Haldir and Company

Putting in some work

I've recently gotten a spur of inspiration to do some painting. I have been trying to set some personal goals to broaden my horizons and be more creative in general. I sometimes settle into a pattern of using all my personal time playing video games. While I love video games, I really would like my leisure time to be a time where I can make or create something on some level, so painting is always a great fallback.

Laying out a plan

Right before I started my latest unintentional hiatus from this project, I had planned to paint up the 6 Lorien Elves and Haldir which are to be used in one of the later missions from the Journey book. Also on the backburner from earlier in the project is
Tom Bombadil. Other than that I have a few optional models to work on, which I will do mostly for completion, and also because they are relatively straightfoward to paint: Celeborn, Galadriel, and Goldberry. All of these models have been primed since last summer and just been waiting in my staging case (small 14 slot chessex box) along with a few extra Faramir's Rangers.

I decided to proceed with all of these at once, batch painting faces and hair, then focusing solely on the elf bows and Haldir (as they would all have the same pallet). I did in progress photos for this set of models so I'll post schemes as I go.

On one-offs or small batch groups, I like to paint *inside-out* starting with the skin. Here I basecoated all skin in Bestial (Balor) Brown to get started.

For the skin, follow up with a layer of Dwarf flesh, then elf flesh, Pretty simple and effective as long as the paint is thin enough and I am very careful. I've noticed character models tend to have much higher quality sculpting for the faces (not surprising) so they tend to look much better using this straightfoward layering technique.

The hair was done by starting with vermin brown (not sure the new name) followed by a layer of Bleached (Ushabti) Bone, then finally hit with a thin brown wash (I used Reaper Master Series Flesh Shade Ink). I decided to forego the wash on Galadriel as I wanted her hair to be brighter and more blonde as that is a key feature of her character. Finally, Goldberry received an additional drybrush of bone over the wash to brighten up the look. Her model has some of the best sculpted hair I've seen on a GW Lord of the Rings model, and I think it turned out great, but she'll be featured in a  future post.

Just elves now, I swear.

I'm really happy with how the cloaks on these turned out. The funny thing is that I ended up doing two more layers than I had originally planned, I kept not adding enough grey to the mix on my pallet, so the gradient ended up being more gradual, and turned out really well in my opinon.

The brown leggings were based with Graveyard Earth/Tamar Black (p3), highlighted with Graveyard. The green jerkins were based coated in Catachan green, then highlighted with Catachan/Codex grey mix. This same mix was used as the basecoat for the cloaks used on the entire group. From here I simply progressily added more codex grey to the mix to get the desired effect. I honestly think these are the best elven cloaks I've yet to paint, and I will likely use this same method when I paint future versions of the Fellowship, instead of doing the pure grey approach as seen here, here, and here.

Finishing Touches

With clothing, and skin done I moved on to the smaller details. First was leather bits (quivers, belts, boots) and bow staves, which took the same combination of Scorched Brown (Rhinox hide) followed by Dark Flesh. Then I did simple coats of shining gold and chainmail for metal pieces, hitting Haldir's blade with a final touch of mithril silver to make it stand out. 

                            

And here is a final group shot, which I forgot to do while my backdrop was set up.

I think overall this group of models turned out really well. They definitely have that woodland guerilla look I was going for, rather than looking like a bunch of pansy elves in pastel robes. They actually look semi dangerous, and like they are actually used to keeping the forces of Darkness at bay from Lothlorien.

Refocusing

I realized as I started up this round of painting that this blog has gotten a bit off track from its intended goal. In my earliest posts (see here) I stated my goal was to not only collect and paint, but actually play the scenarios in the Journeybooks. Well I haven't exactly done that. The main barrier is (as always) time, and a lack of people to play with. Fortunately I recently discovered a Games Workshop store very close to me, with a decent community of folks playing The Hobbit/LoTR SBG, so hopefully I can start knocking scenarios out, and featuring battle reports on here so you have something other than my boring painting rants to read. 

Presently, as mentioned in previous posts, I have most of the models I'll need to round out the Fellowship of the Ring book. Seen below are (almost) ALL of my currently assembled models. I didn't feel like taking all 40 goblins out of their trays, so they can be seen in the back. 

Off the top of my head, I still need:

• Balrog (Khazad-dum Gandalf is desired but not necessary)
• 4 Mounted Ringwraiths, hopefully one can be the Witchking (hard to find model)
• Watcher in the Water (tentacles only)
• Uruk-Hai scouts, specifically bows
• Gildor Inglorion (very expensive on Ebay right now, price might be trending down however)

Everything, I think I'm only missing the 4 paralyzed hobbits

The good side. I can't wait to get started on the Rohirrim, especially the Royal Guard.

The evil side. Not looking forward to those Wargs....Though the Mordor Uruks will be a good time.

Wrapping Up

Well there you have it, another update come and gone. At the time of this writing I have several models in production and nearing completion. As soon as those are done and photographed I'll be sure to throw up another post as quickly as possible. Once the next few small batches are done I plan to tackle the large group of Wild Wargs/Warg Riders all at once. To keep things interesting I may go ahead and paint the riders (I originally planned to wait). Either way, I feel good about my progress and I feel productive and creative, so I hope to stick with it. 

As always, thank you for reading, feel free to comment or click on a banner ad to help me generate revenue (you just have to click, that's it!). And if you feel like the world MUST see this project please share it on Reddit at r/Lotr or r/MiddleEarthMiniatures or anywhere you please!