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You should have done a worse job on the shield. Unfortunately I now have a very high expectation of what you will come up with for the banner.......

Looking forward to more of your high quality work.

My week's end/weekend project:

See if I can finish off these figures by Sunday night:



I've posted this in the LotR forum's monthly army painting challenge pledge thing, because they're all LotR models, but in reality it's much more of a a continuation of my "get these half-finished fethers completed and off my table" project combined with "painful stuff to paint at work during lunchtimes" (ie: Gondor guys). They just all happen to be LotR models that I'm wanting to get done and out of the way in the next few days. There's 16 Moria Goblin Archers - 8 of the Goblin Archers are about 70-80% done, with the other 8 needing significantly more work still. 3 Metal Goblin captains almost done.
Also started 7 Gondor war machine crew on Sunday and worked on the painful parts at work. They'renow about 80% done, with all the pain in the arse highlighting of black cloth finished today at work. Just flesh, hilts, hair and belts to go.

Also, an "Oldhammer" Orc/Dwarf Bolt Thrower with only the bow arms to go.

Hopefully I'll get all 27 of these finished by the end of the weekend. Here's to hoping!

Good luck trying to bash through all of them. Am I wrong that I count 29 based models and the bolt thrower bow? Or am I going insane?

You are lucky that you can get anything done at work. I struggle to even get a bite to eat at work and certainly have no area that I could actually paint at.

Look forward to seeing you succeed and all the pretty painted figs.

No, you're right. It's 29. I think I forgot to count (or apparently mention) the goblin prowlers. My excuse is that I was tired - and I did go to bed right after posting that...

After getting close to a decade of working for the same organisation, and over 18 months of being in the current location, I figured out that I can take a half-dozen models to an unused (during break times) area with 1-4 paints in a little plastic container and get about 18-20 minutes of painting done in my 30 min break (after allowing time for toilet and walking from and back to my work area). I keep 2 brushes, a small water container, a bit of paper and a palette in an unused drawer in that room. So I just bring in a couple paints and models each day.

It doesn't sound like much, but the tiny bit of solo time away from other people, just (generally) one paint, a normally-tedious task (which becomes zen at work), some music on my phone and a bit of headspace works wonders - especially when it comes to keeping motivated through the week when my previous model had me getting worn down and disinterested until halfway through the weekend and then on fire by Sunday - only to have to go back to work on Monday and have it crashing down again.

Ah grouse. I love seeing LoTR models getting a bit of love. Makes me want to bust out and paint all my Rohirrim.




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The skull on the skeleton's shield is beautiful. That's top notch freehand right there.

That's a great idea. I have started grabbing 15-20 minutes in the morning between fixing my wife breakfast and the. Leaving for work to do a color on a model or two. You are so right that even a regular small amount of time really adds up.

Smart man about the 'sneaking in little moments to paint' thing. One of the cooler things about painting is that once you do it, it's done, but it's really quite stoppable mid-process unless you're wet blending or something. I was doing this last summer/fall and a bit into the winter but have slacked off and the resulting fall off of progress is telling.

Gonna have to try to get myself to do a bit more.

The two main benefits I found have been the fact that even the stuff that I find uninteresting and tedious can be pleasant when you're doing it at work. Stuff I found unmotivating that cockblocked me on a regular basis at home becomes a pleasure at work.

The other main benefit was that it keeps me interested during work days/nights, so "ramping up" on the weekend is much, much easier.

Finished 8 Goblin archers and 3 Prowlers today. Should get the Bolt Thrower finished tonight, and working on more Archers and the Captains as well today..

Great progress by the sounds of it. I think I need to start thinking about times I can perhaps crack out a pot or two of paint.

I've finished the other 8 Goblin archers this morning. Woke up early and knocked them out. Then I went and found another bunch of part-painted goblins. So I'll get onto finishing the archers and archer captains amongst them, as it'll give me enough painted models for 2 Goblin Archer regiments (or one horde) for KoW.

Aside from that written update, there are no figures to show off today. The painting's been going well, but I've got to get out and take some more photos soon. In lieu of anything new, here's some scenery that I painted a long, long time ago and photographed last year and forgot to post.



I bought both of the sets mentioned up top around the same time, but I vastly preferred this entranceway "Ruined Gothic Archway" to the "proper" one that came with the set, so this is the one that I ended up painting up to go with the walls. Much more "Gothic" and since the main game this stuff was used for over the years was 40k...



