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That's actually what I like about my Uruks, they do look like a mass of grungy armor.

My paint scheme was far simpler, though. Spray paint black, drybrush TAP Plate Mail, paint skin TAP Chaotic Read, paint two shades of brown for leathers/weapon hafts, paint black on hair. Feelin' fancy? Paint the white hand of Saruman. Dip in TAP Dark Tone can. Repeat x 400

Even Aragorn himself is very dark throughout the movies. I guess only Gandalf and Legolas are bright colored. And maybe the only true metal colors are on gondorians and easterlings? Personally I prefer "extreme" highlights to achieve on effect rather than highlight naturally.

btw have you noticed how bad the uruk-hai acting was in those amon hen scenes? the dead are moving, they run like they have shat their pants and all kinds of other unprofessional stuff. I can't take it seriously nowadays.

 Zaephyr wrote:
btw have you noticed how bad the uruk-hai acting was in those amon hen scenes? the dead are moving, they run like they have shat their pants and all kinds of other unprofessional stuff. I can't take it seriously nowadays.

To be fair, one of the uruk actors literally gets stepped on by Virggo Mortenson...

I had 2 of these Castellan models from ages ago, and always planned to have them lead the Black Númenóreans. I only had two of them, though - and I wanted the third sculpt because a) collector, and b) aesthetics. With all of the changes that GW has been making in the last couple of years, I thought they might be discontinued, especially given the ridiculous prices people are asking for them on eBay. But no - they're still for sale, and indeed - the model I'm after (Sword and Dagger) is specifically still available. It's right there on the picture. A shame, going by the webpage, it seems the third one may have been discontinued as it's not pictured with the "models will be supplied at random" disclaimer that the GW pages used to have.

So I ordered it and received a blister with 2 duplicate sculpts. As in, not only a sculpt that I already had, but two of the same one in the blister. I tried to contact GWAU's mail order number a couple of times a week (when I remembered, after work when I got home early enough) for over a month and could not get an answer or even a callback. I eventually got onto someone, after well over a month and the guy had a bit of attitude, telling me that he'd been moving. Which.. doesn't really explain why nobody answered their customer service line, or made callbacks. Anyway, I explained my issue, and as it was close to 5pm on a Friday, he said that it'd be hard for him to get down to the warehouse to check, because they were finishing up for the week.



So back to the same, and a couple of weeks later I managed to have the phone answer there again, and it was a different guy who was much more helpful. I explained my issue again and he suggested that I could look on a swap group on facebook, or similar. When I pressed him and also let him know that the blister was still unopened (we're a couple of months after receiving it at this stage) and told him that I really wasn't keen on paying more postage to get the figures that are pictured on the website, he gave me the details to return them and said that he'd have a look with the warehouse guys.

Though by now we're into the start of December, and the craziness that happens at that time of year, so I actually mailed them back in the quiet time between Christmas and New Year's. A couple of weeks later (completely understandable given the time of year and what it does to the post) I received a little box in the post with a blister containing the correct model. So thank you to Sam at GWAU for sorting it out in the end. I do wonder what's happening there though - as on the rare occasions I've had issues I needed to contact mail order for in the past they answered the phone pretty quickly, and things were sorted with lightning speed (and maybe a photo emailed to show the exact issue). Hopefully they can get it back together.



So now we roll around to February, and the 6-Month Tale of Gamers Challenge over on Dakka that I've been coordinating. My "pledges" are to complete a unit/hero/warmachine/monster/etc each month for both Undead and Gondor. Now complete means just that - and it means I can motivate myself to finish off figures that have been part-painted for ages, or the last couple of models from a unit and so forth. While painting their robes on my lunch break at work the other day I realised that these guys finish off the two units of Castellans/Black Númenóreans that I started months ago, and so they count - since they'll be used in Marouda's Undead army with the Soul Reaver Infantry statline - essentially Vampiric infantry. I think they work well as Medieval-Fantasy Vampiric types who will drain your soul rather than just your blood. Not all vampires have to be 19th century aristocrats, after all....



