"They have a cave troll..."

Started ploughing through the Middle Earth haul. The first job was to strip - using my favourite thing, Biostrip as detailed here - the layers of paint. As it turns out, the previous owner has applied the paint with a trowel.

I managed to get most of it off the first few figures I decided to start on. However, the Witch-King had a stubborn chunk that I couldn't shift. I think I managed to get it think enough that I can disguise it with paint.

The Cave Troll was a little more complex. The hammer came loose when I was scrubbing it and removing the many, many layers of paint showed that it had been put together in a fairly slapdash fashion leaving lots of gaps:

A little time with the greenstuff leaves us with something a bit more useable.

Just a couple of mold lines and then we're done. Hopefully get some paint on them this weekend - assuming I can get out of the other end of the traditional Start of Year Head Cold. 

Unexpected Shinies

At the weekend we went for a wander around the local car boot sale; with astonishing self control I passed the stall selling nothing but old airfix kits and stumbled across a chap selling a unit of Mordor orcs and Gondorian knights. He wanted 50p per figure which was way over the odds. I tried to haggle but he was unresponsive; I passed on the deal and wandered off. 

As is the way of things I suffered some regret and spent the rest of the time trying to convince myself that I did the right thing. The problem is that I am a big fan of the Rings movies and the Perry sculpts for the Rings range. 

Nevertheless, I went home. 

Imagine my joy then, when She Who Must Be Obeyed pointed out a big pile of LOTR miniatures being flogged on one of those local Facebook selling groups. 

This chap was amenable to negotiation and so I have become the owner of:

So there we seem to have a complete Mines of Moria starter set with the Fellowship and all the scenery. There are also some Haradrim and a few metal characters like the Mouth of Sauron and the Witch King. 

That's a pretty good haul. But there was also...

...the rest of the Haradrim...

...and a couple of Warg Riders...

...and just a couple of Orcs. 

There's all the Moria goblins, a box of Mordor Orcs and a box of Uruk Hai. There's also a blister of Uruk Hai berserkers. 

Not bad for the princely sum of fifteen of Her Majesty's pounds, eh? £15. 

I'm rather chuffed about that. 

The only problem is, it blows my Pledge all to Hell. 

The Pledge

As you may or may not recall, I took the Pledge at the beginning of this year.I would paint more than I bought.

Well, the total currently stands at:

Bought: 217
Painted: 133

So I'm not doing too bad, actually.

The big problem I've got coming up is that I backed the Blood Rage Kickstarter for the boardgame; the problem is that due to the massive funding it got the stretch goals mean that it's going to come with night on 100 figures. Do I count them towards the Pledge? I've counted the Bloodbowl figures I got second hand but that's a bit different.

Proof that I bought the boardgame for the sake of the game comes from the photographs I took the other week. When we reorganised the book cases, I had to accept that I have a board game problem:

There needs to be some variation on Alcoholics Anonymous for people like us.

Hail Mary Pass

I got the yellow on to the shoulder pads and leggings. As per usual, yellow is a tricky colour even with the pre-shading. 

So a chestnut wash, followed by another block of flat yellow gives a solid block of colour. Here you can see the whole team almost finished apart from the stripe on the trousers and the belt buckle.

Here's a blitzer in a bit more detail.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll get the bases done along with the detail and then that's both teams from the box done. Expect decent photographs probably at the weekend when I have decent light. 

Hail Mary

Didn't get them finished but I have made a start on the blood bowl team.

Here's the basic colours on (with the test mini at the front)...

And here's the shading the preshading on the white base for the yellow of the trousers...

Hoping to get them finished tomorrow.

As an aside, I've been watching Twin Peaks as I paint this week: does anyone know of a company that does a Not Dale Cooper in 28mm?

Time and Relatives

Managed to sneak away from family chores for 10 minutes to finish off the TARDIS. No painting - well, apart from one tiny bit - just good old fashioned modelling skills. 

A simple print out and watered down PVA allowed me to add the signage. Except for the phone placard; on this version, it was too small and looked, frankly, awful. So I painted some abstract letter forms which will do for my purposes. 

Bloodbowl team tomorrow. 

End of an Era

So here's the good photos of the medieval mounted men at arms to finish off the Wars of the Roses project. These side by sides show the difference with the colour palettes quite effectively; just the standards to add and then they're finito.

Back to painting in the evenings as of tomorrow!