Tale of Painters-Tutorials: How to paint The Hobbit miniatures series

Tutorials: How to paint The Hobbit miniatures series

Vallejo Transparent Paints

And another update:

Update on the Balrog:

Wow, been along time since I made a post. I have been somewhat active in painting, just not posting! Anyway, I absolutely love Vallejo transparent paints. I have been working on a Balrog, and the brightness of the colors are just incredible. Here is a WIP shot.

 

 

2nd Age Elves...an Update

Well, its been a while since my last post, but I have not been idle. Just been doing a lot of painting and other things, including a new computer. Here we go, with some 2nd age elves.

First an update on the repaints. I have been slowly working through these elves as previously mentioned.

Up next, I finished the sculpting on some of the conversions I purchased.

 

And the finished product on all three:

 

 

Up next is one of my conversions from Mr. UKFreddyBear over at Majestic Bear Miniatures. I was really happy with the conversion work (converted from an archer) and I can only hope the paint work did it justice. Took me probably 9 hours to paint and base this guy. The runes at the base of the cloak say "House of Elrond"

 

 

 

The inspiration for the shield came from the extras on the FOTR DVD. While discussing the museum-like nature of Elrond's house and some of the pieces therein.

 

 



Elves of the Last Alliance

It has been all about elves recently. I have been gradually going through the first miniatures I ever painted and repainting these guys. I remember when I got my first set in 2002. I saw the set at the store and remember going back and forth as to whether or not I should buy them as they seemed so small. I had a desk set up in the basement and I would paint there using a lot of Testors gloss enamel paints for aircraft. Back then I was just happy to have the right colored paint on the right spots. So below is a side-by-side of circa 2002 painting and 2013 painting.

 

I hope that its obvious that the mini on the left is the old one! To date I repainted three of the original 16 elves.

 

Next up, a fellow One-ringer was kind enough to sell me his elf conversions, 20 elves in all.

 

 

Most need a bit of sculpting before they will make it to the paint station, but one was in good enough condition to be painted after a bit of filing and sanding.

 

Next is to start my trials at sculpting. I am still waiting on my wedge and cone clay shapers to arrive in the mail. Between tutorials on the internets, and conversations and loads of advice from UKFreddyBear, hopefully I can pull off some decent work.



Mordor Orc Captain 2

The other Mordor orc captain in the scavenged Gondor armor.  The shield was interesting. The GW picture of it is rather inconclusive as to if it is wood or metal. I used DMS's as a guide and decided to go with wood. However, there was no woodgrain texture that stood out well on the model, so all those lines are done freehand. Took forever!

Mordor Orc Captain

My latest addition to the collection. I stumbled on to an excellent lava tutorial on Chest of Colors. I really liked the results and I wanted to have a crack at it. So I painted up this orc captain and mounted him onto a base of cooling lava. More pictures on the Mordor page.

Rohan Banner Bearer

I worked on this guy through out the week. Finally got around to posting some pictures of him. A lot of fun to paint. I think I will put him up on CMON.

More pictures on the Rohan page. Comments always welcome!

Ringwraith with lava base

Below is another conversion from Majestic Bear Miniatures. You may have seen a very similar wraith on the "Articles" page of his website. This wraith was painted up by one Mr. Dead Marsh Spectre. I thought the pose and the base were awesome, and I had been wanting to try my hand at creating lava and also working on painting light reflections on some of my miniatures. This was my first attempt. I am pretty pleased with the way it turned out, but I also see some room for improvement. At any rate, many thanks to Dave for the excellent conversion, and to Kev for originally coming up with such an inspiring base.

As always more views can be found on the MBM page, and also on the Cirith Ungol page.

 

Armored Glorfindel

Last but not least, my armored Glorfindel model. I am sending one of these off to UKFreddyBear for a conversion, and thought that I should paint up the original version. It just so happens that this months painting competition on the One-Ring is the Elven Havens. So I thought I would enter it and see what happens. It is a beautiful model, and was a lot of fun to paint. Its subtle, because I had to mud up the cloak, but there is also some freehand gold on the bottom of the outside of the cloak. I tried something new with the metallic on this one. I actually mixed in some plain colors with the metallic to get highlights into the chainmail and the gold. I think it helped make the gold look more shiny! I opted for a 40mm base so I could do a little more with it. The rock was just screaming to have a mini standing on it, but its way to big for a 28mm base (the molds are designed to go with O gauge train sets)

 

Radagast and his Bunny Sled

Wow, what a blast this one was. 13 pieces in total for the miniature itself. Then I added my own hydrocal rock, and three trees from woodland scenic. These trees are excellent, however they are incredibly shiny. I took to putting some heavy drybrush's on them to bring out the detail in the bark and also to cover up the shine. This is the most intense basing I have ever done. A hydrocal rock, followed by a layer of basing sand. Vegetation includes Scenic Express flowers (three different colors), medium green underbrush, light green clump foliage, long grass, and green turf. I wanted to recreate the sled in Mirkwood forest, rather than out on the plains in the orc chase. I am pretty happy with the result.

