Elfstone and Olórin

The Fellowship Emerges

So after the first 2 scenarios in the Fellowship of the Ring Journeybook, which solely involve Dunédain and Nazgûl, and the next couple, which involve the 4 Hobbits, we come to the first appearance of Gandalf and Aragorn.

These are both crucial characters to the story, and I feel good now that I've got them out of the way. There is way too much history to cover in a blog post so I recommend going here for Aragorn, and here for Gandalf, and you can learn all you want!

The Grey Pilgrim

I had an absolute blast painting Gandalf. I love painting long robes. It is easy to get a good result, and you get to play around with mixing colors, which is something I usually stay away from. I currently only have one version of Gandalf the Grey, although I hope to eventually get the Khazad-Dum version, mainly because its awesome. If I can find a good deal I would also like the Rivendell sculpt, as well as Gandalf on his cart. And I just remembered I have the new sculpt from the Hobbit box set, so I may paint that up as part of this project as well. One thing I have decided to do from now on is to use a white undercoat for almost everything. I seem to paint neater with it, as well as it making the colors pop a bit more.

 I went with the scheme straight out of the book, with a few exceptions. MightyChad pointed out that the beard and hair are a bit yellow, but I think I like it, as Gandalf never really had white hair, it was always a fading blonde. I think it makes it pop, if anyone thinks it looks terrible let me know and I may try a slightly lighter drybrush to lighten it a bit more. On to pictures and scheme!

 (Base/Layer/Highlight format as usual)

 Robes: Reaper Pure Black/Codex Grey mixed, Codex Grey, Fortress Grey

Hat: The Fang (Shadow Grey), Codex Grey

Skin: Dark Flesh, Dwarf Flesh, Elf Flesh

Beard: Snakebite Leather, Ushabti Bone (Bleached Bone) drybrush

Glamdring: Boltgun Metal, Chainmail, Mithril Silver

Staff: Doombull Brown (Dark Flesh), Bestial Brown

Belt: Scorched Brown, Bestial Brown

Crystal: Fortress Grey, Skull White

 "'Round here, folks just call him Strider."

Ah, good old Aragorn. Basically a hobo with a sword, who happens to be a huge badass, and the savior of the Western world. However I absolutely hated painting these models for some reason! Yes I chose paint three sculpts of Aragorn all at once to save time, and I am glad I did because for some reason he just wasn't that fun to paint. They turned out so-so in my opinion. I think the main reason is that the multitude of greens and browns kind of blend together in my eyes (remember I'm color deficient) and it doesn't seem like I make any progress. I also think I should have painted them inside out, meaning starting at the skin, and working out. I usually start with the biggest surface, and I'm not sure why I do things that way, but in this case I should have broken the habit. I'll know next time I suppose. This was also my absolute first experience painting fire, and I think it turned out pretty good. The trick with fire is that the lighter colors go on first, and you go darker as you grade up. If you would like to know more just shoot me a message or comment on here.

The sculpts I used were: The Fellowship version, Aragorn at Weathertop, and Amon Hen Aragorn. Here are the pictures, followed by a group picture and the scheme breakdown.

 Cloak/Trench coat thing: Caliban Green (Dark Angels Green), MM Acryl Dark Green highlight

Jerkin/Tunic: Doombull Brown (Dark Flesh), Bestial Brown

Boots and Bow: Scorched Brown, Bestial Brown

Leather belt, Straps, scabbards: Reaper Pure Black, Pure Black/Scorched Brown mix, Scorched Brown

Quiver: White basecoat, Watery coat of MM Acryl Dark Green

Pants and Bedrolls: Pure Black, Codex Grey drybrush

Sword and Metal Bits: Boltgun metal, Chainmail, Mithril Silver

Skin: Dark Flesh, Dwarf Flesh, Elf Flesh

Hair: Scorched Brown, Bestial Brown

Sleeves (Amon-Hen sculpt): Shadow Grey, Codex Grey

On Deck

 I was going to include it in this post, but I didn't want it to be too long or to make all my loyal fans wait too long for an update. But next post I will have at the minimum two sculpts of Legolas, and possibly two versions of Gimli as well. Following that I will move on to Boromir, the 4 Hobbits, then Arwen and Glorfindel. And on the long game I will have some wild wargs to paint, as well as starting work on moria goblins and a troll, but thats a long way off. I also recently acquired through auction the following:

- Gamling on foot.
- Arwen mtd. w/ Frodo (hard to find model)
- Another mtd. Ringwraith (Yay! only 5 more after this one is painted)
- Galadriel
- Celeborn