I painted the Númenóreans some time ago last year over a period of time. I shared the first few on the blog, as well as the standard bearer conversions (not much of a conversion, but hey). Later on I finished even more of the warriors but didn't feel a need to write another post showing off identical models to the ones I'd already shown.



The eagle-eyed amongst you will note that there's one guy missing from the back rank in the second regiment. I appear to have misplaced one of my Black Númenórean Warriors. Funny how on certain forums whenever I point out some minor thing like that, there's always some socially-inept person that feels a need to post "I saw that". Well, between the Reaper forums and the LotR ones, anyway. Yeah, thanks. Well done you. So I'll have to either find the little bastard, or failing that - locate another Black Númenórean and paint him to finish the unit. Again.

Let's face it though, even I think that painting 2 non-character models in a month for half of a painting challenge is a bit pissweak, so I'll be trying to paint that RPE Skeleton Ballista I showed the other day on my Wordpress blog as well for the Undead component.

Wow, those Castellans look great - and you convinced me to order a couple packs from GWUS.

Thanks Doug - they are some very nice models.

Today I have some simple conversions of the Warriors of Minas Tirith models to Dol Amroth.



I'd originally planned (years ago) to file off the white trees on the plastic WoMT breastplates and shields. I've decided to leave the breastplates be, as Dol Amroth is of course a Fiefdom of Gondor, so I'll leave them on the breastplates but remove them from shields when I get to the swordsmen. Unlike the single units of troops and hero from Lossarnach and (yet to be painted) Lamedon, the Dol Amroth contingent will number a reasonable number of units. At least one each of Archers, Shield Wall, Spearmen plus Swan Knights mounted and on foot, plus of course Prince Imrahil. I may expand it further using more eBob heads on Perry Miniatures Foot Knight bodies, but I'll worry about that once I've got all the official models painted. In fact, I'm using the first batch of heads I ordered from eBob, and having placed another order (literally 5 years to the day later) on Feb 5th this year, for 6 more sets of heads, a trio of spiders and the lovely "Lady Greensleeves" sculpt. I thought it reasonable on March 6th to send a followup email since I've not had anything arrive nor had I heard anything since placing my order. Usually stuff takes 1-2 weeks to arrive from the UK, with 3 weeks being for outlier cases. So I sent him an email...

I received the two word reply to my query on 8th March. "sent today". So a month and three days after payment I had to prompt him to send my stuff. He even quoted the "your payment has been received" email from PayPal that reminds him to send product within 7 days. I guess caveat emptor applies here, and that's the kind of gakky service we can expect from eBob. I decided to order a few more head sprues from him and make sure they get posted before I publish this post. So I ordered a few more head sprues and followed up by immediately emailing him to say I expected that they'd be sent out a lot quicker than a month. He sent them the following day. I guess the lesson there is if you choose to order anything from him, email him within a few days to ensure that your stuff actually gets sent.



The paint scheme is the usual base metal - Army Painter Silver(?) (it's an unlabelled metal paint from the first KoW KS), highlighted with VMA Steel. I then vary the usual by washing with a 1:1 mix of AP Dark Tone and Blue Tone wash to give a subtle Blue Steel look.



P3 Cygnar Blue Highlight as the base for the cloth parts, highlighted with P3 Arcane Blue and shaded with a wash of VMC Dark Prussian Blue (I think - the label is unmarked). Leather straps and Boots - and Leggings are painted as a dyed blue, so VMC Dark Prussian Blue with a touch of old-Citadel Ultramarine Blue for highlight, and slightly-thinned AP Dark Tone wash. And yes, I've written down all the paints here so I can easily replicate the scheme with later units. A lot of people paint their Dol Amroth models with white cloth and blue accents. I may do so for the SkoDA and other nobles, but for the common troops of Dol Amroth, I wanted their livery to be Blue with white accents, and the dark, almost black blue to tie in more strongly with their brethren from Minas Tirith as well as the blue to keep them close to their own noble-born elites. The swan crests on their helms were painted in VMA Steel and washed with thinned down AP Blue wash.



