Painting – Horse bones with eyes aplenty.

No soft white plastic here! This metal Citadel figure is the mount for my Mouth of Sauron figure that I painted quite a while back. This is a great, well detailed miniature that really deserved the work that I’ve put into it over the last two weeks. I’ve also been watching a lot of Grimm (Season Four), and producing floor plans for D&D (final stage of Expedition to the Demonweb Pits).

Yellow Ochre for a base colour all over, then some careful white paint over the bones. AP ink (Strong tone) over that to darken the gaps, holes, lines, etc… then white again, with a touch of flesh in some spots, and another run of ink. More white highlighting, and a bit of black paint in the eye sockets. Burnt Sienna on the reins with black ink (AP Dark Tone) to detail the eyes on those. A light grey (Field Stone) on the hooves, followed by black ink.

The horse got re-based about this stage – glued to a 40mm round base, then some moulding paste, sand and a couple of small stones. Once dry, painted mostly with Burnt Sienna, and touches of Hull Red and black. A little brown ink to make sure the gaps were “filled in”.

I wasn’t sure what to do with the barding, and I’d initially painted all of that black. I went over it later with a dark grey, then (as I started to have some ideas) used AP Green Tone ink and a hint of silver. This gave me a nice dark metallic green look to the armour. Some black ink shaped the eyes and I wasn’t sure about colouring them like I’d done on the Mouth of Sauron. Then I decided to try gold instead of yellow – found an Antique Gold that came up nicely, then a bit of crimson in the middle of the eye. Black ink over that has filled the lines and makes the eyes stand out a little more than otherwise.

The weather was great this morning, so as well as putting out washing to dry, I was able to take the horse out for a coat of spray varnish. You may look at the pictures and wonder what is going on with the horse’s tail – after curving down to the back legs, it widens a little and ends in a barb or sting just between the rear hooves.

One finished horse

Tonight (after a few more episodes of Grimm), I should be back to the goblins and orcs (that are my remaining creatures in the Lord of the Rings figures to paint) in between a game of Talisman!

From the other side

Not quite eyes in the back of the head…

Painting – Frodo, Frodo, Allies and Enemies!

“If you must know more, his name is Beorn. He is very strong, and he is a skin-changer. He changes his skin: sometimes he is a huge black bear, sometimes he is a great strong black-haired man with huge arms and a great beard. I cannot tell you much more, though that ought to be enough.”

– Gandalf, from “Queer Lodgings” in The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien.

Lord of the Rings – Frodo, Frodo, Beorn, Beorn and only one Troll.

I didn’t check the book before painting any of these. Most (if not all) of my Lord of the Rings figures are likely to be used as non-specific heroes and not as the characters that they are meant to portray. I painted Beorn’s bear form in dark brown without considering other colours. I can get more visible “texture” to show the detail on the figure with a range of browns. I can’t do this with black, although I’m sure other painters can use highlighting to bring out the fur. I probably would have done the man-form with black hair, but I’m not going to repaint it now.

Both hobbits are Frodo. The one holding the One Ring and wearing a mithril shirt, is the more distinct Frodo figure, although I feel this is more like my idea of Bilbo than Frodo. The other is a more general hobbit figure (more like Sam), although I really like the hair on the bare feet!

I’ve been very impressed by the (Angmar) “Troll with Cleaver”. I really like the figure – nice pose, clean moulding and good detail, although I think the face could have been done a little better. I’m watching out for the second Angmar Troll (with morning star) from this series now – I’d love to have the pair of them! Most of my figures are used for D&D games, and I’m looking forward to using this one as an “enlarged” Orc (or half-Orc), or as a half-Ogre. (Does anyone remember Ogrillons?)

I had all of these finished last weekend – but Melbourne has been so cold and damp that I wasn’t going to spray them. Today is cool, but sunny and so they were out and spray varnished this morning.

I’ve nearly finished the skeletal horse – I’m hoping to base it this afternoon – but probably won’t get final details done as I’m expecting a bunch of friends over in a couple of hours to play D&D/Pathfinder!

Painting – My Kingdom for a Horse…

My painting has been slow over the last two weeks. Most nights after work I’ve done bits of painting while playing Talisman. I collected some sand during the week to add to my modelling materials and have found that tea leaves (from a unused tea-bag) make very good flock. Unpainted they look like dry leaves, with some green they do a good grass/moss impersonation!

Citadel Horses – Lord of the Rings

I’ve finished six of the “Lord of the Rings” horses and have made progress with my Angmar Troll, two Frodo figures and Beorn. I’ve retouched a bear (also Beorn) and I’ve got three goblins and three orcs to do some re-painting with too. I was very happy to get a mostly sunny morning today, to put the horses out and spray them! I think I need to buy another can of clear acrylic when I next go near a Bunnings store.

I’ll put up more pictures of the horses when I’ve got the whole series done!