A LOTR Christmas

Back in March when I was preparing to move out of California, to Kansas, my 28 yo daughter asked that when ever it was that I bought the ole dirt farm (my words, not hers) if she could have some of my painted figures. Needless to say, that was a little gut wrenching. But, it stayed in the back of my mind as I moved and got settled. Then I had an epiphany. Why don't I find a Fellowship of the Ring set and paint that for her. Why wait till the old man croaks?. We are both big fans of the movies, and enjoyed watching them together when they came out. I was able to procure a set thanks to a TMPer and I had it in my hands by mid/late July. As you know, most gamers, unless they are deranged, never start a project early. They start it when they really have to. I am no exception. So I started around Thanksgiving and had them done in plenty of time to get to California before Christmas. I am not the speediest of painters, and I wanted to do my best work. I wanted to paint them like the movie so I perused film stills to get the colors as close as possible. I also wanted them to look like they did post Rivendell/pre-Moria since Gandalf was involved. Here is the first group, the Hobbits.

I am a block painter so I blocked in the main colors, did a bit of drybrush highlighting, then did a sepia wash over these fellas. Oh, and I gave Sting a little blue hue. When flocking I have been mixing static grass, fine flock from Woodland Scenics, and some rock together, brushing lightly watered down PVA (the water in the brush), then sprinkling the mix onto the glue. I have never really watched how to use static grass properly, but I just like the texture it gives the base. The next group is the lot that made it to Edoras.

I was really pleased with Gimli, and that was my daughters favorite as well. There were some details that I could not glean from screen shots so I ended up watching a portion of the movie to try and get a glimpse of equipment items. Legolas' quiver was one. I like how it turned out, just not sure of the color. His bow was another point of contention as I had seen screen shots of s red brown and one that is almost a lt grey/white color. I went with a red black color and did some dry brushing with Vallejo red leather. I liked the end result. On all of the Elven blades I used a new paint I had gotten in one of my ModelBoxes, Aged Silver by Instar. It gave a nice glimmery metallic finish to those swords, and made them stand out. Here are the last two.

These two were fun to paint, particularly Boromir. Now I think Boromir should have black on, but, I had seen a screenshot with it looking more leathery. So I went with Vallejo Black Red with a Vallejo red leather drybrush and a black wash. I don't really like painting black that much so it worked out better anyway. Gandalf was pretty simple and overall I was happy with the result. These guys are as good as I can paint, and while I will probably try out new techniques from time to time, I don't really intend on improving too much more. I enjoy painting, but for me the end result is gaming.

 I need to practice a bit more with the photo box I bought on ebay. It works pretty well. The only issue I had was that the LED runs off a USB, and the cord was too short to have the box on top of the desk.  I'll try to have some better angles the next time I post. When might that be? Well I was planning on a larger post with more painted minis, as well as a year in review/look ahead to 2019 for this coming weekend, so look for it then. That is all for now, I hope you enjoyed this post.