The Greatest of Trolls

My main focus in February was to finish my big old Mordor Troll Chieftain crushing Aragorn underfoot in the duel at the end of The Return of the King. Finishing the conversion took me quite a while and painting was not that much quicker...

Pict 1139: Mordor Troll Chieftain vs. Aragorn Elessar

Pict 1140: Mordor Troll Chieftain vs. Aragorn Elessar (Conversion)

Pict 1141: Mordor Troll Chieftain vs. Aragorn Elessar (Conversion)

Pict 1142: Mordor Troll Chieftain vs. Aragorn Elessar (Conversion)

Pict 1143: Mordor Troll Chieftain vs. Aragorn Elessar (Conversion)

At some point, I just had to declare this conversion to be finished. It seemed like I could have pushed the putty around for forever... It just looked like I found another missing detail whenever I picked him up: straps to hold the armour on the fingers of the left hand in place, defining the armour on the back a bit more or a piece of swordhandle for Andúril lying just out of reach for Aragorn...

The final conversion uses parts from a number of different kits: The main body and right arm come from the Mordor Troll Chieftain, the head and left arm from the plastic Mordor Troll. The offhand mace uses the Troll drumstick hand as a base and adds in bits from the plastic Warhammer Fantasy Black Orcs. Aragorn consists of the lying Isildur's legs, the Aragorn Elessar of foot torso and arms, the head and Andúril come from the mounted Elessar and the elven dagger (including the hand) were donated by a Lurtz – whittling and the Uruk blade until it fit the bill! And of course there is a load of green stuff tying it all together.

Pict 1144: Mordor Troll Chieftain vs. Aragorn Elessar

Pict 1145: Mordor Troll Chieftain vs. Aragorn Elessar

Pict 1146: Mordor Troll Chieftain vs. Aragorn Elessar

Pict 1147: Mordor Troll Chieftain vs. Aragorn Elessar

Pict 1148: Mordor Troll Chieftain vs. Aragorn Elessar, Detail: Troll Face

Pict 1149: Mordor Troll Chieftain vs. Aragorn Elessar, Detail: Aragorn

Pict 1150: Mordor Troll Chieftain vs. Aragorn Elessar, Detail: Aragorn

Pict 1151: Mordor Troll Chieftain vs. Aragorn Elessar, Detail: Aragorn

And here is the big boy all painted up. I used the same colours I already used on the first Mordor Troll Chieftain but I had to look up several references for Aragorn Elessar. I'm very happy with the conversion all together and the paintjob and I can't wait to use him in a game. I entered the duel into heroichighlights' diorama contest - we'll see how he does!

Pict 1152: Ghoul

Pict 1153: Ghoul

This Ghoul here is the next leg in my journey to paint up more miniatures for my Undead collection. I used a paler variation of my Zombie Skin recipe. In preparation of painting the Ghoul at the start of February, I got around to noting down the recipies for my AoS Undead - while it does not cover every possible detail, the broad strokes are there to remind myself of how I painted things when I want to add to the collection.

Pict 1154: Ghouls and Crypt Horrors (WIP)

Here is where I've gotten to with the rest of the Ghoul tribe: five more metal Ghouls and three Crypt Horrors. I plan to use the same colours thoughout. The basecolours and washes went on quite quickly but highlighting the skin does take a surprising amount of time since it is the biggest part of the model.

Pict 1155: Iron Hills Dwarves (WIP)

Lastly, I started painting these Dwarves back in October but it seems I was distracted by some new and shiny thing. Anyways, now I will need them for an upcoming doubles tournament which is always a good motivation.

Completing the Cursed City Box!

While the output of the past two weeks of painting is not that big in absolut figures, I finally managed to paint Dagnai Holdenstock, the last missing piece for my Cursed City box. This warrented a longer photo session to get all the models together in one place. I also painted my Troll Chieftain and even got to play some games with him.

Pict 1132: The Cursed City Completed

I really love how the set looks when all the models are put together. Seeing a coherent collection like this is really one of the joys of the hobby! I also took the time to collect the basic recipes I used on the Undead from the box into one of my recipes.

Pict 1133: Dagnai Holdenstock

Pict 1134: Dagnai Holdenstock

Pict 1135: Dagnai Holdenstock

And here is Dagnai – I'm very happy to have him at a stage where I can call him finished even if he's not quite up to par with the other heroes. I found the steampunk aesthetic not really to my liking for a fantasy setting. Selecting the areas to paint different shades of metalics was quite hard but now he's ready to loot the Cursed City!

Pict 1136: Mordor Troll Chieftain (Repose)

Pict 1137: Mordor Troll Chieftain (Repose)

Pict 1138: Mordor Troll Chieftain (Repose)

I also painted the Mordor Troll Chieftain. He was a really quick paintjob and already has two games under his belt. Of course I did not quite know how to use him most effectively so there will have to be a few more games still!

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

The Fellowship of the Ring – 20th Anniversary of the Movie

Today is the 20th anniversary of the theatrical release of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. To celebrate the occasion, I painted a new set of the four Hobbits: Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Meriadoc Brandybock and Peregrin Took.

Pict 1107: Ambush at Amon Hen

Pict 1108: Frodo, Pippin, Merry, Sam

Pict 1109: Frodo, Pippin, Merry, Sam

These four Hobbits were great fun to paint – looking up screenshots of the film, looking at models I painted before and just getting to be in Middle-earth again. The models all come from the Breaking of the Fellowship set sculpted by Juan Diaz. They might get used in some scenarios (especially the Ambush at Amon Hen). But for now, they were a great little project to celebrate a hugly influential film!

Pict 1110: Jelson Darrock

Pict 1111: Jelson Darrock

I also got to the next Cursed City hero with the Witch Hunter Jelson Darrock. I feared differentiating the browns but I'm very happy with the way he turned out. I migh even be tempted to get some more of the modern Witch Hunters.

Pict 1112: Qulathis the Exile (WIP)

I also made some good progress with Qulathis the Exile and should be able to finish painting her soon. (Please don't mind the eyes – it's all part of the process!) I really would like to finish the Cursed City box before the end of the year. But to do that, I will have to focus on just those three missing heroes over the christmas holidays.

Finishing the Swordmasters + Glaurio ven Alten III

These past two weeks, I made a successful dent into the unfinished project of the year. I finished the Swordmasters of Hoeth that I started back in April. Afterwards, I finished the other Blade character from the Cursed City Box, Glaurio ven Alten III.

Pict 1102: Swordmasters of Hoeth

Pict 1103: Swordmasters of Hoeth

Pict 1104: Swordmasters of Hoeth

These five Swordmasters are the remainder of a unit I had started in spring. Sometime during the summer I decided I only need to have each sculpt once and sold a few. I also was missing exactly one pose and only recently managed to pick it up. So it did make sense to let them lie for a bit and only now paint them (at least that's what I tell myself...). Anyways, the unit is now complete and I'm very happy with them!

Pict 1105: Glaurio ven Alten III

Pict 1106: Glaurio ven Alten III

Then here is Glaurio ven Alten III the next hero to reclaim the Cursed City from the evil Vampires. Really a lovely model – a bit fiddly to paint, but the result really speaks for itself. I'm particularly happy with the face! Up until now my plan to only paint the stuff I had already started worked out quite well. I can't wait to have the Cursed City box all painted up!