Stuff I Painted (Week of 5/5)

Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth

I'm not sure why this game has grabbed me so firmly.  It is fun, but there are many other games I have that I enjoy just as much.  The minis are incredibly high quality for a board game, but I have plenty of more expensive models that put them to shame.  Whatever it is, though, I find myself wanting to play this game over and over, and I also want to get the whole set (31 models) painted up as quickly as  possible.

So far, I've been working on the enemies.  I want to get the more tedious batch paints done while I still have momentum, and then I can take my time with the heroes.

Anyway, I figure people want to see the pictures, so without further ado...

I started with the Orc Hunters.  I needed some orcish archers for Rangers of Shadow Deep, and I figured these could work double duty.  I may have rushed these a bit.  Also, technically, I did the painting last week, but I didn't finish the base until after it had become Sunday, so I count them as completions for this week.

After those were completed, I wanted to get as many models done as quickly as possible, so I looked for the ones that would be easiest to do.  The wargs and and the wraiths immediately came to mind.

For the wraiths, I used some of Citadel's technical paints, "Hexwraith Flame" and "Nighthaunt Gloom."  The thing is, once I put them down, I decided there just wasn't nearly enough contrast.  So, I followed them up with a succession of drybrushes.  They were still amazingly easy to do, and I like the effect, even if there are only two regions of color.

The wargs were more drybrushing, along with some washes.  This was an example of my hating the way the models were coming out, but by keeping going I eventually found the one thing that was missing to make them look great.

After those, it was time to tackle one of the larger model groups.  I decided to experiment with a new skin color, both because I was curious as to how it would look, and because I wanted an easy visual distinction between the orcs and the goblins.  All in all, I'm pretty happy with the way these came out, though I could have pushed the contrast on the skin tones further.  Only three are shown out of six total.

The goblins took awhile, so for a little bit of a break I went back to orcs.  I actually did these at work, since I was actually caught up on things for the first time in the semester.  I probably took a couple shortcuts, like making the axes metal, when the sculpt looks more like stone.  I just made the assumption that orcish smithing wasn't as refined as it is for other races.

I spent most of today (and more than a bit of time yesterday) working on the ruffians.  I made the choice (mistake?) of giving them two different skin tones, which then led to requiring completely different paint schemes to get the contrast I wanted.  Because of that, I only got the three Caucasian-toned models painted, and I still haven't completed the bases.  I'll make another blog post once I have the whole set of six completed, because I think the extra time I'm putting into them is paying off.