Théoden and Éomer, Defenders of Rohan

This week, I finished up the Rohan heroes, on foot I had started for that tournament a few weeks back - Théoden and Éomer, both from the Defenders of Rohan box are added to my tally. I then started work on a palette cleanser: black and white ghosties for the Lord of the Rings.

Pict 522: Théoden and Éomer on the Lookout

Pict 523: Théoden, Defender of Rohan

Pict 524: Théoden, Defender of Rohan

Pict 525: Éomer, Defender of Rohan

Pict 526: Éomer, Defender of Rohan

As you can see, the eyes turned out ok. I'm not a hundret percent on the eyebrowns but they will do. I like the more static poses - quite often you are on the lookout for dynamic scuplt and the result is (a bit overdramatised) a dwarf prancing on one foot, hacking at an unseen foe. Don't get me wrong those have a time and place as well. The Defenders of Rohan however manage a resting pose that still is interesting - for exemple the slight contraposto for Éomer and the asymmetrie of sword and helmet in Théodens hands. I might have to do the rest of the box, now that I started it...

Pict 527: Nazgûl and Barrow-Wights (WIP)

I have, however, started with something different first: the nine Nagûl on foot and four Barrow-Wights. I started with the metals (mainly Warplock Bronze and Leadbealcher) since they tend to be a bit messy when you drybrush the highlights and right now the different miniatures look rather similar. With the next step however they will go in opposite directions. The Nazgûl will get their black coats (I'm looking forward to blending in the greys) and the Wights will get the same treatment as the Twilight-Ringwraits did (I'm not looking forward to blending up to white...)

Building Osgiliath: Progress with the Putty

This week I was furthering my Osgiliath project, but I also got around to swing the paintbrush around a bit. Nothing completed but some progess nonetheless.

Pict 514: Osgiliath Ruins (WIP - Putty)

Pict 515: Osgiliath Ruins (WIP - Putty)

Here is a first look at what I want to achive with the putty on my ruins. I have gone over pretty much all of the seams and the bigger one on the edge of the building had some structure added to completely hide it. I'm not perfectly happy with how the flagstones on the upper floor came out, but I'll try and blend it in. It was my first time using Miliput and I have to say that I really like the rigid feel of it, now that it cured.

Pict 516: Goblintown Plattform (WIP)

I also mashed together the leftovers wooden floors from the Osgiliath ruins. I cut into the flat edges, put the three pieces together and glued on some remaining stilts from the Goblintown set. Once the plattform has been sprayed I will start to paint it and the walkways.

Pict 517: Defenders of Rohan - Théoden and Éomer (WIP)

Here are some miniatures I'm working on at the moment. They were started along with the mounted versions last week, but I didn't even have the time to get the basic colours down. They now had their first layers and the washes done. As you can see the eyes are in that comicly clownlike stage when I haven't cleaned them up around them with the skin colour.

Pict 518: Vax'ildan - Limited Edition (WIP)

And since I'm a butterfly I couldn't just stay with these projects and thus started work on this Vax'ildan by Steamforged Games. Since I backed their Critical Role Kickstarted but since we will have to wait a little longer I also got this limited Vax'ildan. The sculpt and casting are great, I only had to clean up little bits. I followed the scheme they put out on their website - the washes are down and like with Théoden and Éomer only the highlights are waiting to be done.

Arise, arise Riders of Théoden!

Putting the Osgiliath scenery on hold for a week, I painted up some Riders of Rohan as well as Théoden and Éomer in their Pelennor garb.

Pict 504: Rohirrim

Pict 505: Théoden (Pelennor)

Pict 506: Théoden (Pelennor)

Pict 507: Théoden (Pelennor)

Pict 508: Éomer, Knight of the Pelennor

Pict 509: Éomer, Knight of the Pelennor

With the new rules Théoden seems to be a must-take in any Rohan army so that I had to paint this mounted version of the King of Rohan. Since the Éomer, Knight of the Pelennor miniature is rather similar, I painted them in tandem. I really like the two sculpts - the only complaint I have is that Éomer does not have his sword Gúthwinë with the signature curved horseheads as the crossguard. Fortunately I had a spare and quickly replaced it.

Pict 510: Riders of Rohan

Pict 511: Riders of Rohan

And here are a few more warriors - I started two of the normal riders and the banner bearer back in 2015 so that I only had to finish up the eyes and the highlights. It went rather quickly considering I had put it off for over three years...

Pict 512: Rohan Army (555 points)

After painting these riders, I dusted off my Rohan army to patch them up a bit and give them all good coat of matte varnish. I used a contigent of normal Riders and Royal Guard led by the newly painted Théoden, Éomer as well as Éowyn as my army for a tournament on Saturday.

Pict 513: Weta Sideshow Collectibles Legolas Bust

The Riders perfomed very well - even though I lost the first battle (against Morannon Orcs and the Witchking - points for style!), I absolutely destroyed my second opponent (Morannon Orcs again with Gorbag, Shagrat and a Great Beast of Gororoth) and managed to eek out a small vicotry against the last (he played Isengard with some Berserkers, Lurtz and Vraskû with a contingent of crossbows). With that I made second place which is nice; but more importantely, I was voted the fairest player and awarded with this very nice Legolas bust by Weta. All in all an amazing day!

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.

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.