They have a Troll (or two)

As I approached the end of my Pelennor fields army it was time to tackle the Trolls. I have tried to paint trolls a couple of times in the past, but have always given up in frustration so I was determined to make it work this time.

With the Grand Tournament streaming behind me I broke out the GW Mordor Troll painting guide and followed it through with a few adjustments to fit my mini.

Paint Scheme:

• Prime with Vallejo Grey Surface Primer

Skin

• Basecoat with Bugman's Glow
• Wash with Reikland Fleshshade
• Highlight with Bugmans Glow with increasing amounts of Cadian Fleshtone mixed it.
• Detail with thinned Cadian Fleshtone (lots of little tiny lines for texture)

Scales

• Basecoat Dryad Bark
• Wash Agrax Earthshade
• Heavy Drubrush Gorthor Brown
• Stipple edges of region with Gorthor Brown to blend into skin

Chest Harness & Straps

• Basecoat Rhinox Hide
• Wash Agrax Earthshade
• Highlight Doombull Brown

Cloth

• Basecoat 50/50 XV-88 & Dryad Bark
• Wash Agrax Earthshade
• Highlight XV-88 / Dryad Bark + increasing amounts of Baneblade Brown mixed in

Armour

• Basecoat Ironbreaker
• Wash Reikland Fleshshade
• Highlight Ironbreaker

Nails

• Basecoat Baneblade
• Wash Agrax Earthshade
• Highlight Baneblade + Screaming Skull

Rocks

• Basecoat Mechanicus Standard Grey
• Drybrush Administratum Grey
• Drybrush Dawnstone

Basing

• Basecoat Stirland Mud
• Drybrush Tyrant Skull
• Add Tufts (Warpainter Scrub Grass small / standard tufts)
• Paint Base Rims Steel Legion Drab

New year, renewed motivation

So, not quite the start of the new year, but still - a good time to renew my hobbying and work on finally finishing off that Morannon Orc army I started *checks history* over a year ago.

May Update

I hadn't realised how many months had passed since I last painted. I hit a bit of a mental block in February after stocking up on all the re-released models - I was determined to stick to my plan of painting more than I bought, but that meant I needed to clear out another 40 models, and my Morannon force was all about slower detailed painting which meant that it was (seemingly) going to take forever.

So I had a cunning plan - put aside my current project and paint up a batch of Uruk-Hai as they're quick and easy... Unfortunately it turned out that holding myself to arbitrary rules and painting random models to achieve them utterly killed my motivation and left me in a slump where I didn't actually finish anything in February (although I do now have a lot of half-painted Uruks!).

I took a detour from painting in March when I read 'The life changing magic of tidying' by Marie Kondo and asked myself if my LOTR collection 'sparked joy' for me. The answer was fortunately yes, but not as a pile of boxes shoved into an overflowing storage unit. To fix this I embarked on a major project to document every model I have, organise them into game-legal armies, and then build the miniatures.

The end result is that I have now built every single model I own and they are now sitting proudly in a couple of display bookcases where I can (just about) see all of them. I feel so much better about my collection now that I can see it on display, instead of feeling vaguely guilty about the sheer number of models I had amassed and never done anything with.

Another bonus was that by selling my surplus models I made exactly the right amount of money to reinvest in GW's April 'made to order' run and now have 30 more previously out of print models coming my way...

I've also come up with a cunning new plan - paint what I want, when I want, and buy what I want, when I want (within reason!). In particular, I plan to plug the gaps in my newly written army lists, which should keep my wallet busy for some time.

Oh, and I painted something this month - one Morannon Orc Captain (foot & mounted)

And purely because I like statistics:

Month	Bought	Painted
January	42	2
February	0	0
March	0	0
April	30	0
May	0	2
Total	72	4

January Update

It was a slow start to the year, marred with illness and a dodgy neck which kept me away from the painting table.

On the plus side, we did make it a little further through the introductory games in the Pelennor Fields boxset and determined that the Witch King on Fellbeast is excellent at killing Horsies....

I'm working on the Morannon Orc heroes at present and the only ones I'm claiming as finished this month are the Banner Bearer and the Drummer. I've done a fair amount on the others so hopefully I'll have some early finishes in February to get me back on track!

A lot of the previously OOP models made it back into the webstore in January and as a result I totally blew my plan to buy less than I painted. I'm totally okay with that though as I've been waiting years to get my hands on some of these and it's brilliant to finally have them in my collection.

