Hello, my name is Taylor, I've been painting models for a while now, but this is my first Lord of the Rings model I've bought, all my others were War hammer and Dawn of War. From the rangers in the movies and as I've seen such figures in games it seems most have a dark green cloak, or a dusty looking grey-brown cloak. I was wondering what colors might I paint my own? I've got a general idea for the armor, but the cloak and some minor clothes are giving me trouble. If you could give me advice and the proper names of the paints you'd recommend I'd appreciate it.

Hi Ranger, personally I would go Green.

Here's a link to a painting guide in our library. It is for high elves, but the cloak part may be of help. The only difference I would make to the guide, is adding some stippled scorched brown to the bottom of the cloaks to show them as dirty and weathered and add a couple of highlights to the scorched brown...

http://www.one-ring.co.uk/kb.php?a=65

_________________
There are fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the world

It doesn't help that GW have completely renamed their entire paint range. This makes reading former painting guides quite tricky unless you have the conversion table with alternative names to hand

_________________
You don't have to be great to start. But you do have to start to be great.

Conversion Chart
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?catId=cat730002a&categoryId=6800002a&section&aId=21600002a

_________________
There are fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the world

It also doesn't help that it's a bit of a crapshoot how closely the new paints listed on the conversion chart actually match the ones they're "replacing" - they're usually pretty close, but there's at least one thing on there that replaces two old colours at once...

With regard to the greens, though, the matches are very good. Castellan is almost identical to Catachan, and so on. You shouldn't have any trouble following a ranger painting guide using the conversion chart.

_________________
Talaan-u rûk-ir tor Urûk
Nauru-ir agh kragoru nûrsu grishûrz
Nork-ulu furtun agh goð
Mordor-ob bot-tuk

Thanks for the tips the websites were useful, I like the idea of adding the effect of dirt at the bottom. Is it crazy to consider clumping the paint near the bottom to give it more detail? The dirt that is, although I don't see many models that have clumps purposely strewn in, it might give the look a better feel.

_________________
It takes two men to start a war, one to end it.

You do not want to do that. Use the same technique as Drybrushing to put the dirt on but use a combination lightly dry brushing and stippling the brush. The stippling will add a splatter effect.

_________________
There are fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the world