Dwarves again

Here are a few pics of LotR dwarves I painted a while ago that haven't been posted yet. First off, Gimli - version in cloak. Very nice mini with lots of details. His face is particularly well sculpted which is an achievement given the scale. I followed the classic red color scheme. I also wanted the cloak to look worn and dirty and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. The axe looks bad in the pics but I worked on it later on to smooth out the highlights. Of course, I forgot to take the pics.


And here's another one - dwarven captain. I really like the "come get some" pose of this model. I positioned it differently that it normally is as I thought it gives him more dynamism. I use Andrea red set so often that it's hard for me to imagine working with this color using different paints now.






And finally, a quick shot of the Iron Guard. The pic is really bad as the lighting was very uneven but it gives a very general idea of how they look like. Maybe I'll have better pictures in the future ;)

Dwarven Royalty

As promised in my previous entry, I'm catching up with my blog backlog. There are quite a few pictures I haven't posted yet. So, here we go. I described my impressions of finecast in one of the earlier entries. They were rather positive and painting these guys hasn't changed them. Paints flow really well on this kind of resin and the fine details (they both have eyes, though it's hard to tell by the pictures - you have to take my word for it) are a little better than on the metal versions. I used resin bases and more vivid colors to mark them as royalty (see the warriors color scheme for comparison).

Durin and Mardin is another due that is used together. Durin was one of the greatest dwarf kings and Mardin served as his personal bodyguard. He uses a trident - the same type of weapon that is common for Vault Warden Team as he is a veteran of this unit. Here I also tried to keep the colors richer than on the regular soldiers. I also painted the metallics using brighter shades. And that's pretty much it as far as dwarven royalty is concerned. There will be one more here, a captain and some elites so stay tuned.

Floi Stonehand

One of the nicest dwarf models in the LotR range that I've painted so far. All the details - staff, face, book, cloak, everything is really nicely sculpted on this one. I followed the color scheme that GW proposed on their website and I think it suits this model really well. Rich colors stress his high rank as the Loremaster and makes him look nice next to other elites that use similar color scheme (King's Champion, Dain and Balin). OK, enough writing, here are the pictures:



I wasn't able to think of any piece of music that would fit this blog entry so I'll just add this one from the latest Ulver album - my personal favorite.

Little Men...

I painted these guys a while ago but haven't found time tio upload all of the pictures and write about them. Nothing to write home about. I aimed for a solid, coherent look throughout the whole unit. I wanted to make sure I don't have the "army of clones" effect so I used different type of bases and slightly different color schemes for the identical poses. I generally followed GW's color scheme with some minor changes. And that's pretty much it, here are the pictures:



More coming soon so stay tuned :)

King's Champion

The beginning of a school year is always a busy time, especially if you're a teacher. Still, I managed to find some time for painting and finished up a couple of dwarf lords/heroes. I will be showing all of them at the blog in the nearest future. I thought I'd start with my favorite so far - King's Champion.


Pretty much all of the metal miniatures of dwarves from the LotR range are great sculpts and this one's no exception. Each one from these three is nicely detailed, some of the elements are particularly well sculpted (the shields, helmets, armor). I also like them as they don't resemble any other previously released models too closely (which happens sometimes in LotR).



These guys are used separately in Lotr and function as a single unit in WotR. I decided to take advantage of it and create a kind of small diorama. I used a plastic statue from old ruins of Middle-Eerth set and some cork. I also added some GS to make sure that the spaces where bases go are round and even.



GW's snow flock and some scorched grass were used to finish it off. More dwarves coming soon so stay tuned :)

Let there be dwarves

Hi everyone,

I've been toying with the idea of starting a hobby blog for a while now. Finally, together with a buddy of mine we decided to set up one in which we'll present our works and share some thoughts on issues related to the hobby.
So what you can you expect to see here? Different minis, different painting styles, and of course different opinions.

I'm usually busy with painting commissions for other people, mostly for the Lord of the Rings SBG. From time to time I also buy minis that I like only to paint them and put them on ebay. Sometimes I also paint my own stuff. Personally I find it difficult to find the motivation for doing it. I'm not a gamer so I'm not pressured by tournament requirements of having the army painted. And even more importantly - I'm not getting paid for that. These are the main reasons why most of my dwarf army has remained unpainted for a few years. However, I've recently made a resolution to paint at least several minis for my army per month. So far I've been fairly successful and here's what I've got.


8 Warriors with hand weapon and shield


A command with a few more warriors armed with two-handed axes. I'm not a big fan of NMM. I guess one needs to have very high painting skills to get it looking really good. I generally prefer true metallics. Here I made an exception and used gold NMM for the eagle on the banner. The shape of this bird is sculpted on the banner, which makes painting it much easier than creating your own freehand.

And now, some elite units. I chose some special resin bases that look like old ruins as I want them to stand out among the crowd, and that is not easy if you're a dwarf ;)


8 Khazad Guard


Iron Guard


4 Vault Warden Team units. I put some runic inscriptions on the shields, good luck deciphering them ;) I also converted one of them, just to add some variety.

So that's what I have now. When painting an army it's important to find the right balance between quality and quantity. I wanted to get a solid Table Top level for my dwarves, which meant that I wasn't going to pay that much attention to details. I basically speed-painted them, working on groups of 8-16 minis at a time.
Finding the colour scheme was one of the main challenges. I've started with the 'traditional' green but wasn't happy with how it turned out and decided to go with the purple-silver/gold look. I like the way purple looks next to bright silver shade or gold one. As you can see, most of the minis presented here have silver armour. I plan to have half of the army painted in this scheme and the other half with gold, keeping the clothes purple so that they'll look like an army, not a random selection of warriors. Also, bearing in mind the fact that the War of the Ring is becoming increasingly popular, I want to have them in eights, i.e. eight warriors with silver armour and the same type with golden.
I think that overall they do not look bad and will look nice on the battlefield one day.

OK, I guess that's all for my first entry. I'll try to make an update soon. Until then, happy painting :)

Cheers

p.s. three big cheers for Stan - a friend of mine who created the wonderful banner you can see at the top :)