You can see just how well the eBob heads fit onto the plastic WoMT models.

So these eight make a small unit for SBG, that can simply use the WoMT profiles, and in KoW they make for a troop of Archers, again using the KoM profiles. I'll use different statlines for some other Dol Amroth troops, but not these guys.

Your painting is really ace plus those helmets really turned out nicely. Those tassets are so distinctively Gondorian, it's hard to overcome - I think even if you had filed off the White Tree. As for the blue-trimmed-white, that nicely matches the caparisons of the knights' steeds.

Thanks! I'm happy for them to still look very much Gondorian as long as they have their own distinctive look to them from the Minas Tirith troops as well, partly from paint and partly from the headswaps - which I'll carry across to the other DA models. You're right about the white trim - stolen from the GW SKoDA paint scheme.

I needed to paint something different to plastic WoMT this month, so I looked through the Gondor figure box, and pulled out something both similar but different to the usual grind. My small collection of Osgiliath Veterans. Originally, when they were released, I didn't much like the models and got just a few to use as alternative sword captains, but more recently, I managed to pick up a few more so that I could make a small but functional unit.



I know they're pretty good in SBG when led by Faramir, but I don't want to purchase more of them, as they're not cheap in metal from GW or eBay - nor do I especially want to convert a bunch of the plastic WoMT into additional OVs. I figure this single unit will do me for general gaming, and if I ever need more to use in scenario, I can use regular WoMT as proxies.



Since these Veterans have been in the field for some time, I approached painting them in a slightly different way to how I typically paint WoMT, while keeping to a similar palette. Instead of starting with black and highlighting with AP Wolf Grey, which is a blue-grey; I started with VMC Dark Grey and added a small amount of AP uniform grey for the highlights, which is much more of a neutral grey. The leather straps were done in the usual WoMT way, but all of the extra cloth parts, such as cloaks, bedrolls, satchels and shoulder bags and extra belt pouch bags were painted in a mixture of colours taken from the palette that I used for my Rangers of Gondor, since those guys will at times be used for Faramir's rangers (along with those of Blackroot Vale and of course, the Grey Company!)



The metal of their armour was painted differently as well. I started with VGA 72.754 Gunmetal, highlighted with VMA 71.072 Gun and a very subtle highlight of Citadel Ironbreaker. After I completed my highlighting and shading of the entire model, I gave them a wash of 1:1:2 AP Dark Tone (black), AP Strong Tone (dark brown) and Windex as my thinning medium. This added a touch of grime to the models, to represent them having been out in the field for some time. The final touch (aside from flesh and hair) was a very subtle highlight of the wings embossed on the helm with Ironbreaker, to help reinforce the faces of the models as their focal point.



This shows the different tonal qualities of the various Gondor models. Dol Amroth (blue tint, brighter metal), Minas Tirith (black tint, mid-tone metal), Osgiliath Veterans (brown tint, darker metal), Ranger (natural tones)



It turned out that I only had 10 Osgiliath Veterans, so when I spent some time late last year trying to sort out my unpainted Gondor models, I decided to give them a couple of models to act as command, rather than buy more models. I threw a Gondor standard bearer and a spare Faramir into a baggie, and job done! I've got another of the same Faramir model, which I'd painted several years ago, after I'd started this blog but before I started really updating it with any frequency. He was of course painted to fit in as a commander of the Gondor army, and occasionally managed to take the field. It can be seen here. This time, I wanted the Faramir model to be very much part of the Veteran unit, and so he was painted with the same palette of greys, with just a touch of AP Wolf Grey mixed into the top highlights. I also added some gold trim on his armour and the white trim to his skirts to help distinguish him as the unit commander on the tabletop. While the Faramir is a nicely understated model, it's not really a stand-out model for someone as important as Faramir.