Imagine my surprise and pleasure at seeing that the rear of the arch piece was void of all detail whatsoever - just a smooth resin piece from a one-piece pour mold. The base was fine, but I decided that I had to do something about the lack of detail on the upper. I scraped out the stonework with a hobby knife, and did my best to weather and stress the stonework using the tools I had at my disposal in the mid-1990's. So probably the end of a file and a hammer, by the look of things.



As can be expected, these walls from the Ruined Keep have seen a lot of action over the years in no end of configurations. Another of the unpleasant surprises from the Grendel Kit once I opened it was the fact that all of those windows were sealed. As in cast-solid. It took my pin vice, a hobby knife and no small amount of time to cut them all out.



As you can imagine, these "ruined towers" have seen a lot less action. Mostly due to being shorter than a Space Marine in height, so not exactly much of a ruined tower in any of their cases. Three or four steps hardly makes a tower, after all...



Here's the typical "closed" layout I've used in games for the entire set. It really could use some more wall sections to look a bit more reasonable.



And here's the "Open" layout that gets used much more often, as it allows models to move through the ruins while taking cover from their enemies. Now that I've been gathering and painting a lot more scenery in the last couple of years, I could do a lot more interesting things with these. For example combining them with the WHFB Gothic Graveyard kit, as well as other things I've picked up and painted, like those Confrontation brick walls. I need to get some Hirst Arts molds as well, the Graveyard scenery kit looks promising.

First of course, I need to clear the desk. Not sure how I'll ever do that if I keep letting goblins and their ilk queue-jump from figures cases. Even if they are half-painted...

Looks very nice Azazelx, you need to watch those Goblins though they get everywhere

The ruined walls and archway look fantastic, love the little details all over it and you have done a great job of detailing the rear of the wall as well.

Awesome stuff Azazel- that'll look pretty great on a WHFB/KoW battlefield

Thanks. They're some nice pieces and I've always been happy with how they turned out. Hopefully I can 2015 some nice companion pieces for them on the table.

Speaking of that. I got my mini-painting challenge completed a couple of hours ago, so all 22 goblins, 7 Gondorians and the War Machine are finished. This brings my total for the year up to 137 figures on Day 88.

I've got a pile more part-painted Moria Goblins there as well, but looking at them more closely, I'm going to have to repaint them entirely. I've got 8 plastic archers in the second part of rebasing (ink is drying) and some metals went into the paint stripper just now. I'll try and salvage some of the other part-painted metals, and after all that I've got more spears and swords to redo.

Not sure if I should push on with them or not after the archers, because they're getting a bit tedious to paint. Either way, first I'll be trying to finish a nice old Ogre that was started very roughly about 20 years ago, as well as a Dwarf Slayer (Lord? Hero? Champion?) that was also started 15-20 years ago...

Terrain looks great! And generic enough to work with most settings.

I say take a break with the goblins if you're tired of them. You should enjoy the painting Which reminds me I need to get cracking on my pledge too..

Look forward to those 20yo WIPs lol

Not a "proper" update, but something I'm interested in feedback on from you guys

Taking a break from Goblins, I'm going to use this Bull as another opportunity to teach Marouda some basic painting techniques. I'm in two minds on whether to cut it off its Bones base - I probably will remove it as it's slightly warped, and boiling and then ice watering them doesn't have a brilliant success rate. If I do that, I'll replace it with a slate outcrop at a slight angle, as though he's glaring from (or over) the edge.





So anyway - do I base it on the 50x50mm base, or the 50x75mm base? It looks like a 60-65mm base would be ideal, but it's not on the cards. What it'll be used for in games will be related to how the basing goes in the end, so I'll worry about that a little later. The previous Brass Bull we did from Wargames Foundry went nicely onto a 40x40mm base, but this fellow is a fair bit larger. The 50mm base could be problematic when he makes it into combat with other models, as he hangs over the base on it - could be a problem with pikes and spears (and the ham-hands some of my friends have!)

So.... thoughts?

50x75mm for sure. Looks loads better (Ps> I assume you got your Bones II pledge through from Reaper?)

