Spears, spears and more spears!

Finally got through the second warband of spearmen today.

I've taken a few pretty poor photos, but you get the idea, I'll take some better pics some other time =)

Here's everybody! Except the Hasharin. Oops, dunno where he went. Maybe he's behind you right now!

This shows you the scale of the pyramid in terms of regular troops and just how tall the winged wraith is (I like the shadow it casts).

And although the bottom is a bit blurry, hopefully some of these guys are in focus for you.

So there you go, just one more warband to go, although I can play what I've got already as a legal army now with:

Nazgul on Fell Beast (by himself).

Hasharin with 12 spearmen.

Mumak with 12 bowmen.

700 points for the basics, anywhere up to almost 900 with lots of Mumak upgrades.

Another 12 guys to go now, 6 spears, 6 bows for another 84 points. Oh, and I've got two "spare" guys left to make into banner bearers. Not sure if I'd pay the points for them, but for the "look" of it all I'm looking forward to making a couple of scorpion banners.

There was something else I was meant to say but I can't for the life of me think of it right now!

Nazgul off Fell Beast

Well, I had a day with a sore mouth and little to do so I did some base-coating of more Haradrim warriors and finished off my Nazgul on foot.

I wanted a model that represented a dismounted Nazgul, so I chose one that I think looks as though he has been knocked from his Fell Beast then without hesitation begins striding forward and drawing his sword to enact revenge!

Same painting style as the other, Black, then Dark Grey heavy drybrush, then light grey light drybrush, then a couple of black washes then a really faint drybrush to finish off. Under the hood is painted Chaos Black right at the very end to ensure there is no highlighting in there.

Striding forward...

Drawing sword...

And here's the back, though it's not very exciting!

So there you go, I now have all three warband leaders done and dusted and one warband painted. The second warband I've more than half finished the initial undercoating but I'll be back to just grabbing an hour here and there from now on so it might take a while to get them all done.

Black Pyramid Grey

Well, thanks to some botched dentistry I've been flat on my back having had two procedures in one day culminating in a tooth removal. So the painting has been non-existant, as you may have noticed from the lack of updates.

Today I'm off the heavy pain killers so did some nice gentle painting =)

Here's how it was last week after a spraypaint:

I bought a very cheap tube of black and another of white for this job as well as a couple of large brushes. All together probably not even $10 worth of supplies.

Mixing the black and white to grey and doing a heavy drybrush resulted in this:

Another big squirt of white to the mix for a medium drybrush and then the rest of the white in for the final highlight drybrush and here's how it is at the moment:

Pretty happy with it really, quite quick and easy to do. Now I'm deciding whether or not to do a black wash along the brick lines (or over the whole thing) to further differentiate them.

Will make up my mind tonight and either call it finished or do a wash tomorrow.

Observatory

Well, you may or may not recall the backstory of my Harad army, but to cut a long story short one of the Nazgul has become fixated on astrology as a means of portending the future. I figured for a bit of scenery and some diorama fun I'd make him an observatory. 

Other ancient cultures have studied the stars and one of the more common ways that we know this is from the leftover monuments and buildings.

Here's one (not that Chichen Itza seemed to be designed for astronomical purposes, just that this was a good picture).

Obviously my skills aren't up to quite that level of task (well, even if they were my time allotment for hobby wouldn't allow it) and to add to it I've been sick this last week. In any case, I had some old noticeboard material out the back and cut it into a few layers. The bottom is 12" square, the top 4" square. Each block is about 1cm thick and I'm using two blocks per level.

From the side you can see it's quite tall relative to a person (or mumak). Unfortunately this material is HORRIBLE to work with. It's sort of compressed cardboard/paper with a bit of a plaster finish on top. It frays and pulls apart and just sort of disintegrates at the slightest touch.

The top should be big enough to allow a flying creature to land. Each step is an inch wide for a figure to stand on.

Here we are a short time later, I've cut steps on the sides and used some plaster filler all around it to try and hold it together. Unfortunately it still just kind of falls off and continues to come to pieces, it's messy and too unstable.

So here we are outside with some watered down glue. I've put two nice thick layers of glue over the whole structure. Once it's been spray painted and painted I'm hoping that it'll hold together! Of course, I also etched in some stone work, but I'm a bit worried that the amount of glue I've used has just filled in all the etching! Oh well, better for it to hold together!

And yes, you can see some undercoated Harad warriors there too. I've still got two warbands left to paint (one for the Hasharin, one for the Nazgul).

I'll be going all out on the paint job (not) with a black undercoat and some grey drybrushing =)

Mumak With Crew

Huzzah!

After the washes had all dried it was a time consuming but simple task to re-highlight all of the raised surfaces and voila one Mumak with Crew.

The blues all work well together I think!

From the back...

And the other side, sorry about the lighting on these photos!

Here's a trooper...

And back...

And a more covered one...

And back...

So there you go! Batch painted my first Harad warband, I guess I should start the next one (all spears) soon huh =)

Highlights

Here they are with some highlights on them. Pretty much just some Blood Red on the red bits and up to Regal Blue on the cloaks. Bleached bone on the heads and a few more layers of my watery graveyard earth on the clothing.

And here I've just about finished my pre-wash painting. There is some orange (an ancient pot that has been watered and reconstituted so often that it's horrible to work with) on the red, enchanted blue on the cloaks and vermin brown on the skin. 

Here's a closer look under the harsh light!

Just a little tidying up to do and then it's wash time. After the washes go on it'll be a re-highlight and finished!

Lonely Heroes

Well, having painted a Mumak, a Wraith on Wings and a Hasharin I figured it was about time to start (finally) getting on to the troops. My brother has started doing his Gondor troops, so I thought I'd better make good on my painting too! http://paulslotrminis.blogspot.com.au/

Short post today, but first up are the twelve archers that will sit in the howdah above the Mumak.

Here are my three lonely leaders (still a tiny bit of highlighting to finish off the Mumak commander).

Here are the boxes, one box is leftovers from my brother's army, the other is full, all up about 40 guys. I'll use 12 archers for the Mumak, 12 spearmen for the Hasharin and a mix of 6/6 for accompanying the wraith. This is roughly 850 points, though the Mumak upgrades can change that. The Mumak is obviously for stamping and killing. The Hasharin and his spears for attack. The 6/6 mix for holding objectives. Probably not an overly competitive army, but who knows? Really it's for mixing with my brother's army giving a LOT of flexibility and troops!

Here they are after a first colour coat. Graveyard earth on the basic clothing, Mechrite Red for the ties/second layer of clothing, Midnight Blue on the cloak, white on the turban, Boltgun Metal on the metallics, Gorthor Brown on the brown bits (bows, shoes etc).