I found the Standard much more interesting as a model. Once again, greys are the base, and browns the additive colour rather than blue-grey. I added a bread bag from a Warlord German to his hip to help him fit in with the troops, and also took his metal head off and replaced it with a Warlord Roman Veteran head, to which I added a touch of bloodstain on his bandanna. I also painted him with blonde hair and attempted to create a stark, greasy look with a dark wash. (As we know, greasy, dirty blonde hair just ends up looking brown, but this is miniature painting.) And yeah, I know Osgiliath Veterans can't technically have a standard bearer, but he can easily be used as a Spearman, given the pointy end on that banner pole!



The "Kings of War" style unit photos this time show off one the different configurations that these guys can be set up in, in order to bring one type of weapon or another to the fore, should I decide to vary the unit profile. Just swap the spears or swords or bows to the front!

I really like them, I think you've got the "veteran" feel right

Agreed. Great job, especially on the standar bearer. I really like the gold trim on Faramir as well.

Thank you, gents!

Everything here is totally awesome! Good job!

Such characterful miniatures! You did an amazing job, Azazelx.

You did a really outstanding job on what many would consider a rather obscure and unimportant unit. Its just full of character now and you can be proud to field those figures.

Theophony wrote: Fellow DakkaDakka users,

Azazelx has asked me to stop in here to speak for him as he has been dealing with an unexpected family tragedy over the last week. For those who have been following for the past few months you may have read in his blog, or here about the ongoing health concerns of his father, but this event is not related to those occurrences and was a severe shock to him and his loved ones. He has returned back to work and has begun browsing the threads again, but is not ready to participate in discussions right now so it may be a short time until we see or hear from him. He will elaborate when he can but currently he just needs to get back to normal so he will not be updating his thread or the tale of 35 gamers thread for a short time.

He does not want to tie up his blog with well wishes or condolences from everyone, though he know that we as fellow DakkaDakka members are right behind him 100%. He also does not feel like elaborating at the moment as to what has transpired, or even to answer well meaning questions as he is trying to make sense of it himself currently.

Thank You everyone for your thoughts and prayers at this time. I'm sure Azazelx appreciates them. In his absence lets fill some pages of DakkaDakka threads with some great eye candy for him to view when he needs to take his mind off of his current situation.

Theophony]

Even as Gandalf and Pippin ran forward, they heard from within the house of the dead the voice of Denethor crying : 'Haste, haste! Do as I have bidden! Slay me this renegade! Or must I do so myself?' Thereupon the door which Beregond held shut with his left hand was wrenched open, and there behind him stood the Lord of the City, tall and fell; a light like flame was in his eyes, and he held a drawn sword.


This model is of course a likeness of John Noble as Denethor, Steward of Gondor. Sculpted by one of the Perrys from memory, this figure was released shortly after Return of the King was released, and is now sadly discontinued. It's quite a good likeness, especially given the truescale nature of the model.


As Denethor is a rather understated model despite being fairly important in the story of LotR, I wanted to make him stand out in some way - even if he's far from a must-have combat machine like his sons. I attempted to do so by mounting him on a back-to-base-ix resin base to raise his stature a little above the rank and file of Gondor. I painted the base as stained white stone - perhaps some of the ruins of Osgilliath? A little bit of ivy and a couple of tufts add the little colour to what is otherwise a very monochromatic model.


I started painting Denethor sometime years ago, but never really got far beyond the black. Last year, I started working on him and got his cloak to a point where I was quite happy with it. I then gave it a black wash to bring it back down and unify it, which just fething wrecked the whole thing. You know when you hear about people having a bad mistake happen to a model and then throwing it in the bin? That kind of thing. More recently, I worked on him a little again, this time stalling out due to still being frustrated by the wash wrecking it last time, but it's been sitting on my painting desk, and is one of the models I had specifically in mind when starting this challenge. Given the month that it's been, I decided to work on Denethor this last weekend so I'd have something "legal" finished for the painting challenge in the Gondor category..



I've tried to replicate Noble's 5 o'clock shadow and also distinguish the shades of black/grey/white between his cloak, the fur lining and his hair. Noble can look quite pale and gaunt in colour in some stills from the film, though in others his face is much closer to normal. I tried replicating that, but I felt that he was already monochrome enough, so I added a subtle amount of colour back into his face.

