A while ago I think I mentioned that I really didn’t like the LOTR plastic horses. One of the biggest problems is that they are all supported by one leg, which is thin at the best of times, and then it is a large model that sticks out quite a bit on that one little millimetre wide leg.
I mentioned ebob miniatures in my last post. They produce a metal horse that has its four legs firmly on the ground, and this gave me an idea for a conversion, as you can see above. This represents a couple of hours, or one evening’s work for me. I broke the legs in several places, then cemented them back together and finally greenstuffed in the gaps. The front leg on the floor was much shorter after my modification, so I had to recreate quite a lot of the muscle to make it look right.
The pictured horse is the result, which I was sort of happy with. The modification made it much firmer than the original horse. When I sprayed the model I was totally pleased with my experiment, as the green stuff additions vanished and the model looked complete, as it that was how it had been cast. I polyfillered the base and left it overnight again to dry, wondering who I was going to put on the horse.
The next morning as is my custom I started up my belt sander to flatten the polyfillered surface of the base, and within a second the belt snagged and the base of the horse was sent flying across the room. Do I have to say that the broken body of the model was still in my hands?
So I still hate horses!

Labels: Conversions, Horses, LOTR, Miniatures

Well like I said I wanted to paint this one, and managed to get this done tonight. I think it was the blue and white scheme with the detail on the end of the cloak that did it for me. Firstly I did the armour and the dark blue cloak – this went easily. That’s was it for the first nights work, then tonight I completed it. The issue with this again was the white part of the cloak. It always looks fantastic when the professionals do hightlighs in white. But this just does not look as smooth as the pictures on the paint guide. No matter what I do I cannot get white stuff to look right, and I did loads of different coats as well. No worry. After that the hair and the face went really easy.
Got to tidy the base and put some grass on it but here it is – nearly finished.

Labels: LOTR

Well I finished these guys a week ago, and took the picture on holiday with me to upload if I found a free wifi connection. I didnt. But anyway these were the set that I think Alex gave me, which I've had drybrushed for a while. I tidied them up. painted the skirts and the faces and based them, and they now form a nice little squad to stop those nasties from taking over Osgiliath (is that how its spelt? Probably not even the right place, you know the one, down by the water outside Minis Tirith..

Labels: LOTR

An hour or so's work has got these finally finished. I've had these for ages since Rowan bought me them as a gift. They've been half finished for about 5 months, and as i was sorting out everything I thought I'd finally put them to bed. I had to spot repair quite a few, as they have been knocking about in various locations and the undecoat and base coat had chipped off. So I've fixed that, and sort of modified them where a couple of the weapons had broken off as well. Last night I finally completed a few details (mostly change of colours on the trims and dry brush metal on the weapons and armour) and then matt varnished them and finished the bases. Not often I complete 10 models in one post (or evening)

Labels: LOTR

So here is Legolas, finished finally. I though I was going to get him finished before the next issues arrived, but they beat me to it. I’ve had him complete apart from his cloak and hair for about a week, but the next issues (and Sicarius and the boys models) distracted me. Spent a lot of time blending the flesh tones on his face, and blending all of the colours as described in issue 76. I mentioned at the time how much better the painting guides are now – I think the idea was that the mags introduced the concepts gently to the new reader – which is why the new paint articles are better, as it’s almost two years since the first issues. I didn’t complete the base this as it was stupid o’clock by the time I had finished the main model. I’ve done some other things since, like mounted and undercoated the new Aragorn from 78 as well as undercoating Sicarius and building Zeds Marine bike with him. Next job is finishing the Mordor Orcs that I have had basecoated for a while now. Or the new Aragorn..

Labels: LOTR

Well I finished this guy last night. I took quite a while blending colours on his face, and came up with a better way of doing it - one which I may discuss later. Wasnt too hard really, although I dont think the red is as good as it could be. I do, however like the discusting blob of flesh by his shoulder.

When I originally finished this there wasnt enough difference between the clothes and the skin. I ended up lining the division with black ink, which flowed nicely just into the gaps, and now it looks much better.

Did this at the same time as Legolas, but as that's not finished yet I'll save him till next time.

