2015 - The year in review.

It seems appropriate at this time of year to review what I've done for the last 12 months, particularly as I am finally finding some hobby time again after a few months of downtime.

I picked up my paint brush again in January for the first time in about 10 years and am pleased to be able to conclude that I still very much enjoy painting miniatures. So, my achievements for this year painting wise are as follows:

• 72 Moria goblins, including the Goblin King of Moria, 2 captains, 3 shamans, 22 archers, 24 spearmen, 15 prowlers and 5 gundabad blackshields.
• 1 Balrog
• 1 Giant Eagle
• 1 High Elf (paint scheme test)
• Merry, Pippin & Sam (and half of Frodo!)
• Gandalf & Gimli (these were mostly done, just tidied up the faces and fixed a few chips)

For a total of 80 miniatures.

I also entered the Armies on Parade competition at my local store (Winchester) and placed 4th which made me pretty happy. I was a bit nervous about showing my collection to the wider world but I am so glad that I pushed myself to enter because it was a great event. I'm hugely grateful to Adam at the Winchester GW who made me feel welcome from the first day I set foot in his shop and always has time for a chat and a bit of advice whenever I pop in.

Christmas Pressies

It was a good Christmas for modelling this year with both mum & dad and my sister contributing to my collection:

From my sister:

• Arwen foot & mounted
• A small layer brush

From mum & dad:

• Easterling Kataphracts
• Easterling warriors
• Rangers of Middle Earth
• Uruk-hai scouts
• Uruk-hai command
• Mauhur
• 6 Citadel Guard w/ bows
• 6 Citadel Guard w/ spears
• 1 Mumak Mahud
• 3 Rohan Royal Guard

That should keep me busy for a while!

Armies on Parade 2015

It appears I forgot to take a picture of the final version, but this is pretty much it (except for the waterfall and water I added to the river bit). No prizes were won but I was pleased to have entered

There wasn't a plan, I winged it and built the core out of cheap foam insulation

Then covered it in plaster bandages for strength

And added modelling sand and small rocks for texture

Based it in grey poster paint and PVA and made some accent pieces out of balsa wood

Drybrushed the whole thing in grey+white poster paint and painted the wooden pieces in a few shades of brown

Then decided it was too small and made a whole extra piece to go with it!

Aim was for a dwarven mine overflowing with goblins.

The Mighty Balrog

I've had this Balrog for a long time, he was one of the first models I bought for myself. I was never particularly happy with the fire though, so for my Moria army I decided to repaint him with a more 'realistic' colour scheme (with the hottest bits in the middle not at the edges!). I also changed the way I painted the body to leave a bit more contrast and I have to say I much prefer the revised version.

He has a slightly weird base as I lost the original one and made one out of an old flowerpot, but I did such a good job of sticking him down I couldn't get him free without damaging his legs so Balrog 2.0 was just glued on top of an official base for the re-paint!

And for comparison - this was his original colour scheme. 

The Last Alliance of Elves & Men (Planning)

The Elves of the Last Alliance

I'm not quite sure where the last two months went... a combination of a bad back and a rapidly-growing garden conspired to keep me from my models but today I managed to find some hobby time.

The Goblins are almost finished (one cave troll left to subdue) so I'm looking ahead to my second army - the allied forces of the elves of Rivendell & Eregion and the men of Numenor.

This army is going to be a force built around the heroes of the Last Alliance - all of said heroes are rather expensive points-wise so I don't think this will be a particularly playable army... but it will look nice and satisfy my desire for thematically appropriate forces!

The Men of the Last Alliance

The full army list is as follows:

Warband 1    11/12
Elrond with Heavy armour;
11 High Elf Warrior with Elf Bow;
----
Warband 2    11/12
Gil-galad
4 High Elf Warrior with Elven Blade;
6 High Elf Warrior with Shield; Spear;
1 High Elf Warrior with Elven Blade; Banner;
----
Warband 3    11/12
Glorfindel, Lord of the West with Armour of Gondolin;
4 High Elf Warrior with Elven Blade;
6 High Elf Warrior with Shield; Spear;
1 High Elf Warrior with Elven Blade; Banner;
----
Warband 4    11/12
Elendil, High King of Gondor and Arnor
4 Warrior of Númenor with Shield;
6 Warrior of Númenor with Spear; Shield;
1 Warrior of Númenor with Banner;
----
Warband 5    11/12
Isildur
4 Warrior of Númenor with Shield;
6 Warrior of Númenor with Spear; Shield;
1 Warrior of Númenor with Banner;
----
Warband 6    11/12
Captain of Númenor with Shield;
11 Warrior of Númenor with Shield;
----

A total of 72 units, of which 11 have bows, for 1497 points.