Aside from obvious scenario-based uses in LotR games, Denethor can also make an appearance with my Army of Gondor on the Kings of War battlefield. Possibly as a "Wizard", where the Fireball spell could represent Denethor directing artillery fire onto his chosen target, Bane-Chant representing his oratory driving his troops to greater valour on the field of battle, and so forth...

The stubble effect worked really well, it's a nice little model!

Gorgeous work... and a haunting reminder of how amazing the Perry bros are. :-)

Really liking the cloaks on those minis!
Was thinking of picking up some of the Nazgual minis (partial to the Dark Marshall but hes way more than the others for some reason...might get the Betrayer!) definetly going to try and replicate a similar build up on the cloaks gradually getting into lighter greys.
I had the witch king on foot (still do) and was actually one of my first minis ever and just sprayed black primer and I think I just dry brushed him with a grey colour...Still like that model and paint job mostly for nostalgia purposes anyways (at least the paint job hahah)

Thanks! I didn't really like the Denethor model until it was finished. It's one of those odd ducks like that.

I've got a bunch of Nazgul that I painted years ago, pretty much by drybrushing greys over black (and then some dusty sand at the end). They still look quite decent, and they certainly don't need to be stripped down. The biggest issue with my un- and half-painted extra Nazgul there is making them look consistent with their older brethren.

Very nice stubble effect going on there, how did you achieve that if you don't mind my asking ?

I have a Denethor waiting to be painting and I'd love to try it out !

Thanks Wolf. I first "finished" the face as a "clean" face, then I thinned down a tiny bit of Wolf Grey with a touch of saliva (it's got an elastic quality to it that real paint mediums don't have, so I use it sometimes.) and just went over the top of the "beardline" very carefully.

It's a really good likeness - and given the results, I'll have to give your saliva solution method a go sometime. Nice job!

 Azazelx wrote:
Thanks Wolf. I first "finished" the face as a "clean" face, then I thinned down a tiny bit of Wolf Grey with a touch of saliva (it's got an elastic quality to it that real paint mediums don't have, so I use it sometimes.) and just went over the top of the "beardline" very carefully.

Gross... but awesome! :-)

 Azazelx wrote:
Thanks Wolf. I first "finished" the face as a "clean" face, then I thinned down a tiny bit of Wolf Grey with a touch of saliva (it's got an elastic quality to it that real paint mediums don't have, so I use it sometimes.) and just went over the top of the "beardline" very carefully.

Ok so paint as normal, and spit grey paint at his face ? Got it ! Thanks though I will certainly try this out

This is essentially a "State of the Army" post, showing off all of the completed elements of my Gondor Army at present, which I've been properly working on over the last two or so years, with a bigger focus during the last 6 months and the painting challenge that I keep harping on about. Models that aren't yet completed are missing from the photos, so things like the Cavalry units that are part-painted will have to wait for an update down the line. While I don't intend to buy any more Gondor models, with the possible exception of any new heroes that GW might release or the odd figure to "clean up" and finalise a more difficult unit (Men at Arms of Dol Amroth, Warriors of Arnor etc) I've got all of the models for this army in my possession. I just need to paint them!



The army is nominally set up as a Kings of War force, but obviously can be used in LotR SBG, or with a few tweaks in War of the Ring (those bloody bases!) We've even used a small number of them in SAGA. Most Minas Tirith/Gondor models generally aren't very exciting at all as individuals, even with a decent amount of work put into them, but they do have a nice effect ranked up en masse.

I'm not up for a lot of typing right now, so I think I'll go with more of a "show, don't tell" for the rest of this post.

Marvellous!

Wow, that is a seriously good looking force - I have to agree with you about the Gondor range, what they lack in individual character, they make up for when assembled en mass.
And I really like how your fiefdoms and rangers stand out, but still fit in as part of the same army, that's not always an easy effect to achieve!
Thoroughly excellent.

Really impressive Minas Tirith force. I love seeing whole armies painted up like this.