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.

Fell Beast Complete!

Well with the hardest part over, there was only probably two hours of work left to finish painting the Fell Beast and here we go...

Firstly you can see I've traced the veins on the wings in Regal Blue. I've also done some brown on the reins, bleached bone on the claws and metal on the metal bits. 

I was pretty worried about the brightness of the blue veins, but I had two things going for me... 1) the lighting in the photo makes it super bright... 2) I was about to wash them in black!

Here you can see the metal on the head and sword a bit better, I've also washed the claws with sepia.

And now the wings are washed more. I traced the veins in black wash, then added another heavy layer of wash around the struts (or whatever they are called). Also washed the metal layers and highlighted the edges.

From above you can see the effect (washed out by my lamp, but imagine it darker and less glary!)

Here it is near my ceiling light. Still a little shiny due to light proximity, but I think the colours are more "natural" to what it actually looks like here.

And here we are, some glue, some holding, some blu-tac and some time later...

And a closer view, sorry about the glare from that lamp, I'll take it over to my brother's house sometime and get a shot with his better lighting on the proper board...

Another angle...

And closer up, from this direction, the glare isn't on the head so much so you can see it a bit better.

And from the top...

And closer...

 Here's a lower angle...

Other side... I really like how dark it stays under the Nazgul's hooded cloak. 

And for perspective, here's a whole host of different minis...

I've spent so much time on the larger ones that the little ones really seem tiny now... almost... miniature!

So there you go, now I'm waiting on my foot Nazgul to be posted (Christmas/New Years not so quick for postage!)

A BIG thanks again to Oz Hammer (http://ozhammer.webs.com/) for providing the prize and here's hoping they think I've done it good justice in the paint job!

Now I've just got 35 Haradrim to paint!

And now that I've seen The Hobbit (and LOVED it) I'm sure I'll get suckered in to buying some of those new dwarves... or maybe eagles... or the wargs... droooooool!

Fell Beast First Wash

Sorry for the dismal pictures. We just don't have great lighting. My desk lamp is great for being able to see what I'm doing, but washes out the photos something shocking!

I finished the highlighting with some bleached bone on the wings...

Here is the top view:

And another angle.

Oh, and the base has had a few more layers done...

This is after a single black wash...

I held it up near my ceiling light to try and get a more natural colour, though probably too close to the bulb really so it's not quite that bright and shiny for real.

Back to the desk lamp for the other angle...

I still want to do one more all over black wash. Then I'll do the veins on the wings and other details like the reins, sword, claws etc. After that another few targeted washes should finish it off!

Fell Beast Highlights

**Thanks for the poll answering, still plenty of time to add your votes.**

I spent some time doing some highlighting, nice and quick and messy stuff.

Here's some grey...

And the base...

Starting the lava process, as you know from previous projects it takes many layers to finally come out looking okay.

This is after three types of grey, Fortress Grey the final highlight. I decided that I didn't like it. Too much the same as my board. I had similar difficulty with the Mumak as you'll recall, but this doesn't even have a decent lot of colours like a howdah etc.

So now I've drybrushed some pale brownish colour on the bottom of it.

And a dark camo green on the scales.

I don't like how it looks at the moment, but the idea is that after the black washes go on it the colours will essentially disappear, but not quite be just the grey colours. A vague hint of green and a slightly lighter underbelly will hopefully remain, but still be really dark and black.

Anyway, that's where I'm up to so far!

Black Fell Beast

**Another annoying reminder to answer the poll question about photos. So far it looks like the majority click for bigger pics.**

Well, as I mentioned, nothing exciting, just some greenstuff and spray paint. I still can't seem to get seams covered properly with greenstuff. I'm sure it's just a matter of doing something, I tried multiple layers of liquid greenstuff but I can still see where the seams are. Then again, maybe I'm just oversensitive or something.

In any case, I thought I'd put one of my eagles in for size comparisons. The eagle is more compact, the wings on the Fell Beast are really huge, very impressive!

This is roughly the pose I'll be going for, flying but head angled down towards the ground (where most of the victims will be!)

The wings sure do look huge from a top view!

I'll be doing a lava base under the Nazgul, so used a bit of greenstuff and sand to cover up the shield and weapons that were originally there.

Anyway, that's the sum of it so far. Not sure what the best way will be to get it balanced on the plastic thing. Haven't worked with anything like this before!

Really hesitant to paint it, not sure what I'm doing, but when am I ever hehe!?

Fell Beast

**Please click an answer on the poll on the right - I need to evaluate how I resize my images!**

As I mentioned in the previous post, I won a competition sponsored by Oz Hammer (http://ozhammer.webs.com/) and my prize was a Fell Beast!

I'll be using this guy to lead my Harad army (which I haven't started yet apart from a couple of guys and a Mumak) or my Angmar monster army or allied with my goblins or for my brother to mount the Betrayer on. So many practical uses!

So anyway, then we had our overseas trip etc. and I've only just got to putting it together now. I won't be doing any major conversions, but I couldn't resist a little reposing because I'm just compulsive that way.

I sort of wanted my Fell Beast to be looking like it was attacking things below it. So I used the long straight neck, but the angled head.

A bit of greenstuff fixed the join...

I also wanted the claws to be coming more forward, as though it is getting ready to attack something rather than just flying along.

I cut away the pegs they sit on and rotated them forward, then filled the gaps with greenstuff.

I chose the wraith that is looking to the same side as the Fell Beast head and assembled the rest of the kit...

And here's the other side. Today I'll try and get some time to liquid greenstuff the remaining gaps.

It's a really clever kit, the joins are nice, most of the seams are in places that get covered by other things. I really liked the different options to choose too. I'm a bit daunted by the painting, it's a big model! I think it'll be a bit of grey, some more grey then a black wash. I think I need to buy more wash =)

I was tempted to paint it with colours, but in the end I really like the general black, darkness of the wraiths. Given that my armies are usually quite colourful it might be nice to have just a blackness hovering overhead.

Probably shouldn't have written that, if I change my mind I'll feel like an idiot later =)