A Thief in the Night

ME-82  'The Hobbit' Personalities - Bilbo Baggins (4 of 4)

Almost alone in the wilds!

Now completed this little set with Bilbo painted. It is interesting that this only one of two Bilbo* figures produced during Citadel's 80's Lord of the Rings phase with Bilbo dressed for the battle of the Five armies. I don't think I have seen one from GW current Lord of the Ring range but I assume they must have done one!  

* Just realised there is a second Bilbo figure in the ME-34 Hobbits of the Shire set which I will be painting next (once they have been through the paint stripper).  Compared to five different Frodo models from the same time period. 

Anyway Bilbo was a great figure paint and a nice little break before I move onto the rest of dwarf sapper and rangers.

The whole gang.

Rob

My Top 3 Terry Pratchett Novels

Discworld Choices

In reply to a question, I am posting my favourite Terry Pratchett novels. With over forty novels and many different arcs it can be quite dauting to decide where to start. This is very much a personal choice and there are many other great books by Terry Pratchett.

Lords & Ladies

Published 1992

Any book with Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg can't be bad but Lords and Ladies is my favourite witches story from memory (this may change after I read them all again in order). The witches take on the elves, but these elves very much mad, bad and dangerous to know. Not your friendly wood elf.

Feet of Clay

Published 1996

Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Guard is on the case, and this case is treason.  Not so much of a whodunit but whydunit. Terry at his best using the discworld and as a colourful backdrop to his crime caper.

The Colour of Magic

Published 1983

Or you could just go back to the start with the first Discworld novel and join Rincewind and Twoflowers on their journey across Discworld. There is also a pair of great graphic novels covering the Colour of magic and the sequel the Light Fantastic.

My rather battered copies

Rob 

Mr P's Witches

 Time for Some Equal Rites

I have been a long time fan of Terry Patchett  since I first read the Colour of Magic back in the 80s. In particular I have always liked the Witches, Granny and Nanny. But I have never read all of  Terry's Witches books or in the correct order. So this year is time to correct this serious failing.

You haven't read all of the Witches novels?

A number of helpful people have already sorted out the order  of Mr P.'s witches books. With six books listed in order below.  

Published 1987

Published 1988

Published 1991

Published 1992

Published 1995

Published 1998

I believe all of the covers were painted by Josh Kirby. 

On to the Figures

This reading has inspired a little side project. I had always planned to add a little coven of witches with scenery to the Fae but moved onto the next project(s) before getting round to it. 

But reading Mr. P witches has reminded me to get my own set of Witches and I have started trawling around the internet looking for some suitable figures. There were some official figures at one stage but I remember the costs were quite high. I also half remember a number of figures I quite liked but can't find at the moment. 

Anyway my first finds were a very nice range of witches from Midlam Miniatures  and the first  potential candidates for Granny & Nanny.  Because witches always come in threes, Granny & Nanny will also need a junior witch to boss about.  I already have a cat familiar from Reaper who can be used as Greebo. 

Pictures from Midlam's website

Rob 

Return of the King Under the Mountain

ME-82  'The Hobbit' Personalities - Thorin Oakenshield (3 of 4)

Finished off Thorin this evening. I am pleased with the way he turned out. A really nice figure with great character and clean sculpting.

King under the Mountain

Thorin & Balin emerge from the Lonely Mountain

Still looking for Bilbo

Rob

Dwarven New Year

New Dwarves & Some Old Ones

Beginnings of the Guild of Sappers & Scouts

Slowly working my way through the dwarven contingent  for Thistlewood. Who will be  mixed unit of rangers and sappers. 

As readers of this blog will probably know one my favourite sculptors is Mark Copplestone and this dwarf Warchief is one  of his best.  One of his nineties Grenadier figures.  Fortunately still available through Fornlorn Hope. 

