When I last posted, I’d had to hurriedly paint a handful of Gundabad orcs for an event that I was attending. Well, since I had broken the ice, I decided to plough on and finish all my remaining Gundabad/Dol Guldor stuff.
July wasn’t a very productive month, I can’t remember why, but I presume that I must have been fairly busy. I managed to take the remainder of the Gundabad warband, and get them done. I remembered that I had my Gundabad upgrade kit lying around, begging to be used so pulled it out the cupboard. Using these, I made several changes here and there to add diversity to the army.
While I was in my conversion mood, I remembered that I have a bit of a shortage of spearmen for them, with an excess of swords. So, I used the blades of some swordsmen to make spearheads on the end of paperclip shafts and boost the numbers a touch. Also amongst them, the set came with a captain, now I already have two that are in this pose, one having a sword swap from the upgrade kit. So, I thought I’d try my hand at some plagiarism.
Damian O’Byrne has shown a few times in the past, his captain conversion, who was made to look like the one that we briefly see in BOTFA, as Azog sends Bolg to Gundabad to fetch another army, before resuming his march. I went for, well…exactly the same. I took a sword blade from the upgrade kit, making a spear with it, did a headswap and then put a couple of skewered skulls onto his back.
I also clocked that I had less Erebor warriors with shields as well as spears than I originally thought, and would need them for Ardacon. Having used the shields from the pack elsewhere, I had a dig. In my box, I found some EAHC shields that had been printed by Sam Palmer and given out at an EAHC event several months ago. So I got these done and put them in.
And that was all I did for July. In August, I got less done, but it was cool stuff. I began by doing the Keeper of the Dungeons. His model was a little intimidating due to the sheer amount of detail across him, with the furs, bones and metalwork all over. But taking the time and painstakingly referencing pics of the model and the prosthetics off Google, I managed to get a look that I was happy with. For the blood, I did mostly Doombull Brown with some small highlights of Khorne Red. This is because old, congealed blood goes more brown than red and gave it a more authentic look.
I'll also point out, because I was chuffed with how they came out, that I made a rare attempt at eyes on him too. Since they are a big part of what makes his look so unnerving in the pics with Conan Stevens in full dress up.
This also ticked off the Hobby Bingo square ‘paint your favourite evil character’ for me. Before people pounce and say ‘as if the keeper is your favourite’, it’s more that I was enamoured with the look for Bolg after the first Hobbit film came out, and that was what we were told was going to be him. It’s still my biggest regret for the trilogy that they dropped it. And so, I count it.
Now, I was down to the last three gundabad models. Next up, I quickly got the last two berserkers done in a few evenings. There was nothing too special with them, just a slightly updated approach to how I did them back in ~2017. (I forgot to take a photo as I finished them, realising as I sat to type this out, and so did a quick one on my display board.)
And finally, I wanted to finish on a big note. Last year, at cjs EAHC tournament, I had won a 3D printed troll catapult, who has patiently awaited my attention.
Well this month, he got his day. I painted him in the same colourings that I had on my other Gundabad trolls; similar markings to a cave troll, with little silver spots in the eyes to give them a shine of a pupil. It was time consuming, with so many recesses and was literally painting a monster and a siege weapon at the same time. But eventually, I called him finished!
This one fully marked off the Hobby Bingo square ‘paint a monster/siege weapon’ by doing both.
It turned out that I actually had a few days left in the month, so did a quick repair job to replace my mounted Bolg's pick, as he lost a prong several years ago. It was just a quick hand swap with a spare berserker's warpick.
Cheers for reading, I’ll do another paint blog at the end of October. In the meantime, I’ll most likely do a tournament report for the upcoming WW teams event at the end of Sept,, as it was a great event the last time I went in 2022! Have a good one!
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