Slayer(s)

After watching a demo game in Games Workshop I got the urge to paint my Slayer out of the Skull Pass set. First problem was that I didn't have blazing Orange, which the paint guide suggested I should use for his hair. Painting both of the supplied models with my own mix of orange I was a bit disappointed - the pigment in the yellow seemed to be very dilute, and so it took me many coats to get a flat colour. Then I was hoping I could red ink wash the hair, so that it gave a pinline red shadow in all the groves of the hair - but that wasn't going anywhere either, so I took a while trying to get the shade - but in the end it didn't work. The flesh, of which there is plenty, was easier. However the interface between the flesh and the hair was not very good - so I ended up painting a line of black ink between them to make it stand out more. Quite happy with the skin though, so I also provided you with the view that the infantry get as the Slayer charges ahead - coz I was proud of his tush.

Labels: Dwarf, Miniatures, Skull Pass, Slayer, Warhammer

Orc Thingy and Warhammer World Blog

I got this model out to try and paint a bit more of it, from my Skull Pass set. I must admit it was this piece of scenery that made me want to get the set - well, that and the naked dwarf... When I originally painted this back at the dawn of time I wasn't too happy with the base and highlights I'd done, but when I got it out to paint some this evening I was happier with its look. But in the end I didn't get to paint any, because I did a session of painting with the boys instead. Roo did the face of his special order Gandalf, and Zed did one of the dwarf infantry. In other news - Warhammer World has started blogging. This is a sports hall size complex in the Games Workshop factory in Nottingham, where you can go for free and play on some of the gaming tables that have appeared in White Dwarf over the years, and buy stuff, as well as look at some of the exhibitions they have there. The Warhammer World blog can be found here.

Labels: Gaming, Miniatures, Orc, Skull Pass, Warhammer, Warhammer World

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

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

Well, I didnt paint what I had planned to tonight, but I did get an hour or so of painting done. I had a set of 12 Mordor Orcs assembled and undercoated, but because the are all different, I was a bit reticent to paint them. I was looking around the Games workshop site and found the following link:
http://www.games-workshop.co.uk/thelordoftherings/uk/returnking/hobby/painting/evil/orc/default.htm

which has a great article about batch painting these, and involved basecoating all of the model with Scorched Brown to start with. This was great to do while I was listening to a program on the box and chatting with Rowan as it didnt require much concentration. I did this with all 12 and then started painting the boots, gloves, sheilds and under garments! I got through 6 of these but this took longer so I just typed this and its time to stop.
Its nice to have got somewhere painting something new tonight. If these are as easy as the article says I'll get the other sprue I had painted next. Once these are finished.... No pictures today as I did some earlier, and want to show these orcs once they are finished.

Labels: LOTR, Miniatures

When I first saw a sprue of Uruk'hai I was very impressed and wanted to
immediately create an army of dark warriors to bash those elves. I
acquired myself a box of the siege troops and did what was basically my
first ever batch paint. However, what I didn't realise was that as
soon as I had painted one batch, then I was probably going to get sent
another batch with BGIME. Every week, or so it seemed, I was receiving
more of the dark creatures through the post. I tried to give some away
but the curse of Sauron followed me and I seem to be doomed to never
get them finished. I do like these models, and am relatively pleased
with the paint effects, and definitely the basing. I am sick though of
the pike men, who seem to be able to break a pike faster than Games
Workshop can make them. Its a conspiracy I'm sure. For that reason I
didn't dare to take them out of the box to get them photographed.
I plan to paint a few more of the Uruk'hai in batch mode tonight as I
can knock them out quite quickly now.

Labels: LOTR, Miniatures

Now this I am proud of. I found him in a box of undead. He just
needed a little grass on the base. This is more like the stuff I used
to do. I'm happy with the base, am well chuffed with his eyes,
although I wish I'd got his face in focus.
So a successful weekend. Although I didn't paint much, I finished a
few models and progressed some more.

Labels: LOTR, Miniatures

kazaks

Labels: LOTR, Miniatures