Greenskins - the final update

Here I am, 30 goblins later. You can see the pics below. Once again, I was struggling with taking pics that would show the colors well. It looks a bit too vivid and too flat compared to the real look...

While working on a large quantity of similar minis, I always try to add little things that decrease the "army of clones" feel. This time I used things like rocks, ruined monuments etc. to add some variety. Also, to give it a Moria feel, I used fragments of walls and glued them onto the movement trays.

For the command group I wanted to come up with something special so I took half of a column and cut it into four parts. These parts were then glued to the bases so that it looks now as if the 4 of them were standing next to one another.

And some shots taken in different light.

 Well, that's it for now and I'll be posting some WIP pics of the Hobbit stuff soon.

Unpublished 2012

Here are some shots (taken by none other than Reagan Lee ) of minis I painted earlier in 2012 but for some reason forgot to put on the blog. 

I really like GW's Lotr Rangers minis as they're full of character and they gave me a chance to work with warm colors that I really like. Faramir's rangers are even better than the plastic ones as they're more detailed and the quality of sculpts is slightly better.

I used Micro Art Forest bases - they are awesome and I cannot recommend them enough. I've used many different resin base/base inserts but those from MAS are definitely the best in terms of quality.

Faramir and Damrod leading the rangers

Duinhir, Arathorn and Halbarad

And that's pretty much it for 2012, it's been a pretty good year in terms of hobby for me but I'll write a separate entry with summary in January. 

Happy New Year to everyone who visits Independent Painters, I'm really happy that some people find the blog interesting enough to stop for a while and check out new posts as they come and even more grateful for the comments that are left. See you in 2013 - in hobby terms I'd call it the year of... Hobbit.

Greenskins #3

I've just finished painting a batch of Moria elites and here are some pics. First off, Gundabad Blackshields and their commanders. They're all finecast minis and it felt a bit weird painting a mini that weighs next to nothing. The main thing that distinguishes them from regular Goblins are the heavy fur cloaks. I painted some spots onto them, following the "official" paintjob but making them look darker. And as gross as it is, the one holding a drum made out of dwarf is my favorite here. 

 The Prowlers look so much out of control, especially the ones swinging the axe above their heads. Those are really tiny minis so getting all the little bits there was a bit tricky. I think it worked out pretty well in the end.

 Last but not least, Grobolog - the goblin king. Possibly one of the best sculpts in the range and I really enjoyed working on him. For some reason the red cloak looks a bit orangish in the pics...

Now I have some regular Goblins that await painting but there are a few elites among the batch so I shouldn't be too bored working on them ;)

Greenskins from the deep

As I've written before, Moria is the next army I'm going to be work on (I'm also going to take a slight Hobbit detour but that's still Moria). I started with the bigger denizens of this realm (see earlier posts) and followed with this small team of 8 metal Goblins. Those are some of the first miniatures released for LotR: SBG but I think that they still look as good (or even better) than some of the newer ones.

Since they hardly ever get to see the sunlight and spend most of their lived deep underground, I chose a very dark color scheme. It gave me an opportunity to use the new GW paints for the first time. I bought two base and one layer color for their skins. I started with a basecoat of Castellan Green, highlighted it with Death World forest and gave one more very bright highlights on the protruding areas (noses, cheekbones etc.) with Ogryn Camo. They looked a bit too pale at this point so I started glazing the skin areas with brown inks, giving them a darker, dirtier look.

The armors were painted pretty much the same way I did with the Morannon Orcs. Dark and rusty - I think it goes well with the character of these guys. 

The bases have fragments of walls/ruins and lots of gravel. I didn't go over the board with details on these as I thought that a fairly plain look would work better in creating the feel of a wild horde roaming the dark places. I think in this case simplicity is the right choice.

Khazad Dum

 I've read Tolkien's Lord of the Rings four times (three times in Polish in two different translations and once in English) and the whole Moria part is definitely what I liked the most. A very dark place filled with bones and memories of past glory (Dwarven mines and the heavy presence of ancient evil). The movie did pretty well in this part too.
Khazad Dum is how the dwarves called Moria and I like the sound of it. Seems to be more suitable, especially when one considers creatures that lived in the depths of Moria.
Dwellers in the dark are well... dark creatures that dwell in the dark. The spend hundreds of years in a slumber in the deepest places of the mines and wake up when they hear sounds of battle and champions that they could face.

