2016 - the year ahead

Whilst recapping 2015 I realised that I was also very good at purchasing lots of models to increase my painting backlog (oops!)

So, my plans for next year include the following:

1) The Fellowship of the Ring

• Finishing the fellowship on foot

• Acquiring & painting the fellowship on horseback - I have most of these models, just need to convert a mounted Gandalf the Grey 

Mounted Aragorn, Legolas, Legolas & Gimli, Boromir
Frodo, Sam, Merry & Pippin

2) Reinforcements for Moria:

• 2 Goblin drummers + drum
• 2 Cave trolls
• 10 Warg Marauders (to be converted)
• 16 Wild Wargs

3) The Last Alliance Army - actually painting this, rather than just looking at it in fear:

• Elrond, Gil-galad & Glorfindel
• Elendil & Isildur (alive & dying!)
• 12 High elf w/ spear
• 2 High Elf w/ banner
• 10 High Elf w/ elven blade
• 12 High Elf w/ bow
• 12 Warriors of Numenor w/ spear
• 19 Warriors of Numenor w/ shield
• 2 Warriors of Numenor w/ banner

4) The Uruk-Hai Horde - for when I need something easier than the above:

• Many, many Uruk-hai.....

Clockwise: Uruk-hai, more Uruk-hai, Last Alliance, Misc WIP

5) All of the models for the Fellowship of the Ring Journey Book.... we'll see about this one, it kind of ties in with some of the stuff above and I really want to start playing some games next year so I will have to see if I can get this rolling.

Overall, I will be happy if I can keep a bit more consistency with my hobby time next year, I find it a great way to relax in the evenings, provided I can actually get around to sitting down and painting!

Grand Target for 2016: Paint 100 models. 

Looking at what I've achieved this year I think this should be feasible and it will give me something measurable to aim for!

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.