Iron Hills Dwarves with Mattocks

This week I had a little more time to paint and promptly got started on the Iron Hills Dwarves, I built the week prior.

Pict 405: Iron Hills Dwarves

Pict 406: Iron Hills Dwarf Warriors with Mattocks

These warriors were surprisingly easy to paint this time around. When I was painting the warriors carrying crossbows I tried to finish the chariot at the same time and painted myself into a metaphorical corner. With these I really enjoyed the differing poses and thus finished them quickly.

Pict 407: Iron Hills Dwarves Command with Mattocks

Pict 408: Iron Hills Dwarves Command with Mattocks

The Captain and Banner Bearer are amazing models as well - I am tempted to get the same Captain again to convert him into a hero for my battle company, but for now these will do fine. The Banner is complexer than the first one I painted. The prominent designs form not only a mountain but also a band that I interpreted as the ground and thus painted green resulting in a fetching contrast with the complementary red that I used as the main colour.

Pict 409: Duergar Warrior (WIP)

I got a little bit of work in with the Dúnedain, but not enough to warrent a new picture of them. Instead I'm showing my progress with the next D&D miniature. This Duergar is part of the same set as the Intellect Devourer so that I painted the base in matching colours. For now the base-colours and washes are down and I hope to finish this guy early in the coming week.

Early Plastic Genestealers

Since I showed you what was on my painting table last week, I had to start aomething different instead of finishing one of the older projects. So here are some more Tyranids that I was able to finish so that my table wont become even more cluttered.

Pict 401: Genestealers

Pict 402: Genestealer

Pict 403: Genestealer

I showed these 'Stealers when I finished up the other batch of Tyranids. Since then they were stripped of their original colours and repainted. I like the aesthetic with more of the open flesh areas reminiscent of the Alien Xenomorph. They painted up rather fast and I'm happy they did, because I kinda lost some of my hobby mojo seeing these Dúnedain skulking around my table and never getting finished.

Pict 404: New Projects

Other than this painting, I also had time to build and prep a few more miniatures - some more Tyranids, a bit for my Warhammer Woodelfs and some ForgeWorld kits. I had to get some Iron Hills Dwarves with Matoocks so that I'll be able to play the Battle Company without using Grimhammers as stand-ins.

The current Projects

This week was rather crowded so that I had virtually no time to paint. But to show even the little bit of progress I managed, I took a photo of my painting table.

Pict 400: The State of my Painting Table

As you can see, there are several projects I'm working on right now. The Dúnedain look the same as you last saw them, the Skin Wolves should be done quickly since I decided on a polarwolf as the refence and Sauron the Necromancer is mostly wispy smoke and cloth. In the background are  (among other things) parts of the Fellowship of the Ring, another Théoden and a Duergar as well as my seasonal watercup.
Hopefully (and presumably) the coming weeks will be better for my hobby.

Spinefist Termagants and of course more DnD

The Termagants from last week were finished up fast but since I didn't have to much time to hobby, I only got to one more project.

Pict 396: Termagants (Spinefists)

As I said earlier, these were only missing a few colours last week. I only had to put on the brighter red and clean up the carapax in some places with black. I also used the black for the spots on the head, the shoulders and around the hips.I really like how the spinefists look - I wanted some Gants with this more unusual gear so that the spinefists wouldn't all end up in my bitsbox and to break up the units.

Pict 397: Intellect Devourer

Pict 398: Intellect Devourer

This Intellect Devourer is the next miniautre for my growing D&D menagerie. On top of that it's the first one I painted from Gale Force 9's Dungeons and Dragons Collector's Series. These miniatures are awsome scuplts but sometime you do have to quite a bit of greenstuff work to fix the seams. And you do have to be careful to not break them. The Intellect Devourer painted up pretty fast as well since I didn't use to many colours but I really like the way it turned out.

Pict 399: Genestealers (2nd ed.)

With the Termagants done, I was inspired to do more of them and so I started by cleaning moldlines off of some more old miniatures - this time it's Genestealers. I also broke of some of the arms to swap them around so that I could have more than two poses.As you can see they are rather colourful right now - they were bought with a larger lot and are awaiting some primer to get them started as soon as I can get to it.

Termagants, Genestealers and D&D

I originally planned to get the Dúnedain done, but as is so often the case, I got distracted. During a painting session with a friend, I started to work on some more Tyranids and I contiued with my D&D menagerie.

Pict 391: Smaller Tyranids

Pict 392: Termagants (WIP)

These Tyranids were the ones that were primed and ready to get some paint, so I grabbed them when I was invited for an afternoon of painting over at a friend's. I was really surprised at how fast I was able to get the skin and the first layer of carapax done - I did pretty much all of them in this one afternoon, so that I was able to finish some and get very far with ten more. There are still some more Genestealers as well as Hormagaunts and Termagants left for me to do, but the backlog of Tyranids is definitly shinking!