He is such a great character that I think he will have to be an additional  named character for Thistlewood. But because the dwarf contingent leader will now be a named character then the elf contingent will also have to have a named character which means the goblins etc. will also need another named character(s). So another project starts to spin out of control. Maybe I will think about this a bit more...

Jorus Dwalinson - Forge  Captain
of the Guild of Sappers & Scouts

Citadel's Talisman Dwarf

Gary Chalk's Illustration for the Talisman game

I thought I will add a picture of this miniature because I don't think I have included him on my blog before and he is one of my favourite Citadel dwarves and the theme of this post has been a bit dwarf centred. The figure can be a bit fragile because of winged helmet so he will probably have to sit out active service. I know this because I also have a broken one (Who could do with a bit of a revamp!). 

This is one of the figures designed for the Talisman board game characters based on the drawing by Gary Chalk. 

 ME-82  'The Hobbit' Personalities - Thorin Oakenshield (3 of 4)

And finally one more dwarf, now working to finish Thorin. The detail on this figure is really nice and the inks pick the detail very well. 

Rob 

Crooked House, Rangers & Strong Tone

 Crooked House 

Finished off the crooked house, it has turned out a bit more dirty than I was planning which is probably due making the wash too dark on the plaster work. Also it doesn't show up very well on the photo but the house  leans to the left quite a bit hence the name.  

I originally painted the windows and the drew on the framework with a fine permanent marker pen but it just wasn't neat enough. So I printed some windows out on a laser printer and gave them a quick wash with some Nuln oil. Fortunately by printing the paper  on a laser printer the printing wasn't affected by the Nuln oil.

I deliberately limited the amount of features on the sides of the crooked house as I intend to make a couple more town houses that can be placed alongside this one. Enough to make all the remaining houses for the Thistlewood scenario. 

Dwarf Rangers

Ready for anything.

Finished off the first two dwarf rangers who will act as an allied contingent for the Halflings and as the dwarves for Thistlewood. In the Thistlewood scenario, Joe Dever doesn't list missile units directly, instead it simply states that 20% of the army of the good have missile weapons. So I am splitting out five of the fifteen dwarves who will be armed with bows. 

A Stronger Tone?

I bought some Army Painter strong tone last year, tried it and didn't really get on with it. But I thought I would try it again for painting up the goblins as an alternative to using multiple citadel shades. I have 30 of them to paint up so want a reasonable speed painting method. I am not totally sold on the end effect but it was certainly better than I was expecting. I will now paint another one up using my usual Citadel shade technique which is using different shades on different parts. To compare against this goblin. 

Step 1 - base colours

Not really sold on my choice of colours either!

Step 2 - Strong tone wash

Rob 

Warrior - Part 7

 The Warrior's Dozen

Cover Photo by Kevin Dalimore

Doug's Little Wars comes to climatic end.

The traditional Christmas battle report posted in February! The morale of this battle report is never trust a troll. 

As we race towards to the end, with only Warrior issue 13  now.

Rob 

Thistlewood - Ugrash Ka vs King's Guard

 Making Progress on Thistlewood

Finished off the last three of the King's Guard to complete, the unit of ten necessary for Thistlewood. Also repainted the old (1970s) Ral Partha Hecatron I bought recently, who will be used as Ugrash Ka. leader of the Vile Rune orcs. Given the age of the sculpt by Tom Meier's, it still stands out as a quality sculpt.  

Ugrash-Ka is the toughest character at Thistlewood with a Toughness characteristic of D and 4 wounds. However, he doesn't have very high weapon skill or strength so may struggle to deal the damage against some King Amias' more elite units and characters. 

Grenadier & Fornlorn Knights

I didn't want to paint the new Knights in the traditional silver scheme as they are supposed to the king's guard. An elite unit who are all individuals, hence different colours schemes for each one. 

Rob

2021 By the Numbers

 My Hobby 2021 

Like most people, now seems a good time to have a bit of summary of my hobby progress in 2021.