Yeppo, gots my Bones II a few weeks ago. I haven't had a chance to go through them and inventory yet, but I opened up the box and tore this guy out of the big baggie this morning.

Man, I've been thinking about painting him too. Seems like a large number of people are attracted to the metal bull / gorgon goron or whatever it's called from the D&D monster manual. It breaths poison woooo!

Looking forward to your results

 Azazelx wrote:
Yeppo, gots my Bones II a few weeks ago. I haven't had a chance to go through them and inventory yet, but I opened up the box and tore this guy out of the big baggie this morning.

Ahh right- which gubbinz did you go for?

Cool mini! I think as it is 50x75 looks like a better fit but for the base that your planning, I reckon a 50x50 would be alright.

 angelofvengeance wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
Yeppo, gots my Bones II a few weeks ago. I haven't had a chance to go through them and inventory yet, but I opened up the box and tore this guy out of the big baggie this morning.

Ahh right- which gubbinz did you go for?

Uh.... Core Set, Kraken, Hill Giants, Mashaaf, Khanjira and Dragons Don't Share. Kind of wish I'd gotten the paints as well now, but I found that paying for some paint 16 months in advance is a bit silly, so I've got to respect how I felt about that.

It's looking like the Bull will be 50x75mm. Which is the way I was leaning anyway, but the feedback has very much been in that direction as well. I should have some new pics up in a couple of hours. The Moria Goblins and Gondor guys I've finished recently need more figures to complete their units (mostly command) before I photograph them, so it'll be some other stuff for the time being.


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This post will probably append to the previous one, which is always a pleasure. Anyway, I haven't taken the photos of finished models yet. Will do so in a little while.

In the meantime, I've decided to give myself another painting challenge - After the last one of these helped motivate me to finish a whole lot of (mostly tedious) stuff done in a reasonably fast (for me) timeframe, I've decided to go again.

https://youtu.be/eN7oXHNV058?t=5s
(Slightly NSFW at the end)


This week's end/weekend project - See if I can finish off these figures by Sunday night:

Crossposted to the LotR forum's monthly paint challenge thread, because they're almost all LotR models. 8 Moria Goblin Archers that I got half-painted and am ending up giving a full repaint to (already did the bases), and 7 metals that will act as Captains or at the very least, KoW unit leaders. For pleasure, there's a Dwarven Slayer and C23 Ogre that were both started 10+ years ago that I've started doing some work on again lately. So only 17 in this batch to try and get done in the next 3 1/2 days.

If I manage to get these done in time, I've got 2 units of cavalry I want to get rid of, since they're taking up valuable space by being half-painted in one of my cabinets. But that's my next self-challenge.

Ooh, will the Slayer also have the blue tats on what little skin he has visible?

But of course!

Ok, it's a day later than I'd promised, but to be fair, it's also several weeks later than I intended!

The second unit for the Mythical Greek army is the one shown below - made up of Reaper Bones Skeletal Spearmen and the starts of the show - the other half of the Wargames Foundry Greek Mythology Skeletons range. "Children of the Hydra." Unfortunately, the whole range is made up of only 10 models across two blisters - 4 with spears and 6 with swords. Within that only a few of them look distinctly Greek, so with 6 models needed to fill out the regiment, I decided to look elsewhere rather than order another pack from Foundry (I prefer fewer doubled-up figures, anyway). Their sister unit, armed with swords was finished some time ago, as was most of this unit, but some recruiting issues drew finishing this lot out for longer than I'd hoped.



The metals from Foundry worked out well. I just wish more of them had more explicitly Greek gear. I replaced their metal spears in the end with plastic ones from the Wargames Factory skeleton set. The shield on this guy comes from Little Big Men, and was a real bear to apply. Apparently it may have come from a faulty batch, since the plastic film would just not come off, and destroyed two other transfers in the process/attempts...



In the end to fill out the missing two in the ranks, I again turned to the Wargames Factory plastic skeletons. They're already Greek-themed to an extent, which is great. My only concern was how fine they are, and as such are very susceptible to breakage as wargaming figures - especially with spears sticking up everywhere. Still, with these guys towards the middle it should be fine. Again WGF comes to the rescue of the WGF-dominated unit. In the end, I decided against adding shields to the skeletons bracing their spears - mostly because there was no easy and effective way to attach them that would still look good. A bit of a shame, but c'est la vie.

