Short Cuts Make Long Delays

Getting Back in the Swing of Things

My workstation. I don't expect it to stay this neat for very long.

So I finally started painting about 2 weeks ago. I decided to start painting both Arwen and Glorfindel, foot and mounted versions, concurrently. I initially planned to paint them totally concurrently as I thought they shared more of a pallet. I quickly decided that wouldn't work however as the only thing similar would be their skin. There was one exception, and that is
Asfaloth, the horse ridden by both. I am going to wait to discuss in detail the lore of these two characters until the final post. If you want a quick run-down head over to the "Nerdy Postlude" at the end of this post, or as usual, the One Wiki to Rule Them All.

Pay no heed to the background......

Arwen, while being apocryphally included in the movie version of the Fellowship of the Rings, is still riding the same horse as Glorfindel was in the books, so I thought it appropriate the horses matched. Typically, GW published photos of mounted Arwen feature a more pure white Asfaloth, while the Journeybook calls for Glorfindel's version to be more of a dusty white, calling for drybrushing over a grey undercoat. I chose to follow this route as I hate painting pure white, and I think Middle Earth is far too gritty a place to have totally perfect, clean horses. Therefore after screwing around and basecoating some random areas on the models I got my act together and started systematically painting the horses. I finished the coat, mane, tail, and riding tack (exception: saddles) and decided to wait on the gold/metal details as those are typically the last parts I paint on a model. I am happy with the result for the most part but I realized the Glorfindel version is a FAR superior sculpt, and was a joy to paint. I am a bit bugged by the chalkiness of the drybrushing, and I may decide to add a wash to smooth it out. Here's the final result:

I've since blacked out the hooves, painted riding tack and added some basecoats on both.

I don't have a closeup of Arwen, but I'll add that when I finish everything.

The reason this post is titled the way it is is because I tried to essentially batch paint a set of 4 centre-piece character models, and so far all that's done is slow me down. I haven't painted in quite awhile so my speed isn't what it used to be, and I've felt really haphazard in planning what to paint and when. For that reason I am going to completely finish Glorfindel before moving on to Arwen. Their pallets are different enough (not to mention Arwen has a cloaked hobbit on her horse) that it doesn't really make sense to paint them at the same time, with the exception of the horses as mentioned above.

Cloak Time

After doing most of the work on the horses, I decided to move on to Glorfindel's cloak. The Journeybook paint scheme calls for a light blue lining and a white outer layer. I really enjoyed painting the lining, using Lothern Blue as the basecoat with increasing amounts of skull white for the highlights. I really like how the cloak lining came out on the mounted model, which is good as its a primary feature of the model.  I'm including pictures both with and without flash so you can see how the layers were applied. As far as the white cloak goes, I'm not too impressed with myself. Pure white is very hard to paint, and I think I should have done something to make the deep shades less stark. If you have any ideas on how to improve this, please reply in the comments.

Below you can see how both the foot and mounted models turned out. Notice some additional parts I've painted as well.

Onward and Upward

So that's where I am at the moment. Now that I'm decided to abandon Arwen for the time being (she isn't that essential anyhow) My pace should increase substantially. Moving forward I plan to finish Glorfindel's faces, then move on to his inner clothes, then accessories, returning to the inside-out method I started with Legolas a few posts back. After I finally finish everything I will finish Arwen simply because it would kill me to have an incomplete model on my desk. From there I may paint the models needed for the Fog on the Barrow Downs scenario, which would include the alternate hobbit models I keep mentioning. After that I really want to paint some generic troops just to show some progress on another front. The ones most needed for the Fellowship book would be Moria Goblins, as well as Wild Wargs, neither of which should be very difficult.

Last Thing I Swear

I wanted to give a shout-out to member Monotone_Matt from the One-Ring Forums. I recently completed a trade with him, trading my Cave Troll with spear and a mounted Eowyn for his mint-in-box metal Isengard Troll. I received in in exactly 7 days (shipped from Switzerland!) and he was kind enough to throw in two Uruk-Hai Berserkers! An awesome bonus. Hopefully my package makes it to him in similar time and I even threw him a bonus as well. The One-Ring is a great website and one of the few active LoTR SBG communities still functioning. If you're a fan of the game, be sure to head over there and check it out.