Radagast the Brown

"Radagast is, of course, a worthy wizard, a master of shapes and changes of hue; and he has much lore of herbs and beasts, and birds are especially his friends."

-Gandalf the Grey, Fellowship of the Ring

"I don't understand why it's not working! It's not as if it's witchcraft! .... Oh, but it is. A dark and terrible magic..."

-Radagast, An Unexpected Journey

This was a little treat to myself a few months ago; a treat for two reasons. First because I wanted to complete my set of Middle Earth wizards and secondly because Sylvester McCoy is one of my favourite Doctors, so the chance to have a 28mm version of him was too good to pass up.

There's not a lot to say on this one, other than that I took one lesson from the Blanchitsu work I'd been doing -  a very light drybrush of white as the absolute final stage of painting . Here you can see it's helped bring out the detail of the cloak as well and slightly fading down all the colours and making the whole thing look lived in.

As an aside, we also had another game of Memoir 44. I occurs to me that all most people who've joined the blog have seen is the painting so you might not know where the title comes from.

These cards would be lovely if I had any troops in the centre at all.

There are five symbols on the dice. Would you like to guess what the symbol is that denotes a miss? Go on, have a guess. 

And that's where the title of the blog comes from.

The Gates of Minas Morgul have opened...

"Before them went a great cavalry of horsemen moving like ordered shadows, and at there head was one greater than all the rest: a rider, all in black, save that on his hooded head he wore a helm like a crown that flickered with a perilous light."

Tolkien, The Two Towers

After all the recent conversions and sculpting, it was nice to get back to simple painting. These were a birthday present from my wife nearly six months ago and they are lovely miniatures. They really pack a punch visually, and fit really well with the Morgul and Nazgul aesthetic from the movies.

I used the weathering and corrosion technqiues I'd learned doing the AOS28 and INQ28 stuff to dirty them up and I think the marriage of those weathering techniques to a more realistic paint scheme worked well.

One thing I did do was, when I based them, I added a trail of dead grass where they'd passed. This, I think, was vert in keeping with Tolkien's conception of the Shadow.

Annoyingly, the effect is so sublte that unless someone points it out to you, you don't notice.

Finally, just for fun, I looked to see if they matched the look and feel of the Mouth of Sauron:

Nice, fun little project and it's always lovely to get back to Middle Earth.

The Rogue Trooper

Sweat poured off Laramie's face; the heat from the laval pools was nearly overwhelming.

"Please," he begged, "you're our only hope."

The impassive gas mask  stared back at him. The heavily muscled skin of the man facing him seemed to ripple in the heat.

"You want our help?"

"Yes."

"Then pay us. We don't fight for free."

The Planetary Defence Force of Arcadia fell swiftly after the collapse of the system. While the Imperial Guard troops fought valiantly, most of the PDF fled. However, the modifications made to them by the Genetors upon recruitment made it difficult for them to hide. As the atmosphere of the world was poisoned by the Rift, their skin and muscalutre thickened to adapt; and as the toxins of the Drift blocked out the sun, robbing them of melanin, their bodies produced their own substitue which turned them a ratehr alarming shade of blue. Outcast as cowards and easy to spot, the remaining Genetic Infantrymen of the Arcadian PDF decamped to the Badlands where they hire themselves out as effective fighters for the highest bidder.

The biggest experiment here was the lava base, constructed from cork tile and a bit of paint. A very slight OSL yellow on the legs of the GI helped sell it, I think.

The inspiration for the paint job should be obvious to those of us of a certain age, even if it weren't for the numbers on his Helmet, Bag and Gun. 

For those of you who haven't twigged, he's my own 40k version of

This was the last Inq28 minature on the to paint pile, so I'll next be turning to a slightly different feel. I'd like to see if the tehcniques I've developed working on these will translate to something slightly more traditional...

Slough Toth, Drune Lord of the Bone Orchards

The tribes of the far north live in endless shadow and mist. The Faceless fight, bringing home trophies of their victims; the Skald lead them to war, when war is required; and the cheiftans make the decisions day to day. But who choses the victims; who declares the wars; who swears the cheiftans to their dark oaths?

The Drune Lords tend the Bone Orchards. The Drune Lords summon forth the spirits of the cold winds of change. The Drune Lords speak for the dead; the Drune Lords speak to the dark; the Drune Lords speak, and the Faceless follow.

The most feared of them is the Drune Lord Slough Feg; but even he fears Slough Toth, the Devourer.

This was another fairly serious conversion job: as you can see, he's built around a dryad but with a skeletal torso and nurgle demon arm. Then a lot of greenstuff hair and lianas. 

His companion was a riff on the idea of the Bone Orchards; I imagined there must be someone or something to tend them. This little chap was knocked together out of undead and dryad bits; to a rather pleasing effect, I think. 

And here are my two Drune Lords and their helper:

This marks the end of this little project: if I get the time this week I'll get a shot of the whole warband together and maybe put together another page like I did for the Nurgle Project or the Bloodbowl stuff. As always thank you for your comments and suggestions. It's all much appreciated.