First and last figures of 2021.
Citadel 90s Beastman Champion and Citadel 80s Gollum

This year I have painted over 250 figures and scenic items. The most productive year for a while. Painting a couple of armies seems to have helped. And kept the blog going for a year. 

Painting Output

Top Three Miniatures of the Year

My favourite figure of the year is the halfling ranger captain. What I am pleased about is how well the small conversions (backpack and spear) went and the overall visuals of the figure. Doesn't necessary stand out as much as some of the other figures i have painted this year but the aim was to be precise with the painting. He was also  painted up as my Golden Gobbo entry  and consequently it make me push my painting skills on a bit. 

Next up, I will have to put in my Ent in the top 3 this year. It is by far the most complicated miniature I have attempted to sculpt. A very challenging but ultimately rewarding project. As expected it gives a good perspective into the sculpting skills that required to produce a whole figure. I learnt a lot whilst sculpting this figure  and read a lot of good advice on blogs and forums. 

I plan to have a go at sculpting some more figures this year. Something like a troll which is more humanoid but still a bit flexibility on the proportions etc.  I don't see me attempting any humans etc. any time in the near future as sculpting on a smaller scale for human sized 28mm  figures is just too damn small without better magnification.   

And finally one of the Warmonger elves I painted in the middle of the year. I really like the sculpting on this figure and from a painting perspective I was pleased about the colour blends on the hair and flowers. It was the first time recently that the blending went well in these areas. 

Favourite Unit

Easy choice for this one, my Giant Killers of Hambrook, the Halfling archers. I really enjoyed painting these guys. In fact the whole halfling army was really entertaining, resurrecting them from their poorly painted hell. Up until the hounds I haven't bought any extra figures for this army. It has just been about reclaiming my existing figures. I still have about a dozen to send through the paint stripper. Need to add a baggage train though. 

Lone Wolf Collection 

Painting Through the Years

2021 was the year that I finally got round to finishing my Lone Wolf figures. So while there are still a few gaps in the collection this does for the moment feel like mission completed. 

Machineries of Destruction

At the beginning of 2021, my Chaos army received an unexpected boost in the form a Chaos dwarf contingent including a Chaos Dwarf Mortar and Chaos Dwarf Swivel Guns. This is a good example of one my projects going sideways after picking up a few new shiny old figures. I didn't have any plans for a Chaos dwarf contingent until after picking up a swivel gun crew. But ended up as being a really interesting little side project and development of my sculpting skills. 

I decided to scratch build  a gun to go with them after not being able to get an official one on eBay.  And if you have got one swivel gun then you might as well have three. Once I finished the swivel guns, this led onto the mortar.  

And this was also my first outing using the Citadel technical paints in the form of Nikhilakh oxide. These paints have really come on in the last few years and make achieving these specialist effects very easy. The different types  of paints is one the changes that have occurred since getting back into painting. 

Films & Shows

2021 was the year I got back into the cinema and to a wargames show.

I will avoid spoiler alerts on this one but Spiderman - No Way Home is one the best Marvel Superhero movies and my favourite film of the year. A very satisfying story that fits the Marvel universe and tidies together a number of different elements. 

Dune, Bond and Suicide Squad were also good movies. 

Biggest let down was the Green Knight, I obviously missed the point after reading a number of good reviews about it as it didn't seem to go anywhere for me and was just a series of random episodes without any point. Nothing wrong with the actors just the story. 

A number of great films to look forward in 2022 to including Avatar and the new Fantastic Beasts. Plus of course who will be the next Bond and the new Doctor Who...

Salute 2021

It was great to get back to Salute, well it might not have been a normal year. It was the first time back a wargames show  and a good time was had by all. I was finally able to see (& buy) some of the miniatures that I have been looking at on the internet. 

Duel

My duel mini-projects has helped me to finish some of those figures that lurk around the paint bench. So one final duel to end the year.

Happy new Year 

Rob