There And Back Again – An OTTer’s Journey

Bases done to match the woodland style of Treebeard’s base. Just need to finish the mounted versions now which are quite tricky to work on!

Working through my backlog of miniatures. Finally finished the version of Glorfindel on foot from Forge World

Went with the autumn theme again to try and show off the twilight years of the Elves in Middle-earth. Looked to show that off more with the fallen leaves on the base too. Just got the big mounted version to do!

A bit of an update on what has been painted recently…

Working on Glorfindel (the newest miniature) as well as trying to avoid buying a bunch of Ents!

Some more painting from the last while, returning to Rohan and getting some of those miniatures finished up for my expanding force.

Some of these men have seen far too many winters and some, too few. My first Forge World miniatures AND my first time using a wet palette. I really liked working on these.

There was also a chance to work on some of the royalty of Rohan before the heat descended.

Need to finish him off a little bit, especially when it comes to the basing, but otherwise, really good fun working on the new plastics. It actually looks a lot like Bernard Hill.

Finally, there is his son, Theodred. I am working on doing a Battle Of The Isen army which will contain Theodred and Grimbold as the core characters – lots of impetuous cavalry followed by battle-hardened infantry.

Been really fun diving back into Rohan and working through more Middle-earth.

Some of my recent work has been on a few individual miniatures within the collection. I picked up Treebeard for “something to do”. It was a pain to glue together but painting it was a lot of fun.

I particularly liked working on the basing for Treebeard. It has made me want to work on some more of the Ents from the GW range.

I also got to paint up an Elf that I’ve wanted for ages, Gildor Inglorion. My plan is to use him alongside Elladan, Elrohir and Arwen to do a small Elven force.

I just need to get some of the exiles and they should marry up nicely to the Rivendell Elves that I already have in my collection. I quite like them as a band of Elves tasked with watching over the roads to Rivendell.

Last but not least, the First Age distraction. I was recently inspired by a Middle-earth content creator to have a look at working on some miniatures for The First Age.

I’ve done some cleaning up on these miniatures and got rid of some of the work on the armour for Beregond in order to turn these into miniatures for that First Age period. Turin is missing his dragon helm but I think it still works as a miniature for him!

I was trying to work out the profiles to use for both of them. Beleg should clearly by Legolas but I’m unsure on Turin. I could run him as Aragorn but I think Faramir might actually be a better fit. Perhaps someone more Elven would work though if I had a look through the different profiles.

Any help would be gladly appreciated!

As well as working on 28mm Middle-earth, I have also been working away on the models from Copplestone Castings for use in some tiny-scale wargaming – I am still interested in doing a Balin’s Tomb but on a smaller scale.

So here are some of the different character and monster minis for use in Balin’s Tomb. I’ve done a Goblin/Orc Champion, a Musician and then the Troll that will burst in later!

I have also been working on some miniatures for use on larger battlefields. That means an Orc On Warg, a separate Warg and then finally, one of the Nazgul on the back of a Fellbeast!

I’m really enjoying working at this smaller scale and think it will look nice when everything is assembled. I am now MORE tempted to get some of the Riders Of Rohan and do something a bit Helm’s Deep or maybe go into a battle outside Minas Tirith!

Some more miniatures painted up for the forces of Isengard and more…

Enjoyed working on these. Did them during a livestream where you work through old miniatures in your collection.

I have been packing stuff away as I’m moving soon and so these will probably be the last set of miniatures I paint for a little while.

I also did some work on some Osgiliath Veterans so that I can bring my range of Minas Tirith warriors to 500 points.

Again, good fun working on these older metal miniatures. Details can be a bit tough to get out of them sometimes but it was great fun working through them.

Some of the projects I have been working on recently…

The First Age Elf (above) from the folks at Medbury Miniatures, printed by Forgemaster Minis over on Etsy. A nice change of pace to work on a Silmarillion-themed miniature. Now I definitely need more…

And now, some of my more recent paint jobs that cover my forces of Rohan.

Need to do a bit of extra work on Eowyn’s cloak to make it stand out a bit more but otherwise was really happy with this pair. The new plastic kits are packed with detail.