And because my inner-accountant wants to keep track of the cost of all of this:

My initial forces consisted of:

• Glorfindel
• Elrond
• Gil-Galad
• Elendil
• Isildur
• High Elf Warrior w/ elven blade x 8
• High Elf Warrior w/ bow x 8
• Men of Numenor w/ sword & shield x 8

I believe that all of these originally came from the Battle Games in Middle Earth magazines at a cost of £3.99/hero and £3.99/sprue of warriors giving them a total cost of £3.99 x 7 = £27.93

And I supplemented these with a few additional purchases:

• 2 x boxes of Warriors of the Last Alliance £19.20 via Ebay (£30 retail)
• 6 x Men of Numenor £2.98 via Ebay
• High Elf Command £8.20 (GW)
• 12 x High Elf Warrior w/ Spear £48.00 (GW)
• 9 x Men of Numenor w/ Spear £24.60 (GW)
• 5 x Men of Numenor w/ Spear £6.21 via Ebay (£13.66 retail)

For a total of £137.12 - I attempted to source more of the spearmen through Ebay, but unusually it was generally cheaper to buy them directly from Games Workshop. It's actually kind of nice because I've been feeling a little guilty that I've been merrily trotting into my local shop for advice and paint and then sloping off to the internet to buy my models! It also means I'll get a chance to try out the new Finecast range, and I will reserve judgement on those until I actually get my hands on some.

There will be a few spare elves and men so I may experiment with a few conversions or try to paint up some test models before I get going on the main army.

A Great Eagle

We spent a lovely week in the Lake District last week so I haven't done much painting recently - I did however finish off the Eagle I started before we left.

I'm rather pleased with how this fellow turned out - as previously mentioned I followed a tutorial from Tale of Painters and whilst it seemed to take forever to paint the feathers the results were well worth it. I did however give up on the black-tipped beak after two failed attempts to blend the black into the yellow. I settled for painting the whole beak yellow and washing it with Agrax Earthshade which seemed to work okay. I also washed the talons with Agrax as I felt mine needed a bit more shading.

The base is built around a fallen pillar from one of the Games Workshop LOTR terrain sprues. I cut it in half to fit it on the base and then added some pieces of slate around it and a showering of sand and small rocks painted as follows:

• Soil: based with Dryad Bark, washed with Agrax Earthshade, dry brushed with Gorthor Brown then Steel Legion Drab.
• Rocks; based with Skavenblight Dinge, washed mainly with Nuln Oil and a few touches of Athosian Camoshade, dry brushed heavily with Stormvermin Fur  and lightly with Longbeard Grey
• Pillar: based with Dawnstone, washed mainly with  Athosian Camoshade and a few touches of Nuln Oil, dry brushed lightly with Administratum Grey

The base is finished with a few touches of flock around the rocks arranged to look like creeping moss/plants and a few patches of static grass.

A short digression

We had some doors fitted today which meant I needed to be at home but not doing anything in particular - whilst the fitter installed 2 new back/side doors I settled down to paint hundreds of individual feathers on this eagle.

I've followed the Tale of Painters tutorial for this chap with a minor change to the greys as I was lacking one of the shades they used. Overall I'm really pleased how he's looking so far - the body feathers are all finished now but his head/talons still need more work.

Goblin Heroes

This weekend I finished the highlights and detailing on the goblin heroes - I made a couple of changes to the Shamen as I went along and I'm pretty pleased with the final results. My conversions are a little clumsy in places but I think that overall they work.

The Goblin King

     

This fellow is the unmodified GW model - he is slightly larger than the other goblins and makes an imposing leader for my forces

Goblin Captain with Bow

This goblin captain has a slight case of sausage fingers but the overall effect is still pleasing - I thought I had made a tiny little hand but it seems it needed to be even smaller.

Goblin Captain with Sword

Seen from the right angle, this captain is fearlessly leading his troops into battle, but from the wrong angle he's about to fall over backwards! Still, the conversion worked out pretty well so I'm happy enough.

Goblin Shaman #1

This chap was the only shaman who I didn't modify beyond my original plans - having checked the rules he should be armed with a spear by default but I think I could probably convince another player to accept that he can poke his enemies with his staff in a sufficiently spear-like manner.

Goblin Shaman #2

   

This little fellow gained a hood and had his quiver modified a bit further since my original sculpting session - my attempt to carve down his helmet into a head covering was entirely unconvincing when painted so instead he is now fully shrouded. His quiver was given a bit more length and a bulbous base to turn it into a more convincing flask/shoulder sack and basically make him look less like an archer who'd lost his arrows!

Goblin Shaman #3

Finally, this shaman picked up some tassels on his spear and a well-worn cloak to complete his attire. I'm actually really pleased with how this turned out as I was considering scrapping him altogether at one point and now he's probably my favourite of the three.

The Goblin Horde

With the heroes completed the Goblin horde is now ready to march to war - all that remains is for them to acquire a cave troll and I will have a full army painted.

