Goblin King Durburz

Well this isn't really anything new, but I thought while I had my paints out I'd retouch Durburz the Goblin King.


Here he is before, as you can see it was really good for me several years ago. I've tried to drybrush layers on the armour, but the skin and cloth are pretty flat.

And here's the back, I've tried to get some detail on the hair.

And here he is after a 20 minute touch-up. I've layered three green colours, done some washes and some red highlights too.

Side view (Badab black washes on all the metal to give them a bit more 3dish look)...

Back view (brown wash, single vermin brown highlight)...

It looks a bit splotchy from up really close, here it is from about 20cm away. The tones blend in much better from this distance! Quick job and it has really lifted the mini and made it more visible and (hopefully) made it better looking too!

 Well there you go, quick job to boost a king to at least the same level as a captain in terms of paintjob. No magazine standard, but pretty neat tabletop for very little effort!

Goblin Captain Done

Well, with another lick of paint the goblin is done!

Mur'baj goblin captain.

Mur'baj started life as a menial goblin, scrubbing pots in the rudimentary kitchen of Durburz.

Lifting the massive pots and pans developed large (for a goblin) muscles and during a spider infestation he made a name for himself as a drummer, beating the pots in time to the warrior's strikes.

During a battle against some dwarves in which he was drumming, the front lines crumbled and dwarves broke through the ranks.

Attacking the support goblins, Mur'baj found himself fighting for his life!

Deflecting an axe with the large bones he used for drumming he found himself almost berserk. The years in the kitchen and drumming had built up a lot of muscle power and frustration.

Wielding his drumming bones as large clubs he beat two dwarves senseless and led a counter-charge that saved his king from a Khazad Guard assault.
After the battle he was made captain, given a warrior's shield and allowed to keep a dwarven axe-head.

He continues to wear his drummer uniform, fury and muscle (and fate) keeping him alive in place of the heavier armour of other captains.

Wow, I need to learn not to take photos so close to a) the light and b) the camera!

It's amazing how up close it looks so blotchy, but even just holding it in your hand and looking at it is far, far smoother! Anyway, take my word for it that it looks better in real life!

And from behind (not that he's cowardly)...

Just for size comparisons, here are the three minis on my desk at the moment...

I've had a couple questions asking how I think I've improved my LotR painting skills over the years (I first painted my Mines of Moria set when it came out a while ago now, and that was the first miniature painting I'd done since the late '80s). I'm enjoying the small amounts of time I get to paint, it helps to enjoy it! I long ago decided that I was happy with good standard miniatures. Not super powered! All I stick to is paints out of the pot, though watered a little bit. I just don't have the time, money, patience or skill to do colour mixing. The only paint I've mixed in these minis is the final highlight on the cave troll (and that came from the pre-mixed space wolves pot), all the other colours are straight out of the bottles!

It might not make for superb up close under direct lights shots, but even at a short distance they look really good - as you can probably tell better in the battle reports than individual shots here! (In my opinion that is!)

So my number one piece of advice - solid, neat first layer - wash - highlight with original colour. Just that sequence will make a huge difference AND it's really quick. After that, I tend to try and choose colours that have sequences you can apply direct from the pots if I want another layer.

For my nicer minis I then do another wash, but selective areas, and another highlight, again of selected areas. I'm interested in seeing how much easier it will be with the new paint range coming out soon!

If all goes well I'll be having my birthday battle (slightly belated) late next week (probably Thursday), until then I'll potter around at another goblin warband to go with this captain. Hopefully I'll get my troll chieftain in the mail at some stage soon, and also start putting together my new eagles. I think it'll look cool to have the three eagles facing off against the three trolls!

Goblin captain continued

Well, little one had a good nap today so got a wash and highlight done!

Highlights were snot green, red gore, chain mail, bestial brown, dwarf flesh

Goblin captain

Here's the first coat on the goblin captain...

Knarloc green, codex grey, mechrite red, scorched brown, bolt gun metal, tallarn flesh.

Cave Troll Done!

Well, managed to get another two half hour blocks and did another wash, then a final highlight and some touch-ups to finish the cave troll!