Pict 393: Skeleton (Diablo II Miniatures)

Pict 394: Skeleton (Diablo II Miniatures)

This here is the first piece from the Diablo II Miniatures set, I was gifted last year. I really enjoyed the old school look of this skeleton and the painting went really fast as well. I used the same woodgrain technique I developed for the shields of my Arnor Warriors and I'm happy with the texture it adds to the miniature.

Pict 395: Hex-Map of the Elven-King's Protectorate

Some more hobby-time was spent world-building for Dungeons and Dragons. The first outlines of terrain, cities and special places were created using the Rolling through Regions generator over at my friend's roleplaying blog Out of Curiosity. After I had a rough sketch in pencil, I used Hexographer by Inkwell Ideas to convert it into a hex-map. The resulting look of the map is great I think, but the tool has it's kinks.
I do want to continue with the D&D miniatures - maybe I'll be able to sneak one in every week? Let's see!

Heroes, Dúnedain and Scenery

Lately the Arnor Battle Company is really the main project and I managed to make a good start on the Dúnedain. I also completed two more heroes of Middle Earth, but the main part of my hobby time this week was spent building miniatures from Gale Force 9's line of Dungeons and Dragons miniatures.

Pict 381: Elrond and Aragorn

Pict 382: Elrond, Lord of Rivendell

Pict 383: Elrond, Lord of Rivendell

First up, I painted the next Elrond. This Lord of Rivendell's likeness to Hugo Weaving is not quite as good as the armoured one I paintet last week, but I very much enjoyed the robes of this particular miniature. There is now not that much infantry left for me to paint for the Noldorim army. After that I will have to bite the bullet and get on with the horses of the Rivendell Knights.

Pict 384: Aragorn (Fellowship)

Pict 385: Aragorn (Fellowship)

To start painting some other colours than the ones I use with the Noldorim and the Arnor Warriors I painted this Aragorn. I really like the poses of the first Fellowship box set and they are part of my new year's resolutions as I wanted to finish the Balin's Tomb diorama.

Pict 386: Witchfate Tor, Tower of Sorcery

Pict 387: Witchfate Tor, Tower of Sorcery

Pict 388: Witchfate Tor, Tower of Sorcery

Pict 389: Witchfate Tor, Tower of Sorcery

I also painted up this first storey of a Witchfate Tor. I had this piece of scenery in a half-painted state for about four to five years now and I decided to finish it. I want to use it in a D&D game and hope this will be an incentive to get to the other layers of the tower. But I also want to paint up some more monsters and villans for the next sessions...

Pict 390: Dúnedain (WIP)

These Dúnedain will be the Rangers of my Arnor force and I hope to finish them up fast during the coming week. I made good progress and they have now had their base colours and washed put on them. As you can see, I have one of all of the six poses GW and I converted the others to have some more unique ones.

More from the Eriador Alliance of Arnor and Noldor

This week was rather productive and I managed to finish the Arnor Warriors as well as some more Highelves.

Pict 375: The Eriador Alliance

Pict 376: Arnor Warriors

I'm rather happy to have these Arnor Warriors finished and off my desk after they stood ther for about two weeks. Now that they are done, I'll have to get to some Rangers and Hobbit Archers to round out the rest of the company.

Pict 377: Elrond, Gil-Galad, Glorfindel

Pict 378: Elrond, Gil-Galad, Glorfindel

After I painted the Highelf Captain last week, I had a taste for more of them and started work on more heroes. I really like this particular sculpt for Elrond  - the face is a great rendition of Hugo Weaving. Gil-Galad is nice as well but Glorfindel's face was somewhat difficult to do... It always looked like he had a mustache - and that's clearly nothing a great elven hero has.

Pict 379: Elladan, Elrohir

Now that I painted Elrond a few times, I also had to finish his two sons. I got the miniatures just last year from a friend and thus the didn't even wait that long for the paintjob. The poses are a little strange but they are good enough. I haven't used them befor in the game and only played them once or twice but they seem really good on paper. They are not quite finished though as they are missing the leaves I usually put on the bases as well as the victory lap around the rim of the base.

Pict 380: Highelf Warriors

I painted these two Noldor Warriors during the same stretch, I painted Elrond's twins (as you can see by the state of the base). They both use the banner bearer as a base and both are coverted is simple ways. I turned the banner, because it seemed weird, flowing over his head. That might be the years of looking at Warhammer Fantasy banners that conditioned me to always have the banner point behind the miniature? The other one will be part of my battle company as a normal warrior for now - I used part of a plastic Elvenblade to equip him with one and scraped the bottom end of the bannerpole away to make it work. I really like the resulting pose and think about getting mre of them to repeat the conversion.