. Shoes and Socks will probably be green I guess. Maybe white with a green and yellow stripe on them perhaps. Chance for some texture there. Gloves and wristbands I will have to do on a case by case basis. Probably green or yellow for gloves and white with yellow and/or gold stripes for the wrist bands. Helmets will probably be Yellow as well potentially with a green stripe. I will have a think about it. Still early early doors yet.
2. Add interesting texture that tells a story. This means I want primarily the jerseys (Green shirts under the armor) to have a super detailed and small kind of mesh look to them and look like proper mesh fabric as opposed to just green cotton t-shirt cloth. I have a stippling brush which might be up to the task. Go back and forth over the cloth with the base color and the ‘hole’ color until I find the right balance. Should be alright. I also want to have some dirt stains on the knees, sweat and blood on the hanging towels. I’d like the towels to look kind of fluffy and have some light grey texture to appear less like wet paper and more like actual cloth. Also adding vertical lines on the socks to give them more depth and add those nice colored horizontal stripes like old school 70’s/80’s tube socks in team colors.
3. The simple and subtle modifications. Despite this mostly being a painting-focused project, I think I will be doing a few key subtle spike/blade snips to make them less blood and more bowl. Also, the blitzer/lineman helmet regalia debacle has always been a nightmare for me to try and reconcile so I will be cutting the helmet head thing off of all the lineman so only positionals have them.
Blitzers typically have the larger head crest as well as larger armor plates I always thought. Dude in the back (Blitzer, I think.) has the larger head crest compared to the guy in the foreground.
But the guy in the foreground (Lineman, I think.) has a larger pauldron compared to the blitzer…
Wut.
Exactly. I will snip all the short head crests off and make them normal helmets so ONLY blitzers have the head crests.
4. Freehand Funtime & Decoration. That halfling team with the hawaiian shirts is one of the things that sparked the fire within me to do this and that combined with the mini lemonhead logo dude I drew up on the draft list set my heart ablaze. I will certainly be developing a logo and freehanding it all over the place. The human chest armor has plentiful broad smooth armor plates and big smooth pauldrons asking for some sort of logos, player numbers, maybe even brand logos or something.
If I don’t freehand it, I am considering maybe drawing something and printing then out at size on white paper then just gluing them on. I have done it countless times for other signage mostly for terrain, but if it was small enough it would look fine with a wash and have a really nice touch. Basically homemade transfers at that point.
Having mascot logos, a snazzy ‘LL’ logo here and there, numbers and color in appropriate amounts will really sell these guys as footballers more than off-duty warhammer fantasy warriors. Also this team will be getting the crisp and clean base treatment with absolutely impeccable lines. I experimented with trash on the pitch-bases before with some cheerleader models, but it was quick and dirty. The effect was still amazing and I think it will be fun to make some small bits of junk to add on the bases and break up the fact that this team is going to be super well painted and look good, by playing on a pitch that has refuse on it. It all goes back to telling that story and hopefully people will look at each mini and the base and the details and be able to picture this player moving and interacting on the pitch.
5. Immersion. AKA, background story.
I also want to take some time and write up a fun story for the team as well. Maybe give them a little bit of history or give the players and coaches some background as well. Humans are kind of fragile so I don’t know how much to invest in them since they are mostly just dudes with gag names.
6. Ogre, Fling, & Coach.
Almost forgot! The human roster can accept a fling and an ogre and I love a one turner. I play flings pretty often so love them. I have an ogre from the BB2020 Starter box still I think so that is legit. I will be getting another fling or two in a month or so, no rush, but that will be that as well. Kind of a bonus goal to #3 will be getting the ogre and fling less spikey and more football-y and match the team overall. I also want to make a coach so will need to rig something up out of the bits box to make that happen. Should be painless, but the coaches tend to be the basis for my team stories which is at least the case for the triple undead team. So that is that basically.
Said all I had to say you know what I’m saying?
Yeah. That is the plan. And I will get riiiiiighhhht on that as soon as I am done painting another 30 undead blood bowlers haha. Going to get sick of painting after all this is said and done! I think after the human team is done (Or maybe before I start it, depends on how the world is spinning) I am going to put some time into another pitch (Sorry halfling pitch, I will never finish you… Maybe…) or start making some grandstands or vendors to set up during the blood bowl game. The great work will be the stadium and all that comes with it, but I am going to do mine in bite size pieces and spread it over a wide amount of time. Like the dice tower I made. That is actually a scoreboard / weather display piece which would function as kind of an official’s tower or announcer’s box in world. I think I will start to make some shops and bleachers and such which will have functions holding balls and other game elements like cheerleaders, tokens, and refs and what not.
Who knows. Still working on the undead team. If I can get the necromantic done then it will be a triumph. Then the khemri and shambling will follow with little trouble. I still have about a full month until the start of the next season and they don’t even need to be done by then, although they are the team I want to play the most games with if I am being honest. That is what fumbbl is for though, right?
Looking forward to working on the human team in the future. Back to the undead grind and glow! Until next time, dear reader.
tRM
The Red Magician's Junk 
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