 

Argonath

I am running behind in my updates, so here will follow a few posts with my latest work.

First off, I finished the Argonath statues. I haven't put a base together yet, but they are safely displayed underneath an upside down fish tank. In case you get a set for yourself, a 20 gallon fish tank works perfect for them, but make sure you get the tank that is 16.5" tall, not the wide version that is only 12" tall.  The 16.5" tank leaves enough room to but them on a base that can be 1/2" to 1" tall.  Anyways, until I get to building the base, here are the statues. The Lurtz mini is in there for scale.

 



Tremendous fun to paint. The younger king of the two statues arrived pretty badly broken, but I was able to mix up some hydrocal and fix the cracks after gluing it back together. I don't think it is noticeable now.

My Last Barrow Wight

Finished the last Barrow Wight. Now its on to Radagast's Sled.

 

The Last Few Miniatures I Need

Well I just made my last Games Workshop purchase of miniatures. I now have everything from the LOTR/Hobbit line with the exception of a few ultra-rares and 7 alternate poses I still need to track down. If you have any of these and are willing to part with them, please let me know.

EDIT: I was able to make some Ebay purchases. Whittling the list down!
EDIT: Picked up the Dunedain!
EDIT: I got all the Outrides now! Just missing one Son of Eorl!

Dunedain of the North:

 

 

Sons of Eorl:

 

Rohan Outriders:

Riders of Rohan

I finished my other coifed Rider of Rohan. That completes my first set of UKFreddybear conversions. I can't thank Dave enough for the spectacular work he did on these. You can find multi angle shots of them under my Majestic Bear Miniatures page. Can't wait to get the next set of conversions mailed out!

Argonath Statue 1

Well, I do think it looks better in person than the pictures, but I just finished painting the first Argonath statue. I intend to finish the other and build a little diorama out of it. So stay tuned for that.

 

 

Warriors of Rohan

A while ago I commissioned Mr. Dave Fredericks to file off the helmets and put chainmail hoods on a few Warriors, and Riders of Rohan. I recently finished the warriors. Again, I can't say enough about the quality of work from Dave. Stunning stuff. Multi-angle shots are on the Rohan and Majestic Bear pages.

 

 

Mordor Uruk-Hai Banner Bearer

Hello all,

A few days ago I finished my Mordor Uruk-Hai Banner Bear that Mr. UkFreddyBear did for me. This was a fantastic conversion that he did from a Shagrat model (the pose holding the Mithril shirt). Just unbelievable work, and it was a blast to paint. Many thanks Dave! You can find muli-angle shots under the Cirth Ungol page, and the Majestic Bear Miniatures page.  I also entered this into the April painting competiton over on one-ring. So hopefully it will fetch a vote or too.

 

Side note, I have been using Woodland Scenics rock molds and Hydrocal to make the rocks on the bases of some of my more recent models. Can't recommend it enough. Really easy to work with. Two points of advice to make sure your rocks come out in one piece: 1) dont forget to spray your mold with soapy water before pouring in the hydrocal, and 2) be patient and give it a few hours to cure before you try and pop them out. The nice thing is that if they do break, it isnt an even break and they still look good. But if you want them whole and are impatient like me, I would suggest making the rocks before you need them so you are not rushing to get them out!

Working on some more conversions that Dave did for me and an ent of his so stay tuned for some more pictures.

Ringwraiths on fire

So I was inspired by the Weathertop scene, where Aragorn fights the Ringwraiths with the torch, to paint some Nazgul on fire. As inspired as I was, I can't sculpt worth a shit. Enter Mr. Dave Fredericks over at Majestic Bear Miniatures (http://www.majesticbear.net/). Indeed, Dave makes some of the finest sculpts and conversions I have ever seen. I commisioned him to take these two Ringwraiths and sculpt flames on them, and put the torch in the face of one on the right.

 

This is what I recieved and I was stoked to start painting them:

 

Here is the finished product:

I put some multi angle views on the Cirith Ungol page, and Majestic Bear Miniatures page. I hope the paint job did them justice because the conversions were fantastic.