Firstly, here he is standing next to my old cave troll. The original one was done a LONG time ago when I first got the Mines of Moria box set. No washes back then, so it was lots and lots of layers of paint. As you can see I went for a greeny-brown colour.

The new one (hopefully) shows a little improvement in skill and the inherent detail from a metal mini. The flesh on the new one was Tallarn Flesh followed by an Ogryn Flesh wash, then a highlight of Tallarn Flesh, followed by a Devlan Mud wash, followed by a highlight of dwarf flesh, then a slight highlight of elf flesh and a selected area devlan mud wash.

Here's a side view...

Back view, the rocky back is the same colour scheme, but neater on the new one I think. It's just my space wolf colours (Fenris, Shadow Grey and a mix of a bit of Space Wolf in with the Shadow for highlights. Washed black three times between each coat.

Other side view... this shot focuses on the mini...

Lastly, this shot focuses on the hammer. Check out the detail on the metal one compared to the plastic one. Tin Bitz, highlight boltgun metal, black wash, highlight chainmail, black wash.

Anyway, there's my painting WIP for the Cave Troll completed, hope you enjoyed looking! In the mail is Burdhur the Hill Troll Chieftain. He'll be the leader of my troll warband!

I haven't given you a proper list yet for my monster army, but it will be a couple packs of wargs led by warg chieftains, my triumvirate of trolls and Druzhag with five spiders and two bat swarms.

One day I'll add in a cave drake, but I've got the balrog for more points if needed =)

Cave troll drybrush 2

Quick update just a couple light drybrushes may not see the difference with this camera!

Cave troll drybrush

Working on an assignment at present so only a dry brush layer since last week I'm afraid.

Cave troll bath

Sorry for any lack of quality my laptop died! =(


So this is from my phone.


No real progress just a wash.

One coat troll

Say hello to single coat troll. Fenris on the back, tallarn on the front, astronomicon for the light grey, mechrite for the red, codex on the base, Tin Bitz for the metallics. I like the bluer colour than the standard plain grey. For starters it differentiates it from the bases and boards I use!


My other troll was painted in the pre-wash era from layer upon layer of thin paint, so I'll never be able to duplicate the colours exactly and won't even try. On that front I'll be using a fleshier colour for the skin rather than the slightly green tinted of my other troll. If I do yet another troll at some point I'll probably go for yet another skin tone so that it doesn't look like I'm even trying to make them similar!

Next up...

Next on the list are two cheap eBay wins. A metal cave troll and a goblin drummer.


The drummer will be another goblin captain, so cheap you need lots of captains for all goblin armies!


His backstory involves the slaying of a dwarf, hence the dwarven axe.

Shhhhhh

Shhhhh, don't let the Shaman hear you!
Nasty pieces of work those Shamans.


Anyway, done a fairly simple paint job on him, I don't really like using magic in LotR, but I guess it has a place if used very sparingly. 


My end goal is to have one shaman for my goblin army and Druzhag (the beast shaman) for my critter/monster army. Hopefully I'll get some more wargs soon and get that army rolling along!


For now, here's some extreme close-up of Shar'lok the Shaman. Hmm. Didn't realise I'd done that Sh word for the Shaman until just now! As always, the camera has done some extreme lighting increases, so picture it a little darker than this. Also you'll never see it this close up, so most of the colour transitions are far smoother when you look at it at a normal distance.

I noticed in the rules that the staff a shaman carries counts as a spear. So that gave me the idea that some shamans start off as regular goblins that only realise they have some supernatural power in the course of some battle or other event. Shar'lok here was a normal goblin warrior until he found himself beset upon in the course of an argument by an Uruk! With the pressure on and in the midst of being throttled, he narrowed his beady little eyes and uttered a guttural phrase. The Uruk was transfixed and, shortly thereafter, gutted. Shar'lok "appropriated" the pike and his fellow goblins were awed.

Since then, Shar'lok has maintained most of his original armour and can still win a fight if he has to. He has also become somewhat of a rat-kin, and you can almost always find one of the verminous horde nearby. Some say that he can communicate with them and uses them to find secrets. Others say that he just eats the best ones for himself without sharing.

