A much shorter blog this week. As I have already noted, work on the upgrade to my new wargames den is progressing well but I am still relegated to painting at the desk in my office. So rather than buying any new models or starting any new projects, I have continued to work through my lead pile.
Boromir was the ‘free’ figure from issue 11 of the ‘Battle Games in Middle Earth’ magazine series that I am working my way through. I actually painted him just before I lost the use of the garage but he hasn’t featured in my blog so I thought I would include him for continuity. As usual, I used the magazine as a reference as well as Youtube. I quite like the Planetmithril youtube channel and there is a wealth of painting advise and step by step tutorials to be found. There’s a link to the planetmithril web site below, if you would like more information.
I dont follow the guides exactly but use them as a help, particularly if I am not sure what colour to use. With Boromiir, I went for a much darker finish than the one in the video but this suited my style of painting.
The next figure was Gandalf the Grey from issue 12 of the magazine. Again, the magazine and the you tube channel gave me all the help that I needed and again, I went for a darker look than the videos seem to show. The paint pallet was fairly limited – Gandalf the Grey is predominately , well, grey…
As these are fantasy figures, I feel that there is no need to slavishly follow a particular colour scheme. So long as the figure looks about right, it’s good enough for me. I have to confess to never having finished reading the ‘Lord of the Rings’. That’s probably heresy as far as Tolkien fans are concerned but for what ever reason, the book never caught my imagination. Quite the opposite, after 600 pages of second breakfasts, singing nonsense songs and endless descriptions of characters that seemed to do nothing, I gave up on the book. I think that I had come to LOTR too late in life and had been spoilt by watching the Peter Jackson films. Mind you, in the last of the films, the bum numbing rendition of ‘The Return of the King’ I was crying out for Bilbo to get on the fecking boat with the Elves at the end so I could go for a pint with the missus…It’s fair to say that whilst I did enjoy the films, I am not by any means an enthusiast of LOTR in particular and fantasy in general.
I digress slightly, I do like the painting the figures and they make a nice change from historical subjects. Perhaps when I have a large enough collection, I will try out the game. For now it’s back to the lead pile to choose my next subject.
THE COMMERCIAL BIT
The magazines that I am referring to are long out of print but still available on ebay should you wish to collect them.
If you need help in completing a project of your own we have a massive range of stock in the Arcane Scenery shop. Almost all of the paints, miniatures, bases, basing materials and anything that you are likely to need for your hobby are available from my shop here:
You can find plenty of links to the paining videos as well as painting tips on the Planet Mythril site here:
Happy Modelling!