New Year, New Projects

These past two weeks, I spent pretty firmly in Middle-earth. Not only did I paint a lone Rohan Royal Guard, I also started a new branch of my Mordor army following a Black Gate theme. I painted up the Mouth of Sauron and started converting two Mordor Troll Chieftains.
After all that I did also have some time to finish the ArcWorlde Mjowls and Brutogg the Ogre from Cursed City.

Pict 1116: The Mouth of Sauron attacked by a Rohan Royal Guard

Pict 117: The Mouth of Sauron

Pict 118: The Mouth of Sauron

The Mouth of Sauron painted up very fast following my usual Nazgûl scheme and adding different highlights to the cloth. He seems like an interesting character to play. He'll be the magic user for my Black Gate force and I hope for some good synergies with the two big monsters!

Pict 1119: Mordor Troll Chieftain (Repose)

Pict 1120: Mordor Troll Chieftain (Repose)

Pict 1121: Mordor Troll Chieftain (Repose)

Pict 1122: Mordor Troll Chieftain (Repose)

Continuing on with the Black Gate army I converted these two Mordor Troll chieftains. The first one (really just a repose) was a raffle prize from the christmas stream of Battle Strams in Middle-earth and kickstarted the whole project.

Pict 1123: Mordor Troll Chieftain Conversion (Duel with Aragorn Elessar)

The second one is a bit more involved. He's an eBay rescue and was missing the left arm and his head but came with replacement bits from the plastic Mordor Troll. At first I wanted to have him standing on the rock from the Wild Warg Chieftain I still have from my White Warg. But when heroichighlights' diorama contest came up on Instagram, I decided to replicate that duel from the end of The Return of the King and have Aragorn Elessar crushed underfoot! Right now the main pose is sketched out – Aragorn is alredy lying down but I will still change both his arms to have him stab the Troll's toe with his elven dagger. And of course there is quite a lot of gap filling and sculpting of armour plates left to do!

Pict 1124: Rohan Royal Guard

This mounted Rohan Royal Guard was a quick project for a bit more than and evening. He was painted during the first Battle Stream of the year. The stream was themed around the 40th issue of the Battle Games in Middle-earth magazine. Incidentally you got a mounted Rohan Royal Guard with the issue if you were subscribed back then and that was a good excuse to paint up one more from my drawer of Rohan cavalery.

Pict 1125: The White Council

Pict 1126: Amon Hen

Since I was in build mode after converting the Trolls, I also put together some new models that I want to paint within the next few months. Among them are the beautiful White Council, that was made to order late last year as well as the ForgeWorld Amon Hen (too big for my lightbox of course!). Once again gap filling to do, but I hope it will paint up quickly since it's mainly just ruined stone and ground texture.

Pict 1127: Brutogg Corpse-Eater

Pict 1128: Brutogg Corpse-Eater

Pict 1129: Brutogg Corpse-Eater

Brutogg Corpse-Eater was one of the models I looked forward to the most out of all the Cused City box. He's not only an amazing Ogre miniature with a great pose but really tells a story with all the additional bits he's lugging around such as a procelain jug (what could be in it?) and substitude weapons (you can never have to many!). The best details have to be his face and the shoulder pad making him look right at home in the Old World as a Maneater.

Pict 1130: ArcWorld Mjowls

These cute little cat/owl chimeras named Mjowls were started back in April shortly before Cursed City took over my painting projects. Now they finally got the highlights they deserve and can get up to some mischief annoying the Wildelves and Halfings in the ArcWorlde shelf of my cabinet.

Pict 1131: Dagnai Holdenstock (WIP)

And lastly here is another WIP picture. Dagnai Holdenstock is the last hero from the Cursed City. I was not really inspired by the steam punk dwarf aesthetic and found it quite difficult to decide on the colours. Now he's had the washes done, hopefully I don't take to much time highlighting.