There And Back Again – An OTTer’s Journey

A few extra miniatures that fit the theme of Minas Tirith and the Battle Of Osgiliath and the subsequent battles around the White City.

Gandalf The White was a lot of fun to paint. He might not be the fancy new plastic miniatures but it was cool to get that added into the mix. The same goes for Pippin dressed as one of the Citadel Of The Guard.

There was also my first proper attempt at doing some freehand with the Eye Of Sauron on the banner for this Orc.

I don’t need much to add to a big 500 point force for Mordor now. Minas Tirith would need a bit of extra work to bring it up to that point limit but not by much!

A few of the miniatures finished off for the different characters in Battle Of Osgiliath…

Quite enjoyed doing some of the bigger characters from the boxed set. I had a lot of fun with the Troll in particular and the finished look of Gothmog. Making me like the idea of a Mordor army a lot more.

I thought I would try and get through the hobby funk that sets in after doing a lot of batch painting by working on single-character miniatures from the collection!

The idea, inspired by Eons Of Battle, was to paint one miniature every day from start to finish. No switching to another miniature, no other project, just one miniature from start to finish.

I started with seven miniatures that I didn’t think I would ever get around to without doing something like this. The list was…

• Imrahil
• Ghan-Buri-Ghan
• Sharkey
• Isildur
• Easterling Captain
• The Witch-King
• Haldir

I started off strong with the painting of Imrahil and Ghan-Buri-Ghan wh0 were quite easy to get finished since they were a lot of one colour essentially.

One of the things that was quite interesting about this process is that you have to do a lot of waiting. You need to wait for layers to dry, for washes to settle in and for basing materials to work!

It is a very different mode of painting where normally you’d move on and paint up something from another miniature. But, it was quite neat to be able to be satisfied with a breakpoint during the day and then come back after a cup of tea to do more on a miniature.

Even though you take breaks and such though, that’s the point of this. To show a different way of painting that is less intensive and has you being able to enjoy the process from beginning to end.

It also seems like a great way to get through your backlog of single miniatures that might not have a place in wider armies. This is especially good if your miniatures feature different textures, colours and themes as it means you get to step out of your comfort zone too!

Unfortunately, I didn’t complete my task over the 7 days. It got to day 6 and I made a boo-boo! I knew I was going to have to rush to get the final miniature done and instead of making it the easy-to-paint Witch-King (above), I decided to paint up him on day 6 and leave Haldir for day 7.

That meant I had a complicated miniature to finish things off with and I just didn’t have the time. Adulting got in the way and I ended up not being able to complete the challenge. But, it’s better to explore the realities of something like this than lie about the end result!

Currently, this is where I’ve got Haldir too (below) and I will be finishing him off this week alongside some other miniatures from my collection.

This was a fun challenge though and I will certainly try it again to get more characters painted from my collection!

Also took some time to try out a scheme for my Morannon Orcs from the Battle Of Osgiliath.

Even had a pop at the evil eye symbol on the shield. I think it works pretty decently and the scheme as a whole seems do the job. Again, a bunch of drybrushing followed by some red to make some elements of the miniature pop.

Just need to have a go at trying out some different flesh colours for the Orcs.

Started working on some of the miniatures from Battle Of Osgiliath. Warriors Of Minas Tirith kicked things off. Going to try and get through these as simply as possible and that essentially means drybrushing, black and a few details here and there…

I think it worked out pretty well. It isn’t massively detailed but I think that it did a solid job of finishing up the armoured elements of Minas Tirith without too much work. I reckon that the Rangers are going to take up a bunch of my time!

Will have them sorted in no time. I was actually pleased to realise that I have a bunch of additional Minas Tirith miniatures in metal to use with the army. I have an old metal Gandalf and Pippin plus armoured Boromir if I want to fight out an older clash.

I took some time over the holidays to paint up my plastic Fellowship from Battle In Balin’s Tomb!

I quite enjoyed painting them as my partner suggested which one I should do next at each step. They didn’t take too long to paint but I sorely missed working on the details of the metal miniatures.

Thankfully, I do have the original metal Fellowship and painted them up at the start of this project and I would choose them every day over these. BUT, the miniatures look fun and will be great to include in the Balin’s Tomb box so I can just use them exclusively for that!

I was very lucky to get my hands on a copy of Battle In Balin’s Tomb which was available for a limited time last year. I have since undercoated everything and started work on the painting, beginning with the Moria Goblins as they can also be used for the expanding force that I need to go up against my Dwarves led by Balin.

The goblins took about 4 hours in total to paint. Drybrush over black, add the red, green and brown, wash with Nuln Oil and a bit of Reikland to mimic rust and then a bit of highlighting to make them stand out. Not a masterful job but it got them sorted on a mass scale without much issue.

The Troll was a bit more of a mammoth task as it involved a bunch of wet blending for the skin tone and then a wash that had to be worked back up. He still looks “dirty” but I think that’s fine for a Cave Troll. Need to sort some of the pooling out from the wash on the hammer but otherwise a fun model to paint.

In the grand scheme of things, I think I prefer the metal one that I painted but the plastic one also looks neat and will be good to just drop into the game box to be used specifically with Balin’s Tomb.

Good fun doing something a bit different and now I have to choose where to go next. Fellowship or more Dwarves? I kinda think I SHOULD paint my Rohan dismounts but I might indulge myself with something else for the moment.

The second battle (yes folks, you can fit more than one battle a day in if you don’t play Warhammer 40K) was a 400-point clash between Rohan and Harad.

On the one side we had Eowyn leading a band of Riders Of Rohan whilst Gamling took up the centre of the field with his Warriors Of Rohan, Banner, Horn and the like. Merry also joins the fighting and kept a position with the archers.

On the other side, Harad was led by a Lord, Hasharin and Chieftain led a band of Raiders and Warriors in their attack on the lands of the Horse Lords.

This was a pretty good Domination win for the Riders Of Rohan. The Warriors formed up in the centre and used their throwing spears to great effect as when pinned in place, the thundering cavalry led by Eowyn was able to crush most of the Harad forces as they tried to hold the line.

On the far right of the battlefield, a small contingent of Riders was able to hold up one of the more powerful characters in the Harad force and deny them the ability to get back into the fighting in the centre.

In the end, the cavalry of Rohan won the day (and reminded me that I needed to paint dismounts) and it was a good showing for the horse lords. Just need to get some more models to get them up to 600! I’m thinking Theoden and some more cavalry!