Balin's Tomb Diorama - finished!

So I finally managed to finish the Battle Games in Middle Earth Diorama for the original Fellowship miniatures.

Pict 483: The Chamber of Mazarbul

Pict 484: Balin's Tomb Diorama

Pict 485: Balin's Tomb Diorama

Pict 486: Balin's Tomb Diorama

Pict 487: Ori, the Book of Mazarbul and Balin's Tomb

I had this diorama for quite some time now and I already started to paint it for almost as long. Now that I had gotten around to the Fellowship miniatures the diorama base jumped right ahead to the front of my paint queue. One of the challanges was the GW logo in the back. It is scuplted roughly like the current one but to get all the colours and lines right I had to have one ready to compare. It was a strange experience - that logo is one I looked at almost every single day for years, but I never even noticed the strange font. It's rather whimsical with round 'e' and the 'm' and 'w' with their swelling lines. My paintjob of the logo is not perfect but it'll have to do.

Pict 488: Termagants

After finishing something for the ME SBG I wanted to get back to 40k and finished these five snap-fit Termagants. As always I'm really happy how the carapace looks once the second set of red stripes are on. Now there are only 30 more to go!

Pict 489: Termagants (WIP)

And here is a quick WIP of my progess with the rest of the Tyranid project. I started with the black parts on these nine Termagants and added a few washes and spot colours. The black always takes the longest so that I had to break the pile of Gants up into smaller groupings.

Minsc, the beloved Ranger and his fearless companion Boo!

At long last I had some time to relax while painting. I got to some inividual miniatures such as the amazing Minsc and Boo as well as Boromir and Gimli - the remainder of the fellowship. After that I started a big project I'll try and finish over my summer vacation.

Pict 475: Minsc & Boo

Pict 476: Minsc & Boo

Pict 477: Minsc & Boo

 As soon as I saw that Gale Force Nine would release a miniature for Minsc and Boo, I wanted to get and paint it. They are some of the best companios not only in the Baldur's Gate series but in any videogame and recently had a run in the D&D comics as well. I went with the aesthetic of the comics and I'm pretty happy with the different purples on them.

"Go for the eyes, Boo!"

Pict 478: Boromir

Pict 479: Boromir

Pict 480: Gimli

Pict 481: Gimli

And here are two more heroes. This time it's more for the Middle Earth SBG. With Boromir and Gimli done, I'll have to get to the diorama base soon. They were quite pleasing to paint - the sculpts from 17 years ago do show some age, but still hold up nicely. Strangely enough I had already painted at least one of each of the Fellowship but  Boromir, so that I had the pleasure to collect source material (i.e. watch the Fellowship movie) to get a feel for the colours.

Pict 482: Gants and Gaunts (WIP)

And lastly here is the start of my next big project. The last remnats of grey Tyranids will have to succumb to my brush this summer. Right now all the skin parts are mostly done with serveral layers of drybrushing to get my usual effect. Next up will be carapace and claws - the black always takes to longest, so I'll break up the 35 critters into smaller chunks as to not wear me out.