Oakbound Wood Spirit (280pts)

 Wood Elf Heavy Hitter

Technically this doesn't count towards my monthly painting target for the core army. As he part of the stretch goal for this army.  But he was painted as part of my start up with an airbrush.

It was surprisingly easy to do the different zenithal highlights and lowlights.  And because the figure is quite large I didn't have to worry about getting the fine detail right. Once the airbrushing was complete it was a mixture of green/brown/grey dry brushing and a bit of dark green contrast paint. 

The base was a mixture of the usual scenic scatter, dry brushed white to simulate frost and some of the white snow paint from Citadel. 

So this figure is a 6-Soul Sluagh (Description from the Oakbound website - A particular form of dark fateweaving can bind trapped souls into rocks and plant matter, animating them into elemental beings of great strength. These are the Sluagh.) from the Oakbound miniatures range. Whilst not a treeman it is a earth spirit which again fits in very well with the wild elf look of the army. Plus it is a sizable miniature which nicely towers over enemy units.  

He is designed to fit into the colour themes and style of my winter wood (wild) elves. So, I added some snow to the top of the model. As, this seemed to quite appropriate.

These fungi are a bit different from my usual two part red/purple mushrooms which have been used on multiple other figures. So, these one have an third part around the middle and I have went for muted blue/grey scheme.  I will add some skulls to the bases once I get round to painting them 

Rob 

Enough for a Small Warband (52pts)

Equalled the Previous Best

So with five wood elves painted I have equalled the size of my previous attempt at a wood elf army (see last post). Overall I am happier with this first batch of four compared to the first one. As I am getting a feel for how to paint these figures and learning to keep to the lines and so not having to do too much tiding up on the skin. I am particularly pleased with the hair as I have managed to keep the black low lights with the white highlights which gives them a very albino quality.  These ex-Grenadier and ex-Celtos figures form the core of the army. As reward for for finishing five I think is time for a standard bearer. 

A mixture of ex-Grenadier and & ex-Celtos figures

Very pleased about how the hair turned out. 

I also think I will add some Beastman skulls from the Citadel skulls set. As think this fits the wild look of these figures. 

Working with the Airbrush

After doing a zenithal highlight with the light brown, I then decided to do two zenithal lowlights from below with two shades of green. A light green from one side aide and a darker green from the other side. They don't particularly show up in this light but the result looks good by eye. And will provide a good (and quick) starting point for painting the rest of the miniature. 

The excellent Oakbound Miniatures 6-Soul Sluagh will be
 pressed into service as the wood elves treeman

Rob

Beginner's Luck

 Fun & Games with Airbrushes

On very relaxed Sunday afternoon, I managed to break out the paints and settle in for nice long painting session. I also, set up airbrush for a second go. And to use a very well known footballing phrase it was very much a game of two halves. 

The first session was used to zenithal highlight Sauron the Necromancer and in the main it went very well. So, I had a second batch of figures already black undercoated. Ready for a repeat performance. However, I couldn't get paint mix right and the paint ran all over the figures. Now I did use the cheap white paint included in the set but with some decent thinner (Vallejo) but I think I over thinned it. Now I do think I will need to buy some good airbrush white and have seen a couple of recommendations on Youtube videos. 

I then changed colours and had much more success with the light brown which went on smoothly.  Now this was with a quality paint with was a bit thicker and I didn't use as much thinner. So, this probably helped. And since this went well I finished off with a green zenithal on some other stuff which also looked ok. 

The green around the base of the Griffon was
a mistake but looks rather good. 

The attempt to beat my previous personal best of five wood elves continues with another batch of four. Overall I am much happier with the skin tones. With was helped by using the two very pale skin tones in the right order. I have now labelled them to avoid that mistake again. 

The speckled bases were because I had attempted to
zenithal highlight them with a spray can and it did not go well. 

How many Bilbos?

With only Bilbo left in the company of Thorin Oakenshield to paint, I thought it would be a good time to break open the other Bilbo figure. This time from Lord of the Rings. It picked this one up last year for a fiver which I thought was bargain. I have now heard that they have finally retired this figure after twenty  years. So, it looks like I got this one in time. 

Now given the packaging is from the first film, I reckon this one is fifteen to twenty years old. So, I as opened the blister, I was reminded how long it was since I last bought a new Citadel blister. Which was also probably fifteen to twenty years ago. 

I also have the Bilbo figure for the 80's ME-34 Hobbits of the Shire set. Which I am painting at the moment so I might as well paint him as well. 

Rob

Army of One (10pts)

One Down

Painted up the first wood elf, for my new wood elf army.  It is easy to overwork the very pale skin and I need to to be more careful not to get dark colours over the finished skin. But finally started painting this army.  In the nineties, my first attempt at a wood elf army ended after five figures (three boars, an animal handler and one glade rider) so hopefully I can do better this time. 

There can be only one, ok hopefully not. 

The Ruins of Osgiliath

With all the excitement on Youtube, to build a mammoth Gondor/Osgiliath board by ZorbaZorb. I decided to dig out the ruins my son and I made about ten years ago. And give them a bit of a face lift. We were following the scenarios in the old Battle games in Middle Earth magazines. They look quite basic by today's standards. But I reckon I can bring them up to date for a lot less effort than making new ones.  If nothing else they could do with some more naturistic rubble. 

Mark one ruins. 

And maybe I could make a few Osgiliath veterans with the few unpainted figures I have knocking about. 

Start of the tidy up

Rob 

One Small Step for ...

 One Giant Leap for the Forces of Evil

After rushing to build Sauron, I decided to pause work on him until my new airbrush arrived.  As I wanted to  do a Zenithal highlight and I find the spray cans are not fine enough. Now I have seesawed on a decision to buy an airbrush because even a basic kit is about ~£100. And that buys a lot of classic figures!

Anyway with a bit of money from Christmas, I decided the time was right to buy an airbrush. Ended up with a starter set for £97. I had watched a couple of Youtube videos where they had bought a similar one. So once satisfied, the money was spent.

 And Sauron was the first time I have used it. I am still working out how to use it but I am quite impressed with the overall effect. I hope that I can move on stepwise from this first go. 

First go with an airbrush

One of the main reasons I have been struggling with Zenithal highlights, I am still expecting to end up putting on one coat of opaque paint. So there is not much point doing a zenithal highlight if the paint isn't thinned down enough to let the highlights show through. Now  this is very much still a work in-progress but it is interesting to see how the effect turned out. I think He needs a final very light highlight, but mostly finished. 

A few hours later

Never too  many skulls

You shall not pass

Rob 

First Figure of the Year Painted

Merry (ME-34 Hobbits of the Shire)

Just a quick post, as I have painted the first figure of the year. A great figure form the classic Citadel Lord of the Rings range. 

This year I am going to focus on wet blending and edge highting. So, both of these techniques have been practised on Merry. Overall I am pleased with the finished figure. 

Merry & Pippin

Watch out for hobbits!

Rob