Some progress on Goblin Heroes

Our Easter got a little side tracked by an unfortunate family injury resulting in several days spent at hospital / with parents however I did manage to fit a little painting in this afternoon and I have now basecoated and washed my Moria Goblin heroes. They still need highlighting and detailing but it's good to make some progress on these guys at last.

The Eagles & Elves are coming...

I went home to visit my parents this weekend to celebrate my birthday so I didn't get any painting done - I did however pick up a lovely haul of miniatures to play with over the coming months.

Mum & Dad kindly agreed to buy me a selection of Elves and Men of the Last Alliance - I've had the heroes and bowmen / swordsmen for a while now but haven't managed to pick up the (rather more expensive) spearmen to round out the army. I now have enough spearmen to complete my warbands and the command pack will make two banner bearers for my forces.

12 High Elf Spearmen

9 Numenorean Spearmen + High Elf command

Sticking with the elven theme I also asked for two packs of Galadrhim - these guys will be ranked up with Haldir to command them for a Helms-Deep themed force.

And finally, my sister bought me a box of Giant Eagles - I've wanted these Hobbit miniatures for a while now because the detailling on them is exquisite. I couldn't resist building them as soon as I got home so here are two mostly-assembled eagles.

They are appropriately huge compared to the standard miniatures - check out that wingspan

Workspace Upgrade

I've been thinking about getting some proper storage for my workspace for a while now and I finally decided on these paint hangers from HobbyZone. They're designed to be hung on the wall, but with the hanger removed they fit perfectly under my windowsill, and thanks to their tiny footprint (just 5cm deep) I still have room for my worktop protector (an upside down Ikea chopping board!).

The hangers set me back just over £30 (including shipping) and whilst I was initially a little hesitant about the cost I was pleased to find that they are worth every penny. The pieces fitted together easily thanks to a neat interlocking slot design and the frames are made of a good solid mdf. The white finish to the interior gives them a really good finish and I would definitely buy these again. It's not particularly obvious from the photo but each shelf is tilted backwards slightly so that the paint pots stay securely in place - with the GW paints I can fit 32 pots on each rack.

Moria Goblin Spearmen (3 of 3)

We had a busy weekend and I only managed to get these fellows to their initial washed stage by the end of Sunday, however I had a bonus day off today and I managed to finish their highlights this afternoon.

That's all the rank & file troops painted now, with only their leaders and the cave troll left to go - they look quite nice all ranked up on the table together.

The bases are for display purposes, and not for gaming, and I will be painting these up and theming them to match the army. They are a non-standard 6x2 so that each SBG warband can be displayed on it's own base - I elected to cap my warbands at 11 troops, rather than 12, so that every swordsman can have spear support (and so that they look pretty in my display cabinet!)

Last Alliance Elf - Test Model

I've started working on a test model for my Last Alliance elves - it's still very rough and ready at the moment but the colour scheme is starting to take shape.

I've chosen a different colour scheme from the traditional GW blue cloaks/tunics for these guys - I was re-watching the films recently and noticed that whilst Elrond & Gil Galad wore blue cloaks the rank & file troops definitely didn't.

My go-to reference book(1) notes that Gil-Galad and Elrond wore midnight-blue cloaks, "the colour of [the] king's banner", with the other elves wearing cloaks of Elven Silk "coloured a silver grey-green". When looking for a nice grey-green paint I discovered that GW don't actually make that colour so I have mixed my own up from what I had on hand. I may try and find a 'proper' shade from another range (I think some of the WW2 ranges should have something appropriate) but for now the mixing wasn't too awkward and gave reasonable colours.

Elrond & Gil-Galad will have deep blue cloaks and Glorfindel will probably have one too to keep all the commanders the same. My banners will also be coloured with deep blues & golds to carry the theme.

I decided to go with non-metallic gold simply because I've always wanted to try the technique and these guys seemed like a good opportunity to use it. I used the colours and methods from this tutorial and added a couple of green washes at the end to get the tone I wanted. My blending is still pretty rough but I'm hoping that will improve with practice!

At present the colours I have used are;

NMM Gold

• XV 88 Basecoat
• Washed with Agrax Earthshade
• Highlighted with Balor Brown then Zamesi Desert
• Outlined with White Scar
• Washed twice with Athosian Camoshade

Cloak

• 2:1 mix of Skavenblight Dinge : Elysian Green
• Highlights done by adding Dawnstone and eventually White Scar

Under-skirt:

• 2:1 mix of Stormvermin Fur: Ogryn Camo
• Highlights done by adding Administratum Grey and eventually White Scar

(1)Reference Book: "The Lord of the Rings" Weapons and Warfare by Chris Smith

Moria Goblin Archers (3 of 3)

This weekend I finished up my last batch of Moria Goblin archers - just one more set of spearmen left to paint and I'll have finished all of the foot soldiers.

Life continues to conspire to keep me from my painting thanks to a recurring cold, but hopefully it will let up soon and I can get my first army finished up.