Painted: 2 Models: Morannon Orc Banner Bearer and Orc Drummer

Bought - 42 Models: Forlong, Angbor, Duinhir, Dalaymar, Corsair Captain, Corsair Bosun, 6 Corsair Alabasters, 24 Corsairs, 6 Numemor Bowmen

2018 - the year in review

Well, what a difference a year makes.... Okay, well, 3 months if I'm being honest. January to September were pretty quiet but since the Pelennor Fields boxset and the new rules were released I've found a re-invigorated love for the hobby.

Summary for the year:

Army of the Dead - painted a 700 point army including King of the Dead, 30 Warriors of the Dead and 6 Riders of the Dead (694 Points in total). It could use a Banner and an Aragorn, but is technically playable as-is.

Morannon Orcs - painted 36 Morannon Orcs and 6 Wild Wargs and purchased / build the rest of a 1000pt army. Finishing this will be top priority for 2019.

With a total of 79 models painted I have finally achieved my target of at least one model per month (if you average it out!).

Target for next year - consistently paint at least one model each month!

I'm keeping my target low as December has shown me that sometimes life gets in the way of hobby and things just don't work out. Having been on a roll in October and November I almost failed to finish a single model in December and only some last-minute New Years Eve painting has kept me on track. Still, it was a nice way to spend the day!

Summary for the year

Month	Bought	Painted
September	84	0
October	14	31
November	22	42
December	0	6
Total	120	79

I gave myself a pass for the September purchase of the Pelennor Fields boxset, so that's a win for painting more than I bought each month as well

2018 - December Update

A quieter month this month - work was manic, plus I managed to be ill for about 3 weeks with a combination of stomach bug and cold (which sucked, but was kind enough to clear for a couple of days over Christmas before coming back with a vengeance!)

I started the month fairly well and managed to build and prime most of the rest of the models for my Morannon force, including a few little conversions. The only unbuilt model is the Catapult & Crew.

Not a lot of painting done this month, but I did manage to finish 6 off my wild wargs today to avoid a complete wash-out. I've also painted the rest of the wargs and 'just' need to do their riders and tack.

6 Metal Warg Riders, to be played as Mounted Orc Trackers

1 converted Morannon Orc Captain (the old Gothmog Model with a head swap from a Siege Uruk-Hai that's been 'sculpted' a bit with a scalpel)

Gothmog Mounted

Banner Bearer & Drummer

6 Orc Trackers

Guritz & Gothmog's Enforcer (1 spare, but seemed a shame to leave him in the box!)

1 Mordor Troll, with interchangeable hands. Painted with primer as it got too cold to spray paint.

Painted - 6 Wild Wargs (dismounts)

Bought - None

Gifted - Shelob, Sam & Frodo

Wild Wargs

My sneaky finish with 3 and a half hours left in December - 6 Wild Wargs, based over the course of the day as I was determined to get something finished this month!

I picked a very simple scheme for the Wargs which is almost entirely drybrushing / washing. The main areas of the wargs were very quick to paint and the only areas which took time to paint were the mouths and teeth, which were fiddly as they're not very well moulded. Once I decided on the paint scheme I reckon these were about 10 minutes a piece to paint.

There was quite a lot of prep work on these though - the metal warg riders had legs to attach and gap-fill and the plastic dismounts have some very obvious lines in their fur and a peculiar lack of detail on the rear of their backs. I probably spent about 20 minutes per warg green-stuffing but I think it was time well spent as it makes them look a lot better than they do out of the box. Thankfully fur is fairly simple to sculpt, and very forgiving of mistakes!

There aren't actually any Wild Wargs in my Mordor Army list, but these six will serve as dismounts for the Mounted Orc Trackers. I've also painted the six mounted wargs, but not their riders, so they'll hopefully be finished in January.

Wargs

• Basecoat - Abaddon Black

Fur

• Heavy Drybrush - Dryad Bark
• Medium Drybrush - Mournfang Brown
• Light Drybrush - Balor Brown (top half of warg only)

Mouth

• Tounge - Memphiston Red, wash Agrax Earthshade
• Teeth - Celestra Grey, wash Agrax Earthshade, highlight Ulthuran Grey
• Mouth - Bugmans Glow, wash Agrax Earthshade

Flesh

• Face - Stormvermin Fur, wash Nuln Oil, drybrush Stormvermin Fur
• Legs - Drybrush Strormvermin

Bases (as per Morannon Orcs, but with added slate chippings)

• Stirland Mud
• Drybrush Tyrant Skull
• Add Tufts (Warpainter Scrub Grass small / standard tufts)
• Paint Base Rims Steel Legion Drab
• Paint Rocks Mechanicus Standard Grey, drybrush Administratrum Grey, drybrush Celestra Grey