I also got in a few games over the weekend just gone including a clash between Rohan and Mordor and then a band of Uruk-Hai led by Lurtz against Hobbits.

A few extra miniatures that fit the theme of Minas Tirith and the Battle Of Osgiliath and the subsequent battles around the White City.

Gandalf The White was a lot of fun to paint. He might not be the fancy new plastic miniatures but it was cool to get that added into the mix. The same goes for Pippin dressed as one of the Citadel Of The Guard.

There was also my first proper attempt at doing some freehand with the Eye Of Sauron on the banner for this Orc.

I don’t need much to add to a big 500 point force for Mordor now. Minas Tirith would need a bit of extra work to bring it up to that point limit but not by much!

A few of the miniatures finished off for the different characters in Battle Of Osgiliath…

Quite enjoyed doing some of the bigger characters from the boxed set. I had a lot of fun with the Troll in particular and the finished look of Gothmog. Making me like the idea of a Mordor army a lot more.

I thought I would try and get through the hobby funk that sets in after doing a lot of batch painting by working on single-character miniatures from the collection!

The idea, inspired by Eons Of Battle, was to paint one miniature every day from start to finish. No switching to another miniature, no other project, just one miniature from start to finish.

I started with seven miniatures that I didn’t think I would ever get around to without doing something like this. The list was…

• Imrahil
• Ghan-Buri-Ghan
• Sharkey
• Isildur
• Easterling Captain
• The Witch-King
• Haldir

I started off strong with the painting of Imrahil and Ghan-Buri-Ghan wh0 were quite easy to get finished since they were a lot of one colour essentially.

One of the things that was quite interesting about this process is that you have to do a lot of waiting. You need to wait for layers to dry, for washes to settle in and for basing materials to work!

It is a very different mode of painting where normally you’d move on and paint up something from another miniature. But, it was quite neat to be able to be satisfied with a breakpoint during the day and then come back after a cup of tea to do more on a miniature.

Even though you take breaks and such though, that’s the point of this. To show a different way of painting that is less intensive and has you being able to enjoy the process from beginning to end.

It also seems like a great way to get through your backlog of single miniatures that might not have a place in wider armies. This is especially good if your miniatures feature different textures, colours and themes as it means you get to step out of your comfort zone too!

Unfortunately, I didn’t complete my task over the 7 days. It got to day 6 and I made a boo-boo! I knew I was going to have to rush to get the final miniature done and instead of making it the easy-to-paint Witch-King (above), I decided to paint up him on day 6 and leave Haldir for day 7.

That meant I had a complicated miniature to finish things off with and I just didn’t have the time. Adulting got in the way and I ended up not being able to complete the challenge. But, it’s better to explore the realities of something like this than lie about the end result!

Currently, this is where I’ve got Haldir too (below) and I will be finishing him off this week alongside some other miniatures from my collection.

This was a fun challenge though and I will certainly try it again to get more characters painted from my collection!

Also took some time to try out a scheme for my Morannon Orcs from the Battle Of Osgiliath.

Even had a pop at the evil eye symbol on the shield. I think it works pretty decently and the scheme as a whole seems do the job. Again, a bunch of drybrushing followed by some red to make some elements of the miniature pop.

Just need to have a go at trying out some different flesh colours for the Orcs.

Started working on some of the miniatures from Battle Of Osgiliath. Warriors Of Minas Tirith kicked things off. Going to try and get through these as simply as possible and that essentially means drybrushing, black and a few details here and there…

I think it worked out pretty well. It isn’t massively detailed but I think that it did a solid job of finishing up the armoured elements of Minas Tirith without too much work. I reckon that the Rangers are going to take up a bunch of my time!

Will have them sorted in no time. I was actually pleased to realise that I have a bunch of additional Minas Tirith miniatures in metal to use with the army. I have an old metal Gandalf and Pippin plus armoured Boromir if I want to fight out an older clash.

I took some time over the holidays to paint up my plastic Fellowship from Battle In Balin’s Tomb!

I quite enjoyed painting them as my partner suggested which one I should do next at each step. They didn’t take too long to paint but I sorely missed working on the details of the metal miniatures.