The miniature is pretty well sculpted and makes me think of Gothic style marble or stone gargoyles. Its thin limbs make it look a bit grotesque but not too much and fortunately the effect isn't too cartoony.
The ruins on the base are part of the whole kit so I only needed to glue some small stones and sand around them.

I chose a very dark color scheme with all the recesses on the limbs filled with something that I meant to look like lava to break the dark colors and add more life to this beast.

Cave Trolls are large and pretty much mindless creatures that also choose dark places as their natural habitat. I wanted to paint him in a way that would reflect it. That's why its underbelly is very pale and the dark ares on its forearms and legs look a little like stones. I painted the hammer and chain using rather dark metallics as I thought that these would be made of very old material too.

It looks a bit shiny in the pics but that' the issue with lighting as I used two layers of matt varnish to finish this beast off.

Last but not least - the Big Evil itself. Balrog is an ancient creature of great power that was awoken by greedy dwarves who wouldn't stop digging. I initially painted his skin in a very dark greyish tone but ended up glazing it back to black as it simply looked too bright and I didn't get the element of contrast with flames that I was looking for.

I had to make a minor change to make it possible for him to use two weapons. I cut the fingers of his left hand in half and repositioned them so that they looked as if they were holding something. Then it was just a matter of fitting the sword there.

I painted the little fire embers on the wings and tail as it seemed somehow dull without them. I'd initially planned to do that on the forearms too but in the end decided that it would make him look like a Christmas tree. Right now it seems like there's a good balance between the dark body and very bright flames and embers emanating from it.

Now I need to finish my Dreamer crew for Malifaux (only Coppelius left) and then you can expect lots of greenskins.

Lotr revisited. Army of Harad

After lengthy absence I'd like to return to blog with a pictures of my Army of Harad. Well maybe army is a strong word, it's more like armed company by all standards. It's a force that took part in last 2009 Eastern Europe Grand Tournament. To be honest I've always had more to do with modelling side of our hobby rather than with gaming and my attandance of that event was mostly driven by my desire to win Best Painted Army Award second year straight (in 2008 I participated with Wood Elves army).

Size of this force is not breathtaking as it was composed to look good not to place high in the tournament. It consists mostly of Haradrim Warriors with small platoon of Watchers of Karna, couple of Hasharins and Witch-King along with one other Nazgul.

                                  

Now to painting side. I decided to do a custom colour scheme that will represent the character of Haradrims in it's best. We all know that they are people of South-East linked mostly with desert. That's why I chose earth-sand hues for them. I always thought GW's scheme with all that red and purple to be a little inaccurate. Frankly they looked more like a circus than people of the desert to me.

                   

I did a couple of variations and mixed schemes between all those Haradrims. As far as I remember I divided them in groups of 12-15 and tried to keep each unique yet consistent with the whole army composition.

                     
                           
                                                 
For Watchers of Karna I decided that original GW's scheme with all black robes made them look more like Ninjas...which can be awesome...if you are a Ninja. That being said I used another shade of yellow-brown (Bubonic Brown in that case) to be a base of that squad.

               

My favourite part of that force are the Hasharins. I always liked playing with those characters. They are fragile but deadly if used the right way. I painted one in traditional way with black robes and the other with scheme of an army that would allow him to blend in. You wouldn't believe how often my opponents focused on that black Hasharin being totally oblivious to existnce of the other one hidden usually between Watchers of Karna. When they realised their mistake it was usually to late as he already got his poisoned weaponry on their strongest heroes.

   

To compliment the points of the roster I used two Nazguls (including Witch-King). I painted them in experimental way. I tried to use some OSL to make them unique among all those other Nazguls you see on tournaments, cloathed all in black.

                                             
Anyway besides presenting that army I have also posted it for sale on eBay. I'm finally drifting away from gaming aspect and focusing more on my painting, plus hockey season is upon us and I have to make some additions to my equipment.

So if someone is interested in purchase of that force visit eBay auction.

That being said I hope you like the scheme I applied to my Haradrims, maybe it will inspire some of you to paint them in similar way or at least to implement some own schemes to your armies.

Cheers,