Continuing from where I left off at the end of June, where I painted my giant spiders, I decided to finish off the pack of spiders that I had got from my secret Santa last year and sorted out my Mirkwood ones. I decided to do these ones in a black widow style as their anatomy fitted the colourings well.
Next up, I had only two Moria models left to have completely painted up my entire collection of them. I began with Ashrak as I, mistakenly, thought that he would be quicker than Druzhag. Then I realised that he was covered in spiders. He was still fun to paint and I was happy with the end result.
And naturally, next up was Druzhag. I quietly dreaded it with how many bats he had on his model, but once underway, he basically painted himself. And with him done, my entire goblin horde was finished!
If you read my posts last year, you may remember that I converted up a mounted Thorin on goat. Well I finally chose to take him to a tournament in Sept and decided to get him painted. There was a lot of metal to do and I noticed some imperfections with my conversion as I went along, but never mind, each attempt will learn me lessons. Either way, I thought he looked close enough to what I was going for in the end.
After doing several heroes and beasties, I decided to do some nice, easy troops. With nothing in particular lined up, I saw the uruk engineers. Who must have been sitting, half painted, for at least 7yrs, likely a lot longer, I can’t remember. Well I decided that they deserved to finally be finished. Here’s a before and after.
After a cheeky boost in numbers of what I had painted with that, I decided to push on with the remaining Rivendell models. (These include; Cirdan, Erestor, 4 elven spears and 6 Rivendell Knights.) I started with Cirdan as he was a very simple looking job and had him done in an evening.
Then in a matching style to my warriors done for Seven Stones earlier in the year, I slapped out the spearmen.
Quickly followed by Erestor, but wanting him to stand out more, I changed up the palette for him.
We move into August, where I realised that I could use the battle of Dale version of Erebor reclaimed for an EAHC event in early September, if I painted up the two heroes. So, not wanting to be rushed, I kicked off the month with them. Thorin III was first and relatively straightforward, he had a lot of metal, but it was just a matter of patience and correcting to get him done. With him and Dain, I wanted a strong but muted gold so went for my personal favourite look, which takes a little more effect but works nicely. It’s simply Balthasar Gold with Griffon Gold heavily drybrushed on top and washed with Agrax to fire it up a bit.
Next up was Dain, he was a lot tougher, with so much hair blending into his fur coat and several metal plates tucked into it around the shoulders. But eventually, I felt like I could call him done. This was one time, I spent the painting time cursing myself for going with white hair.
In the final job of this post, I got out the Rivendell Knights, who I checked the buy date, out of curiosity, and found that I got them in November 2016! They took a long time, as I decided to separate the cloaks out into different colours, but felt it was worth it in the end.
You may notice that I said 6 Rivendell knights earlier, but then there’s 5 painted. This was because, as I prepared them off the sprue, I realised that I doubt that I will field 6, and this could be a good chance to make a mounted Gil Galad for myself. I began by clipping off the quiver from the feet (the High King of the Elves is above such things as bows, after all). And then the bow off of his back. I then used green stuff to cover the, now unnatural, indentation in his cloak and hood. I also used a couple of small bits to give Aeglos some decorative details (not a lot, but something). I blue stuff moulded a spearman's shield to use on Gil Galad, to give him something more distinctive.
I painted him up using the same gold as the dwarven heroes, to make him stick out and also used purple shades on his clothes, as a more regal looking colour scheme to elevate him above his subjects. I also painted his shield in silver as described in the books, but with golden detail and a large, central, blue gem
So at the end of these two months, I am now sitting on 145 painted so far this year, and 2911pts of models done! This means that in model counts, I am currently having my second best year since I began counting in 2018. Which at 144, I just overtook! My current best was 184 in 2019, and I’m hoping I could smash that with over 200 by new year.
As for the grey mountain, it’s now been reduced down to 307, from 385 at the beginning of the year! All is going well so far, and hoping I can continue the pace.
In September, I’m intending to do up 12 locally sourced Mordor orcs that I grabbed in case I fancy trying Razgush’s legion again, followed by also locally sourced Dunlendings, that I may take to Throne of Skulls in Dec. A shout out to Phil Beale, who helped me get a ticket for that by the way, the man is greatness personified!
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