I went with the one skeleton coming out of the ground to help invoke the whole Jason and the Argonauts thing. A classic from our youth, (even if it was made before many of us were born, it was often shown late on Saturday Mornings here, as well as when VHS arrived.

And now, The obligatory Finished Unit shot:



And finally, an army shot of the Mythological Greeks so far. Not a whole lot yet, but it shows the two units of Skeletons along with the Bronze Bull painted earlier this year.



The Mythical Greek Army begins to take shape.

They look great as a cohesive force all ranked up. And that bull is awesome.

Do you intend to do anything to the movement trays (ie. static grass etc.) or are you going to leave them plain.

At this point I'll be leaving them plain. I might sand the borders sometime down the line so that they fit in with the bases, but for the time being I'm just concentrating on getting models finished.

Of course, as far as getting models done, I let myself get distracted today and ended up stripping about 3 dozen models instead of working on the figures I need to paint. Followed that up by playing through a long level of Sniper Elite 3 in co-op, and tomorrow I've got friends coming over to (probably) play Zombicide, etc - so it doesn't look like I'll be getting all the figures in my little challenge completed this time. Probably get the goblins done, but not the Dwarf and Ogre...

The desk clearing project is clearly doing doing wonders for you. Love the mix of Reaper and Wargames Foundry skeletons look, they look like a cohesive unit from the same company and that is a testament to your excellent eye for colour and painting skills.

I await the second brass bull too, as the first is just exceptional, the 50x70 looks better to me.

It will be nice to have a little break and get some games in, enjoy your Easter weekend.

Thank you for the compliments! It's certainly been rewarding to finish so many figures recently, though I'm starting to realy pine to paint something more interesting/fun/substantial than masses of troops. Something more impressive. Soon, my precious, soon.

Well, strictly speaking, I failed the last one of these. Two metal goblins still left, as well as the Dwarf Slayer and Ogre (who didn't get touched). Between a solid batch of videogaming and friends coming over for some Zombicide - and just needing a bit of a break from painting. So for this week, which I have off work - I'll be trying to finish those four, as well as several additions by this coming Sunday night:



Yet More Goblins on the WIP desk.
So now the priority queue is:

C23 Ogre Bounty Hunter.

Dwarf Slayer (Finally identified him - he's a Daemon Slayer circa '96-97).

Those last two Metal Moria Goblins to be used as Captains and Unit Leaders (Spear, Sword). Perhaps the odd Biggit.

7 more Metal Moria Goblins for use as above. 4 Bows, 1 spear, 2 swords.

4 Goblin Prowlers. They'll combine with the other three to make a unit. Shame I can't find another one, cheaply.

6 plastic goblins with sword & shield.

10 plastic goblins with spears.

Durbûrz, Goblin King of Moria.

Tom Bombadil (GW) and Lady Geneve of the Council of Seven, Speaker of the Far Stars (Red Box Games) - to be painted and used as Goldberry.

Reaper Bones II "Cython" (a Grick from D&D*)

Reaper Bones II "Mind Eater" (an Intellect Devourer from D&D*)

So... 36 models. The goblins shouldn't be too hard, but the more individual characters might throw up a bit of a difficulty. I'd wanted to paint something nice on my break as a reward to myself for my recent productivity. Perhaps a Minotaur or the Greek Talos. Instead, I'm going for more goblins. I guess the reward there is getting a ton of them done and out into the War Room as a very quickly put together starter KoW army.

After I finish the above, the remaining (for now) push of Goblins I plan to paint will be made up of Golfimbul, Foot & Mounted; 6 Warg Riders (strictly speaking, Orcs); 18 Wild Wargs with a Wild Warg Chieftain; a possibility of 2 more sprues of these Moria Goblins (24 in total) and several "Hobbit" plastic goblins to use as Shamans, since I've been unable to get find any "proper" Moria Goblin Shaman figures for a reasonable price. Same deal, unfortunately with the War-Drums. The problem with all of those is that while they round out the (new) KoW force and also allow some more LotR SBG scenario play, they're not "half-painted", and so would all be freshly started models. So the question will be whether I continue to clear the desk, or let these upstarts jump the queue...



*Thanks to Tarmor for IDing the D&D critters - I'm not especially familiar with the D&D menagerie of exotic monsters.

Depends on what you fancy painting surely?