Thankfully, I do have the original metal Fellowship and painted them up at the start of this project and I would choose them every day over these. BUT, the miniatures look fun and will be great to include in the Balin’s Tomb box so I can just use them exclusively for that!

I was very lucky to get my hands on a copy of Battle In Balin’s Tomb which was available for a limited time last year. I have since undercoated everything and started work on the painting, beginning with the Moria Goblins as they can also be used for the expanding force that I need to go up against my Dwarves led by Balin.

The goblins took about 4 hours in total to paint. Drybrush over black, add the red, green and brown, wash with Nuln Oil and a bit of Reikland to mimic rust and then a bit of highlighting to make them stand out. Not a masterful job but it got them sorted on a mass scale without much issue.

The Troll was a bit more of a mammoth task as it involved a bunch of wet blending for the skin tone and then a wash that had to be worked back up. He still looks “dirty” but I think that’s fine for a Cave Troll. Need to sort some of the pooling out from the wash on the hammer but otherwise a fun model to paint.

In the grand scheme of things, I think I prefer the metal one that I painted but the plastic one also looks neat and will be good to just drop into the game box to be used specifically with Balin’s Tomb.

Good fun doing something a bit different and now I have to choose where to go next. Fellowship or more Dwarves? I kinda think I SHOULD paint my Rohan dismounts but I might indulge myself with something else for the moment.

The second battle (yes folks, you can fit more than one battle a day in if you don’t play Warhammer 40K) was a 400-point clash between Rohan and Harad.

On the one side we had Eowyn leading a band of Riders Of Rohan whilst Gamling took up the centre of the field with his Warriors Of Rohan, Banner, Horn and the like. Merry also joins the fighting and kept a position with the archers.

On the other side, Harad was led by a Lord, Hasharin and Chieftain led a band of Raiders and Warriors in their attack on the lands of the Horse Lords.

This was a pretty good Domination win for the Riders Of Rohan. The Warriors formed up in the centre and used their throwing spears to great effect as when pinned in place, the thundering cavalry led by Eowyn was able to crush most of the Harad forces as they tried to hold the line.

On the far right of the battlefield, a small contingent of Riders was able to hold up one of the more powerful characters in the Harad force and deny them the ability to get back into the fighting in the centre.

In the end, the cavalry of Rohan won the day (and reminded me that I needed to paint dismounts) and it was a good showing for the horse lords. Just need to get some more models to get them up to 600! I’m thinking Theoden and some more cavalry!

I managed to get some games in last week starting off with a 275-point clash between Grishnakh and Ugluk who were on the hunt for the two Hobbits (Merry & Pippin) who evaded them on the borders of Fangorn. That is if they hadn’t been butchered by charging Rohirrim of course…

The scenario was Lords Of Battle so it was all about claiming kills from the opposing side. The game started out strong for the Hobbits who managed to claim a good handful of kills with mere stones being thrown at the advancing Uruk Scouts.

The latter half of the game saw Orcs getting knocked about by Hobbits with clubs (damn Shirriffs) and Grishnakh ran off to join Ugluk in punishing Pippin for his advance. The Orcs and Uruks managed to bring down Pippin but not before reinforcements arrived and took out the last remaining servants of Shadow and chased them off the board.

It ended up with a lot of Hobbit archers left on the board and very few Orcs and Uruks as the Hobbits cleaned up The Shire and chased away the invaders! Grishnakh will be back though to take their legs!

The first task was taking the older Dwarf miniatures in my collection with an updated paint scheme and basing that worked a lot better for fighting in Moria.

So, all of the miniatures got extra highlights and the basing was updated with “stones” and a liberal application of grey.

Then, I picked up the additional elements for my 400 point warband which included eight Dwarf Warriors and eight Khazad Guard.

The idea is that I’ll get these Dwarves to 400 points led by Balin and then I’ll go in and have a look at their adversaries.

I have eyes on a Moria Goblin force to go up against them. I have one of the characters for that and a bunch of plastic miniatures. But, I do have to get a bunch of metal/finecast miniatures to fill out the selection.