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.

The Butterfly's Tally 2021

Like every year, I like to use this first post in January to look back at the past year, reminding myself of certain projects, see how I did with my New Year's resolutions and make some new ones for the coming year.

Pict 1113: Qulathis the Exile

Pict 1114: Qulathis the Exile

Pict 1115: Qulathis the Exile

But first, here is the last miniature I painted in 2021: Qulathis the Exile. Quite a nice model, I was very excited for since the Wood Elves were my first Warhammer Fantasy army. Sadly, in the game she is a bit of a slouch, but that's what community patches are made for!

Hobby Tally 2021

Once again, here are links to the tallies of the past: The Tally 2017, The Tally 2018, The Tally 2019, The Tally 2020

And here is what I wanted to do this year:

• Paint a 4' x 4 ' gaming board
• Paint at least four pieces of terrain to go with the board
• And as always: Paint more models than buying new ones.

As for my numbers, a qick glance at the sidebar will show you that I did go a bit overboard with expanding my collection... While I have some ideas where I could downsize a little bit, I am also quite happy with the miniatures I have and I'm very exited about painting and playing with them.

I am also very happy with the quality of my painting. I really feel like I stepped up my painting across the board compared to earlier years. The only outliers might be some of the Infinity miniatures. I do like how they turned out and they are certainly good enough for the table, but I could do better with them if I spend more time with them.

Quite a few of my painted miniatures (comparatively) are terrain pieces. It was quite fun to see my collection grow especially with the Garden of Morr. I also got really into taking scenic pictures of the miniatures I painted, which also motivated my a great deal to paint more terrain in order to mix up the backgrounds!

The gaming board did not quite get done... I managed to prime the tiles I have and one 2' x 2' section did get painted – one of my most read posts of the year!

Other projects of 2021

At the beginning of the year, I painted small bands of Halflings and Wild Elves for ArcWorlde as well as a few unaligned beasts. I love the miniature's style and there are more of them prepped and ready to recieve some paint.

Thanks to my gaming group becoming more active, I also got back into Infinity. Not only did I paint more miniatures of my Haqqislam collection, I also started to play and paint models for the Dahshat Company.

It would be remiss of me not to mention Warhammer Quest Cursed City. Even with Qulathis finished (see above) I am still missing the two bruiser heroes, Brutogg the ogre and Dagnai the dwarf. As soon as these two are done, I plan to do an additional post showing the contents of the box. The set got me into the modern aesthetic of GW miniatures and I even branched out into some more undead.

Hobby resolutions for 2022

I really want to make a dent into my unpainted pile and bring up the ratio of my painted miniatures. So, once again, I want to paint more models that I buy. Painting-wise, the following list should get me to paint a divers bunch of miniatures. And 60 miniatures all together would also be a good start for my numbers.

• 20 Warhammer Fantasy / Age of Sigmar miniatures
• 10 Infinity miniatures
• 10 MESBG miniatures
• 10 miniatures by independent creators (for example ArcWorlde, Relicblade, etc.)
  
• 10 pieces of terrain

This Corrosion

The only model I finished the past two weeks was the first mausoleoum from the Garden of Morr kit. But I also started to paint more of the same graveyard as well as more little critters from the ArcWorlde Bestiary. Oh, and then there was this boxed game where you fight undead? Propably should build and paint some of those too!

Pict 1019: Garden of Morr Mausoleum

Pict 1020: Garden of Morr Mausoleum

Pict 1021:Garden of Morr Mausoleum

Pict 1022: Garden of Morr Mausoleum

I very much enjoyed the corrosion effects on this mausoleum. The verdigris works better on the more structured surfaces such as the grave slab than on the roofs. I will still do some experimenting on these larger, flat areas, maybe adding in some more green or going for more streakes and less splotches on the next one. But I am very happy with the rusted iron bars!
I also got some diffently coloured flock for the moss and will add this to my other scenery to make it look a bit more visually interesting and alive.

Pict 1023: Garden of Morr Mausoleum (WIP)

And here then are the next steps in painting the Garden of Morr. The piece with the larger exposed grave also holds a mausoleum but I have not built that quite yes as I want to get rid of all the modeled roses. That's what's keeping me from getting to the walls as well, but for now I think the small buildings will look great together anyways.

Pict 1024: Mjowls and Faery Dragon (WIP)

These cute litte beasties then are the Mjowls and the Faery Dragon from ArcWorlde. They are quite far along with basecoats and washes done and I should finish them within a few day. If only no other projects jumps the queue...

Pict 1025: Ulfenwatch (WIP)

And lastly here is a foray into the Cursed City: a bunch of skeletons. Had to get my head around building these models, these modern plastic kits by GW really are engineering marvels and I'm currently more used to building metal models or about 20 year old plastics! Paintswise I'm going with something similar to the boxart but I'm already looking forward to rust them after they had their washes!

Swordmasters, an Ent and two young Dragons

These past two weeks, I finished up the first batch of Swordmasters and got started on the next one. But I also made a short trip to Middle-earth to paint up an Ent and another foray into ArcWorlde to paint two Forest Dragon Juveniles. Quite productive!

Pict 1010: Swordmasters of Hoeth

Pict 1011: Swordmasters of Hoeth

Pict 1012: Swordmasters of Hoeth

Pict 1013: Swordmasters of Hoeth

Finally here is my first batch of Swordmasters of Hoeth. It took me some time to finish them with all those litte details. But it was mostly that I painted the areas in the wrong order and having to go over work that was already done... But now that they are done, they look great as a group. I'm really enjoying myself with the High Elves, painting this group of elites and not worrying about playability just yet.

Pict 1014: Swordmasters of Hoeth (WIP)

And here is the rest of my Swordmasters – eight more including the champion and the banner bearer, bringing my total up to 19. An odd number but it leaves room for the one pose I'm currently still missing. I hope I can finish these a bit faster with the lessons learned on the first batch.

Pict 1015: Ent

This guys was a fast and unexpected project. The guy from Battle Streams in Middle-earth had a special for Ents on friday evening and I decided to get this metal Ent out and slap some paint on him. He went faster than I expected and I'm very happy with the different tones in the bark. He's another great sculpt by Trish Carden and very similar to the Warhammer Woodelf metal Treeman - I think, the latter might get pushed up the queue!

Pict 1016: Barrels (Tabletop Art)

In between projects I also painted these four barrels made by Tabletop Art. Really nice quality resin sculpts and they will serve as a bit more scatter terrain around the Forge.

Pict 1017: Forest Dragon Juveniles

Pict 1018: Forest Dragon Juveniles

And lastly here are the two Forest Dragon Juveniles that I mentioned in the beginning. The dragons of ArcWorlde are characterized by their lack of wings and I had good fun looking at different species of real world skinks and lizards for reference. I am quite happy with the scheme I came up with but I can't say how I will implement the scheme with the big Forest Dragon. Maybe they will change a bit, when aging? They propably do!

ArcWorlde Halflings and WHFB Swordmasters

I spent these past two weeks finishing my Halfling band for ArWorlde and started to paint some elite troops for my High Elves with a regiment of Swordmasters of Hoeth.

Pict 1003: ArcWorlde Halflings

Pict 1004: Knight of the Ram, Halfling Militia and Monster Hunter

Pict 1005: Knight of the Ram, Halfling Militia and Monster Hunter

So, here is the rest of the Militia the Halfling Starter Set. They were painted as a group with only the highlighting left to do after my last post. The two additions are the Monster Hunter raising her fist and the amazing Knight of the Ram. The latter is a bit of an older sculpt, with all other models being new for the second edition of the game. But the Knight still fits right in – one the strenghts of Alex's scuplting.

Pict 1006: Swordmaster of Hoeth

After finishing the Halflings, I changed gears and went ahead on some metal Swordmasters of Hoeth. This guy was painted as a single model to work out how I would apply my Eataine scheme onto them. Since the model has only a few different areas to it, this went rather fast. Thus I could get a good start on a group of ten of them by painting for a short time during last week's evenings:

Pict 1007: Swordmasters of Hoeth (WIP)

ArcWorlde: Wild Elves and Halfling Testing Colours

These past two weeks I spent pretty much only on ArcWorlde miniatures. At first I finished up the Wild Elven Centaur and an Ascendant to finish up the Elves I own right now. And after that I also got started on to the Halflings of Hobbleshire and decided on a colour scheme.

Pict 996: Wild Elves vs. Halflings of Hobbleshire

Pict 997: Wild Elven Centaur and Ascendant

Pict 998: Wild Elven Centaur and Ascendant

This Centaur was quite far along when I last showed her. Finishing up the skin colours and details on the upper body went pretty quickly and since I was on a roll, I also painted the Wild Elven Ascendant. With him, the war paint provided a bit of a conundrum, because of the different angles his legs have, but I think it looks cool the way I managed it. With these two done, I painted all the Wild Elf miniatures, I own right now. So now it's on to some adversaries and then of course some games as well!

Pict 999: Halfling Sheriff

As the Sheriff of my merry band on Halflings, this guy simply had to be painted first. He also provided a good opportunity to test the colour scheme and get to paint some different surfaces. For the colours themselves, I did something I never thought I would and looked at some historical reference!

Halfling Historical Reference – Leo Ignaz von Stadlinger: Geschichte des württembergischen Kriegswesens (History of Württemberg Military), K. Hofdruckerei zu Guttenberg Stuttgart, 1856

I have this theory, that the part of the world I'm living in (and it's inhabitants!) have some striking parallels with Tolkiens Shire and this has become somewhat of a running gag. With my Middle-earth Hobbits already painted to match the movie aesthetic, I took this band of ArcWorlde Halflings as an opportunity to try and replicate some of the local coat of arms. Thankfully the internet knows everything and a bit of googeling produced these coloured plates of uniforms from the Kingdom of Württemberg. Now obviously I could not reproduce any one uniform accurately on the miniature, but they severd as references. For example I never would have thought to go for white pants and gloves, but here we are!

Pict 1000: Troll Hound and Halfling Militia

Pict 1001: Troll Hound and Halfling Militia

Since the colours came out pretty much like I wanted them, I also painted the first Halfling Milita and the Troll Hound from the starter set. Again, these scuplts are very characterful and the big surfaces are very fun to paint. The best detail here have to be the flapping ears of the Troll Hound - very dynamic!

Pict 1002: Halfling Militia (WIP)

And here is the rest of the Militia: one more with a torch and two each with crossbow and shield/handweapon. For now, they are basecoated and had some washes, so that finishing them should not take to much time. After that I still have two more Halflings and the it's onto the beastiary.