Labels: LOTR

This must be a record, it only arrived yesterday. You can tell by the way the base is still wet that I was in a rush with this one. Qhite pleased at how it turned out. Was very satisfying painting it turquoise to start with to get the rusty brass effect. Then off to games workshop to get some Dwarf bronze (and some greys) and stood by proudly while my boy ordered a Gandalf from the mailorder trolls. (I've never had the guts to do that. Dont know where he gets it from.) Took a long time over the reds, although I didnt have the red that the paint guide suggested to use as the base coat. The final highlights of the red involved mixing a bit of Vomit brown with bllood red , which I didnt think would work, but really did. This looks better in real life than on the picture, but really finished it off.
UPDATE: Finished the base and updated the picture.

Labels: LOTR

Couple more issues of BGIME arrived today. Review to follow, but just to get this in the right order, here are two finished models. The first is the King of the dead that I failed to sell as an unpainted item on ebay, so I painted it. Not sure of the grass on the base, its a bit too green to be around such a denizen of death, so I added some brown lichen to the area to look like a dead twig. Buy the painted model on ebay here: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330000756189 (thats if anyone reads this...) The second miniature is the painted conversion using the conversion sprue form issue 75 which I showed you unpainted in the previous post. Quite happy with this one, although I didnt like his goatee so gave him an all around beard instead. Quite straight forward in the end, but looking at the photo it looks like I might need to touch up the fingermark on the back of the shield. I may also have over done it with the lichen on this one - looks like he's trying to scythe his way passed the killer asparagus....

Labels: LOTR, Miniatures

So I decided to try a couple of conversions with my sprue that I got from BGIME issue 75..
I've had some warriors of Minis Tirith for a while now which Alex gave me, so I decided to put an old head on one of them, and convert one of my orcs into Golmoths Leiutenant. First thing I liked was that the heads came with a built in pin, which is very useful because it saves drilling the head at the wrong angle and bursting out of the back of the poor guys skull. As these were to be attached to plastic models, I had the satisying task of nicking off the models' existing heads with some wire clippers. Then both of the replacement heads were bald, so I had to shave off the remaning hair with a scalpel. Then a lovely easy drill into the plastic with a pin vice. The pins in the head were every so slightly too big for the drill I had, but because of this, and that they were going into plastic, they gave a real snug fit that wouldnt have required glue.
I glued then anyway, just to be pedantic. These sprues were so good you didnt need to fill any of the joins with green stuff, there were no gaps. Finally I gave them both an undercoat (which ruinied the existing paint jobs - oh well)
So just to paint them now - but I must say these were very easy conversions to do. I'll start to investigate some of the other conversion sprues that Games Workshop sell via mail order.

And on the subject of Shiny.. a couple of nights ago I also glued Captain Mal's arm to his body, so as I needed to get out the spray paint tonight I cleaned him up and undercoated him as well. More black models to finish!!

Labels: LOTR, Miniatures

Well, I finished this from undercoated tonight, quite an accomplishment as I was watching Battlestar Galactica at the same time.
Not so happy with his under robes based on this picture. I tried to ink wash it as I had used too wide a set of shades, and I thing it was more ink than wash. His outer robes look pretty good though.
I know its not properly based yet - but its late...
Thanks to Alex who found me a painting guide for this - I've had Radagast for ages, in fact someone bought it me as a present, and its been so long I cant remember who it was.

Labels: LOTR, Miniatures

Well Gollum was much easier to paint than Bilbo, with only about 3 base colours to play about with.
I followed the painting guide, but of note was using chainmail mixed with grey to produce the shiny skin of the fish. It was then suggested that you used a gloss varnish on the fish as well to make it look wet. i decided not to do the normal flocked base, but try and do a water effect on it, so several coats of regal blue, and highlighted with dark angels green, got the colour I wanted, then more coats of pva glue finished with quite a pool of gloss varnish gave me a very shiny pool like effect. You can see this on one of my other photos, but they look black on this one. Also for the first time in ages I'm happy with this miniatures eyes - I should be considering Gollum has the biggest ones you probably can get - for his size.

Labels: LOTR, Miniatures

I thought I could do it. I thought I could get Bilbo and Gollum painted before the next installments arrive, and had Bilbo undercoated and basecoated. I got home last night, only to find two more issues on the doormat, (and they've invoiced me for 3!!)
Anyway the detailed instructions in BGIME were great for painting Bilbo. There was lots of ink work in this one, and I like the step by step. Another reason this is good because it points out various aspects of the model you dont realise about, for instance in this model, there is a siver emblem on the cover of his book, and he is holding the one ring, which I hadnt realised.
This took me ages to paint, about 4 hours over 2 days, and as usual I'm not happy with the face (this has had about 3 attempts) and the static grass is stuck to some places that it shouldnt be..
Now onto Gollum

Labels: LOTR, Miniatures

Well here are the first two completed of my Army of the dead. I've struggled with these, as there wasnt really any colour guides that I could find anywhere. Finally I undercoated them, and then drybrushed them all with a slightly different shade of gray, then I washed them all with a mixture of a green and black ink wash, which gave them more of a consistent 'glow' look, which tie the army together. Then I picked out various details on them, such as the helmets and swords on these two, with metallic colours, and repeated the wash. I'm pleased with the result.

Labels: LOTR, Miniatures

Not sure of how to refer to this Aragorn, but I'm happier with this one than the Weathertop one, especially because of his face. I'm quite proud of how realistic the leather looks on his back, so heres a close up for your enjoyment. Also noted Aragorns one fingerless leather glove on his sword hand. When I was doing the hands I thought this was just a bit of flash on his fingers, but looking at it in BGIME I realised my error, but that all I had to do was chaos black the back of his hand. I was in Games Workshop with the kids for a few minutes this afternoon and there was someone on the tables who had some really nicely finished miniatures, but they hadnt based them. The guy in the shop was moaning about it, and saying that the next time they come in they should at least paint them green. I tend to agree, hypocritically, as I havent done it on these yet. Off to do that now.

Labels: LOTR, Miniatures

After the guilt of my last entry I ended up with a free evening, so sat there listening to YourMacLife and painted both my aragorns. I think technically they should have been both painted differently, but when i had them both together it seemed silly not to use the paints I had mixed efficiently. Looking at this picture I see that there is a bit of fluf on his knee (thats not Arwen) so I'll have to have a go with some tweezers. Happy with the look of this but not of his face.

Labels: LOTR, Miniatures

Well, I fitted this in while I was in the middle of my recent macragge marathon (which is by no means finished) While I was working on blogging all of my BGIME I came across galariel that I had sprayed white. When I dug out the article There was only a few things to do:
Space wolves gray wash for the cloak & reset white.
Elf flesh / then dwarf flesh wash + white drybrush for the skin
and Blond hair, which i cant remember the colours.
And here she is. The pictures not too good because I didnt have much light (midnight!!) and she still needs basing (I will probably have a gargantian basing session soon..)

Labels: LOTR, Miniatures

Well, spent so long fixing my blog posts that I thought flickr had been doing correctly that I now have no time to ..... No - I cant say that really.
As I said in my previous post, I already had a small toon of these guys, and now have some more from the front of Battle Games.
The problem with these were that they were all slightly different, so you cant batch paint them as easy as, say, the million uruk-hai that I have. I suppose I at least have that, that I've got loads of the miniatures that are easy to paint. Anyway, these are my favourite plastic figures to own, if not to paint, and that is only in the Middle earth stuff. Nothing can compete with them marines.... :)

Labels: LOTR, Miniatures

Labels: LOTR, Miniatures

Did I show you this one? This is one of my paintings that I did late
at night, didn't take too long in painting it and wasn't very happy
about it - but then, in the morning, in the light of day, I was quite
surprised. Not very recent, but better than nothing.

Labels: LOTR, Miniatures

Well this is the current project. Since I last wrote I've painted all
of these scorched brown as a base coat, then started to highlight the
shields and boots and undergarments with bestial brown. Thats as far
as I have got, and don't even know what I have to do next with the
batch.
Discovered that the battle of Macragge - or whatever it is called - is
actually a boxed set introduction to 40k, which is probably why its so
expensive. The models appear to be clip together, whatever that means.
Want it more now...

Labels: LOTR, Miniatures