Saurman the White

We've been here before. But the new plastic kit of Sir Christopher Lee was too good to resist. 

This kit was painted entirely - apart from the Eye of Sauron in the palantir - with Contrast paints. I used heavily thinned Skeleton Horde in the robes, with unthinned for the darkest recesses, and various whites, blacks and flesh tones.

Like all the recent Middle Earth Kits this was an absolute joy to put together and paint and looks incredibly dramatic on the table. 

The kit also came with a mounted Saruman

From a purely gaming point of view this was something I was sorely lacking as I quite like to run a pack of Warg Riders and having Saruman being able to ride along with them opens up a whole world of possibilities... 

Shepherd of the Forest

This is a rather special Ent. After building the plastic kit I had a head and a couple of right hands left. That's obviously the basis of another Ent but how to make the rest of it?

Basically, every time we went for a walk over the year, I collected some sticks. Always deadfalls - after all, Treebeard would not approve of me cutting  healthy trees down. 

Walks in Yorkshire, Wales, the highlands of Scotland - every part of  the countryside of mainland Britain contributed some elements. 

Then it was a matter of construction. Some drilling and pinning and a lot of Gorilla Gel.

I added a couple of branches from Dryads to break up the outline.

Almost by accident it appears that I made an Ent with attitude. Just looking at him you can hear the Beegees.

I then fastened him to the base and green stuffed the root structure round the feet.

I painted him using the one of the greatest strengths of contrast paints, I think - the ability to easily blend them to get natural colours. 

The leaves were painted in the traditional way and then I added some foliage from my stash.  

And so here is the current army of Fangorn Forest. 

Very happy with this one and obviously it has a lot of sentimental meaning to the family as it represents our travels in the countryside - something I think Professor Tolkien would have approved of. 

The Eye of the Beholder

First an apology - for some reason, my replies to comments on the blog (and every other blog I follow!) aren't showing up. For some reason my phone no longer seems to recognise my google account for comments which is bizarre. I am not ignoring comments and I am replying they're just not showing up!

This little beauty is my first experience of D&D ready primed miniatures. As the name suggests, just get it out of the packet and start painting.

The results are pretty impressive. I was also impressed at the interchangeable parts and the clear resin eye cover.

As you can see, he didn't take much work with a couple of different contrast shades to get something looking very nice indeed.

The teeth and tongue were painted the old fashioned way and I used tamiya clear red in the eyes.

Stalkers

I took advantage of the Games Workshop Made to Order offer a month or so ago to treat myself to some Morgul Stalkers for Battle Companies games.

These were painted entirely with the new Contrast paints except the metallics. This time I experimented with mixing some different colours together or layering them for different skin tones.

They are rapidly becoming a must have tool in my arsenal as they replicate my usual painting method but without having to zenithal Prime or mess about with different thinners.

My Precious

As part of a second hand deal a couple of weeks ago I got a painted Gollum from Lord of the Rings. He's one of the characters I've always fancied getting just to paint so I immediately set about stripping him.

He's been painted with the new Citadel Contrast paints - very thinned for the skin using the Contrast medium which really allowed the detail to come through. I then used unthinned paint for the darkest recesses. 

 The water was done with the water effects I've been using for the ship bases which I think finishes him off nicely.

England Expects

I have more or less finished the Frigates for Black Seas and I thought it would be handy to put another guide to how I do the sea bases here.

They still need the pennants and ratlines for everything but the Surprise but they're certainly ready for the first game. I'll rig and add the sails to the brigs later.

The bases are a refinement of the ones I did for Cruel Seas which are basically a scaled down version of the ones I did for the U-Boat diorama.

The structure is a bit of sheet styrene - 2mm thick to provide a strong base. These are then covered in polyfilla and painted with dark sea green. It's important to make sure the ships fit but you can use this stage to model them listing or cresting waves.

Then add some offwhite/dark sea green highlights to the crests but also in random places. Then coat the whole thing in still water (or gloss varnish; still water is better because it levels out any little holes you have in the polyfilla)

Then slather Vallejo Water Effect Atlantic all over. It looks very bright but don't worry....

...it dries translucent blue. Leave it for 24 hours to make sure it's cured properly.

Now mix off-white, atlantic blue and still water and sponge it all over the higher points on your wave structures and wakes.

Then slather another, slightly thinner coat of the atlantic blue  and leave for another 24 hours. 

Now do your final wave crests and waves with a sponge, making sure to leave the stuff from the layer below visible. 

Glue the ships down

And finally, dip some cotton wool in the still water and place it around the bows and stern; brush it into place with the still water and you have sea foam. 

Hope this helps! Next up, an actual game.