His mangy brown cloak isn't even long enough to completely cover his body, but he keeps it cowled over his head and covering his old shield arm. Nobody knows why. Some say it's deliberate to show that he is still wearing his warrior armour. Others say that his magic has shrivelled his arm to a husk of bone and tissue. Perhaps it's just to deliberately cause mystery? Or maybe he doesn't want to share the rat-drumstick that he's got there.

I may do some more little touches, like the rat teeth for example, or some runes or something. But I may not =)

In any case, now I don't have to proxy Druzhag as my goblin shaman, so that's all good.

I'm relatively happy with the way he turned out, though my greenstuff skills are pretty lame. I'd have liked the cloak to be thinner, I think, particularly the hood. More practice necessary!

EDIT:

Did a little shading around the face, added some teeth to 3-D it up a little more:

Testing mobile

Just seeing if the phone can be used well enough for blogging...

Test photobucket copy:



640 test



Little more shaman work. Mounted on "rock" added staff and cloak clasp.

Edit: don't like the way it handles photos.

Happy Birthday to me!

Well, good news and bad news. Good news is all for me, had a great birthday, the boy was off to his Nanna's and my wife took the day off work. To cut a long story short, no game played and my parents are away for a fortnight holiday, so no game for another few weeks I'm afraid.


On the plus side my wife got me an army carrier case (she's been concerned about my minis getting scratched in their cardboard boxes) and the other two Gamezone eagle poses! So I'll have some hobby work to do if I get the time for it and will keep you informed =)


Any ideas on the best foam to use for larger models like wargs, giant spiders, cave trolls, terminators and the like?


Oh and I just noticed I went past 100 posts! Most of them are WIP and Battle Reports, so if you need something to do over the next few weeks, why not look back at some of the old reports!

Oh, and my current shaman work...

It's a shielded goblin, with a greenstuff cloak covering the shield and around his head. He has a companion giant rat (I'd like all my shamans to have something with them!). I've yet to do the staff, which will replace the sword, and to mount him up on a higher rock or something like I do with my heroes.

Once the greenstuff hardens I'll score the edges to make the cloak a little more ragged.

What do you get when you have an hour spare?

I got a nice eBay cheap pack of 52 goblins. Lots of the spears broke in the postage and some of them are so heavily undercoated that there's no detail left, but it was still a super bargain! (Insist on good quality pictures and descriptions!)


For my birthday I wanted to play a game of SBG and since we've had lots of dwarves lately I figured it was only fair to play goblins. And when I say goblins, I wanted to field only goblins.


Problem: My brother now has 820 points under the new warband system. I only had Durburz, three captains and Druzhag.


Solution: convert a couple of the new goblins into captains!


So meet my two new captains! Just a bit of greenstuff on the skin to turn it into chainmail, a spiffy "rock" to stand on and some bronze shoulderpads... took about an hour all up (simple paintjob, just basecoat, wash, highlight).

I'll take a proper photo tomorrow during our game, but they're nicely distinguishable from the other goblins, though obviously not as good as my other metal captains.


I have 28 painted of each type of goblin, plus a set of drums, three captains with shields, two captains with bows, Druzhag, Durburz and one metal mini with spear (who I'll use as Durburz's bodyguard - though rule him the same as a normal mini although I guess I could turn him into a Blackshield... hmm...)


Anyway, that leads me to the goblin horde...

Sorry for the dodgy pic, better tomorrow I promise.
Seven warbands, 90 goblins =)


Durburz, Drums, five spears, four shields.
Shar'lok (Shaman), six spears, six shields.
Jornik, Lurnik and Varnik the triplets (Captains with shield), six spears, six shields each.
Kar'cha and Nar'po (Captains with bow), twelve archers each.


(Druzhag will be just a normal shaman for tomorrow, which gives me 810 points worth of green goblin goodness.)


I'll probably be having too much fun to blog it tomorrow, but I'll at least try to remember to post a pic.


Wish me luck! (Lots of it!)


P.S. I already know that I should have a cave troll (or two), some wargs, bats or spiders for movement, maybe some more magic... I WANNA PLAY WITH JUST GOBLINS!!! So that's what I'm gonna do =)