Blood Bowl Dark Elf Staff - Mallerion the Team Owner + WIP

Back when I gave a name for my Dark Elf Blood Bowl team, the Dreadspear Dragons, I came up with the idea that due to some legal shenanigans, the team is officially owned by a real dragon, becoming a gimmick that makes them famous. This was just to give some more meaning to their name and make the whole backstory a bit more interesting but it would be waste if I didn't represent it somehow! So I digged through various dragon miniatures and decided on using a Shadow Dragon from Reaper Miniatures - it had the good style, pose and size for me.

Besides that, I also thought that I could do banners for my teams (because I love banners) - which could be then paired with cheerleaders and/or mascots. Thankfully I had a dragonskin (?) banner in my bits collection, one from Mournfang Riders, so I mounted it on a base, covered in various Dark Elf bits and added several skulls for the evil factor. Now the Dragon can stay with the flag on the sidelines and represent the team better than ever!

The painting scheme was chosen to reference the players' colors - purple, dark red and blue, pale green, with silver/bright accents. I used numerous points for shading and highlights on both instances of dragonskin to simulate the scales - and I think it was actually easier to pull off than trying to go for smooth blending. The wing membranes also got a lot of dots to make them more visually interesting.

I plan to use him in the game as the equivalent of 4-5 cheerleaders - and that's why there are two giant pompoms laying on the ground, just in case someone had doubts what is the dragon's role on the pitch. Maybe I'll come up with some additional rules for him - if so, I'll post them here of course.

The Blood-Bowl-enthusiastic dragon Mallerion, a mascot of the Dreadspear Dragons was a known oddity in on the pitch, but he became especially noteworthy only after becoming the actual, official owner of the team (due to some desperate legal maneuvering on the part of the previous one). Being a dragon, he was neither interested nor capable of all the bureaucratic work needed, so there’s a wide array of assistants and representatives who do all the legwork for him. They may even set their own salaries and working conditions as long as the owner is happy. Thankfully, Mallerion is perfectly content with having enough food, being able to cheer from the sidelines (heightened statistical amount of deaths correlating with him being on the stadium is a coincidence!) and taking part in photo sessions. Not only he makes the press more interested in the team, but his presence on the sidelines can also motivate the players and the fans into a glorious rage much better than a whole team of cheerleaders! The only problem is that he personally terminates the staff who’s he displeased with - after which the unfortunates often don’t find a new job. Well, this isn’t strange, since it involves fire breath and being eaten alive by the dragon, but nobody gets into the Blood Bowl business expecting a long life and nice retirement!

First, the scaly lad himself:

And the banner that I prepared to accompany him:

The conversion work that I did here was really minimal, but I've made a photo nontheless: