Fog on the Barrow-Downs

These past weeks, I was pretty productive and finished quite a bit starting with Tom, Goldberry and the Hobbits. With them finished I went on to the Daylami Infantry, after which I completed some more Hobbit miniatures.

Pict 582: Fog on the Barrow-Downs

Pict 583: Goldberry, Tom Bombadil

Pict 584: Goldberry, Tom Bombadil

Pict 585: Paralysed Hobbits

Here is the completed Fog on the Barrow-Downs box. I very much enjoyed painting Goldberry's green dress and building the bases with the paralysed Hobbits on them. I wanted to recreate the scene from the book and thus added the shields, swords and some coins.

Pict 586: Daylami Infantry

Pict 587: Daylami Infantry

The Daylami made for an interesting paintjob - the colours were easy enough to translate on the sculpts. The faces, however, were as always a bit difficult... I blame the older scuplts and I'm looking forward to trying my hand on some of the newer ones.

Pict 588: Beorn

Pict 589: Beorn

Turns out you can get quite a lot done during the course of two week, if you can spare the free time. So this is what I started after I had completed the WIPs from the last post: Beorn as the man and as the bear. I used some Armypainter brown tones on the bear - as an experiment with a different paintline; I like them! I also tried my hand again at wetblending and the result on the coat is goodand I want to incorporate the technique more with my painting.
The base is done up in the same style as my Ironhills Dwarves so that I can ally Beorn in. I also have a spare Beorn in manform and I might convert him to fly on an eagle since I don't have anything better to do with it. Maybe later in the year...

Pict 590: Gundabad Captain

Pict 591: Gundabad Captain

Lastly I also painted the Mickey Mouse Gundabad Captain. This one was quick to paint - Now I might just have to get some more Gundabad Warriors since I was able to whip this one up in just a couple of hours...
 

Pict 583: Guhlam Doctor, Hunzakut, Naffatun

And here is a quick photo of the next leg of my Haqqislam. I picked these out because they seemed to do something cool in the game and sculpts are similar enough to paint the three of them at once.

Gundabad sends Reinforcements

I made some good progress this week and painted my remainging Gundabad Berserkers as well as the Gundabad Orcs and the Keeper of the Dungeon.

Pict 359: Gundabad Orcs

Pict 360: Gundabad Berserkers

Pict 361: Gundabad Orc Warriors

I'm glad I wrote down what paints I used on my Gundabad Berserkers last year. That way I could refer back to my list this week to match them up. I had already used a similar way to paint the Gundabd Orc and I reapeaded what I had done with these new Orcs.

Pict 362: The Keeper of the Dungeons

Pict 363: The Keeper of the Dungeons

The Keeper was done in a similar way to the other orcs. With his odd bone armour and bear's feet as well as the blood in his beard he had some other colours introduced, but I keept him in line. He looks different than the way GW painted him as well as the version from the film but that way the force looks more cohesive.

Pict 364: Thráin the Broken

Pict 365: Thráin the Broken

Staying in Dol Guldur, I also painted Thráin the Broken. This was a quick one and I might get back to him to try my hand at freehanding some ornaments on parts of his coat. But for now I'm happy with him and look forward to using him in scenarios.

Leader Beasts and more Battle Companies

I managed to set a bit more time aside this week than the week before and I managed to get a bit more done - namely I finished the two leader beasts for the Tyranids. Other than that I continued to build stuff for Battle Companies and even found the time to get start the process of painting them.

Pict 351: Tyranid Leader Beasts

Pict 352: Hive Tyrant

Pict 353: Hive Tyrant

Pict 354: Old One Eye

Pict 355: Old One Eye

Finally I got around to finish the carapace on the Hive Tyrant and Old One Eye. I wanted to be neater with them than my usual 'nids and I do like the effect I managed to achive for exemple on Old One Eye's crushing claws. But since I'll be turning my attention to little gribblies (with the exeption of the second Pyrovre) I don't think this more time exetesive method will catch on.

Pict 356: Iron Hills Objective Marker

And with this dead Iron Hills Warrior, this is the third week I painted a fallen hero. This one was a bit more challaning since I had to sculpt parts of the sheath and the surounding area - that's where a Gundabad Ogre's foot would usually go. I'll have to get some dwarfs with Mattocks to play the Company but that's as good an excuse as I'll get to paint some more dwarfs.

Pict 357: Gundabad Orcs (WIP)

Pict 358: Gundabad Orc Warrior Conversion (Update)

So here is a picture of some Gundabad / Dol Guldur miniatures I started this week. I built the Gundabad Orcs for my Dol Guldur Battle Company and decided since the colours are basicly the same, I could also do the remainder of the Berserkers as well as the Keeper of the Dungeons. I converted one of the Gundabad Orcs that originaly had a spear to have an axe and a shield. And while I did that, I also gave the Orc from two weeks back a shield as well - both conversions were made possible by the donation of shields by my good friend DLT - thank you again!

By finishing the Tyranid beasties I freed up some space on my hobby desk but swiftly filled it up with the Orcs. I hope to get them done fast so I can start with a completly new good Battle Company - I now have almost all the minitatures I need...

Almost finished the Dol Guldur Diorama + Battle Companies

Pict 336: The White Council at Dol Guldur (WIP)

This week I made a foray into fulfilling my new year's resolutions and painted Elrond and Saruman for my Dol Guldur Diorama. Other than that, I contiued with the conversions and the painting for my battle companies.

Pict 337: Elrond, Vanquisher of the Necromancer

Pict 338: Elrond, Vanquisher of the Necromancer

Pict 339: Sauruman, Vanquisher of the Necromancer

Pict 340: Sauruman, Vanquisher of the Necromancer

As part of the Rivendell miniatures this week, I also finally finished Elrond, Vanquisher of the Necromancer. I do like the pose, but I think he could use some more support to stick to his base. Additionally the Elven blade seems oddly short - I think were I to paint him again, I might change it.
Saruman's pose is very exaggerated, it's all right I think, but there are definitly better ones. After this one though I wont be touching a brush to one anytime soon, since painting the white robes was quite the drag. Now I'm only missing Galadriel to finish the diorama, but I did't have the heart to get going on her robes after Saruman's. I then might add some other miniatures to round out the scene - Radagast on sleigh comes to mind and of course the Keeper of the Dungeons.

Pict 341: Naal, Noldor Captain

Pict 342: Naal, Noldor Captain

Pict 343: Rivendell Objective Marker

Next up are the miniatures I painted for my Rivendell battle company. I already showed the conversion for my Sargent Naal last week and he was in fact layered and highlighted super fast. I cant wait to get him to a table and encounter new adventures.
The objective marker was made in case I on of my heroes will roll the "Lost in Battle" result on the injury table and I have to play the scenario to recover them. The miniature is from the Rivendell Knight kit and due to it's sizeable cape it didn't really fit on the base I wanted it to - with it's 50mm base now, it is a bit big for a normal objective.

Pict 344: Gundabad Orc Warrior (Conversion)

Pict 345: Gundabad Orc Warrior (Conversion)

And lastly here is my first Gundabad Orc Warrior. Right now he's still missing his shield because I didnät have one on hand. I converted the miniaure from a spare Troll Brute's driver by cutting of the right leg at the knee and hip as well as the head and the right arm. After pinning it back together in the pose I envisioned, I scuplted a new tabbard and filled the gaps with green stuff. The hands are both from the Gundabad Berserker kit - I only bent the sword with hot water.
I really enjoyed converting these last weeks, but I think the hobby time in the weeks to come will have to be focused on painting to get the different battle companies ready fot battle (and those Tyranids keep on looking at me from their place on the desk...).

To the defence of Helm's Deep!

"What can men do against such reckless hate?"

This week I finished the Rohan Warriors from the last weeks and I got to use them in a doubles tournament. (And I got to rewatch The Two Towers!)

