Painted Figures: Older Citadel and GW Miniatures, A Song of Ice and Fire TMG and more

 Above is the leogolas miniature from Games Workshop as I got him through an ebay purchase. Badly painted with green hair, glossy boots, thick paint obscuring detail, and a poorly clipped base. Below are three shots of the finished figure. I did not strip the figure just painted over the original paint. Again this will not win prizes or possibly rate that great on cool mini or not, but it is finished to a good gaming standard so that he can partake in some scenarios from LOTR strategy. His hair is a more decent colour, there is some highlighting, inks and shading and the detail has been brought out as much as possible. the paint scheme has also tried to match the characteer from Peter Jackson's films. finally a more decent base with some highlights and static grass.

 Have now finished the Warrior of Rohan, above was the starting point, big slaps of paint roughly in the right place on the Games Wrokshop miniature. No base, and the flash lines and sprue marks had not been removed. Below are three shots of the same man of rohan, the flash lines have been removed, the decorative base has been added, and there is some basic highlights and shading. The shield design of the intertwined horses has been given as much detail as I could. Metallic highlights drybrushed onto the scalemail armour and the helmet. Again this is not Golden Demon standard but a good gaming standard for LOTR. I now have about 30 other Warriors of Rohan to work on!

As mentioned earlier I picked up a number of Games Workshop Lord of the Rings Rohan figures on Ebay. As with many of the figures these were not painted well and it was a case of trying to bring some of the detail and quality out of this warrior of Rohan figure. Now he is a foot soldier and so there is not the problem of painting a horse, which I must admit I do find difficult. The first stage as with the Legolas figure was to repaint with a decent base coat so that the model could be used in a game. Also this figure would sort out for me which colours I would use on the other Rohan foot soldier models. In this case I used solely Foundry paints for the base coats. The shield has a nice horse design which is complety destroyed by the paint and hard to see, so I went over with a thin black wash so that I could try and see the detail. I used the Army painter Regiment brush and this worked very nicely. so far so good. Below you can see the before and after shots for this Rohan Warrior and a...

Well I had a fair idea of the construction and units in the various Mordor armies from Legions of Middle Earth. I have always liked the Minas Morgul theme so will probably base something around that. As mentioned in an earlier post there is no buy button anymore for the Mordor sourcebook amongst others and having seen very few turning up on Ebay I decided to buy one. I went with Maelstrom Games as they are coming out cheaper than the standard Games Workshop RRP and with free delivery and loyalty bonus, plus extra summer discount. So have a variety of orcs, warg riders, a troll, and some Morgul knights to work with so far. As well as the odd Ringwraith of course. You can't keep a good Nazgul down. Have two more ebay orders to come in one for a Mordor force and one for a rohan one. So I'll draw a line under the bidding then and take stock of where we are. Oh forgot the new Mordor army included Sauron.

Well we are coming along way now with painting Legolas to an acceptable standard. Maybe even the Pro Painted term so abused on Ebay. All of the major shading is done, with highlights on most areas as well. I have not added much to the boots at all, as they are so dark in the Lord of the Rings films anyway. I have added a photo of the original starting point. The green hair has gone as has the strange multi coloured green jerkin. I have painted the central portion and shoulder pads of Legolas in a darker green as per the costume. There are still some finer details to finish off such as the arrow feathers, his two long knives, backpack straps etc and to provide him with a scenic base. Now this might be a bit tricky as he fits on the Mines of Moria scenic base depicting the fight in Balin's tomb. But I will probably paint the bases with an outdoor effect with scenic grass. Possibly try and sell the base back to Ebay and get some money back on the deal. I'll go throu...

I had the great fortune to be in New Zealand whilst the Lord of the Rings Films were being released and went along to the exhibition that was held at Te Papa the main New Zealand Museum. The LOTR exhibition was fantastic and you really got to appreciate the level of detail that had gone into making the films. The leather work and inlay was what really impressed me. What Games workshop had to do was to try and reproduce this level of detail in a small miniature. Talking to a Games Workshop staffer the other day apparently the actors got to sign off on the 3 up miniatures that were produced for accuracy. Now that is what is so frustrating with buying many Ebay Games Workshop figures is that the level of detail is completly ignored and run roughshod over with a paintbrush that looks like a size 3 decorating brush. S lets see how Legolas is getting on. First up going over the whole figure with new base coats. I have a variety of different paints. Some very old games workshop ones. I have...