Pict 277: Rohan Army (Helm's Deep)

Pict 278: Rohan Warriors (Throwing Spears)

Pict 279: Rohan Warriors (Throwing Spears)

Pict 280: Rohan Warriors (Bows)

Pict 281: Rohan Warriors (Bows)

The Rohan Warriors comlete a Rohan Army on foot, that I had planned for quite some time - Rohan was my first faction with the Middle Earth range and thus I have huge backlog of Warriors both on foot and mounted because I concentrated on painting the heroes first. To round out my 400 point army for this doubles event, I used Theoden, Gamling and a Rohan Captain as well as two more Rohan Warriors with thowing spears to get a Helm's Deep themed force. You can see the army in the first picture of this blog entry.
With 24 warriors this batch of miniatures was quite a big but I managed to plough on and prevailed. They all use the same colours but I mixed them up especially with the areas of cloth. The Warriors with bow got a decorative trim on their cloaks to be able to play them as Outriders if necessary

My doubles partner used a fitting (well, with the film canon) force of Galadhrim and in all our preparation games, the army won quite decidetly. During the tournament we got to play this army in two games and while we lost one and drew the other, the games were alway close and fun till the end.

Pict 282: The White Warg (Conversion)

Our evil army for this tournament was an Azog's Legion force with Azog, Bolg, two Ogres and some Gundabad Orcs supported by my Goblin Mercenaries. Since I was also tasked to bring Azog mounted, you saw me convert the White Warg as a dismount in case the two got separated.
The Warg painted up rather quickly in one evening so that I had enough time to finish the Rohirrim.

Progress with the Wood Elves and the Rohirrim

This week I finished the Nymphe and the Giant Eagle I showed last week. Other than that I made some headway with the Rohirrim foot troops and I busted out the Green Stuff to convert myself a White Warg in case Azog gets dismounted.

Pict 271: Nymphe

Pict 272: Nymphe

As ever: first up is the aforementioned Nymphe. I very much enjoyed painting this miniatrue, trying to use a birch as reference. I live near some trees of the sourcematerial and took the time to look at them for a bit. The Nymphe will not match any of my units of Dryads but they will have be redone anyway. 

Pict 273: Giant Eagle

Pict 274: Giant Eagle

Next up is another Ally for my Asrai: a Giant Eagle. I used pictures of verraux's eagles as reference for this miniature because I wanted it to be darker than the ones you usually see. The pattern on the white parts of the wings looks rather striking but it doesn't really resemble the verraux's eagle. I like it nevertheless and I learned quite a bit since I hadn't painted feathers for quite some time.

Pict 275: Rohan Warriors (WIP)

Here is the next picture of the Rohan Warriors I showed last week. I finished the basic colours and gave everything a wash of Agrax Earthshade so that I will be able to get to the highlighting within the next days.

Pict 276: The White Warg (WIP)

Lastly here's a conversion for the White Warg I started during this week. I simply used a Wild Warg Chieftain and gave it the head of a Fell Warg. I elongated the throat a bit with piece of wire and filled the resulting gap with Green Stuff. I surprised myself with the structrue of the fur I managed and I do look forward to painting this one in the coming week as well!

The rage of the Gundabad Berserkers

So after I didn't finish anything last week, this week I did get something done! Other than the four Gundabad Berserkers, I advanced some other projects - but they are nowhere near to show even as a WIP.

Pict 260: Gundabad Bersekers

Pict 261: Gundabad Bersekers

 As I said in the blurb - the only thing I finished are the four Gundabad Berserkers. They were considered for a team tournament, but right now it looks like they will be substituted by an Ogre. The hit to the army's breakoint is not to and the ability to throw opponents is to good to give up.
I'm rather happy with how the grey skin turned out - much better than the one I managed on Bolg. So redoing that is added to the ToDo pile.

Pict 262: Diablo II D&D Miniatures

Speaking of the ToDo pile: A good friend of mine gifted me these amazing D&D miniatures made by Wizards of the Coast to add to my list of thinges to paint. I really like the oldschool look of them and do look forward to work on them. And of course to get to play them!