Well guess I will show off my armies (all sadly work in progress!). I bought all of this back when the games and films first came out and got round to basing and undercoating most of them and then left them. 10-15 years later I unearthed them as I was moving house and my partner got all excited about it (she loves board games of all kinds and thinks the miniatures are really cool) so I promised to teach her how to play (I will detail our ongoing battles in another thread) and that I would get this lot painted up...

First up are my Men of Gondor. This being my "main" Good force I have every single model ever released for them except the trebuchets and the newer mounted Faramir.

The infantry (I also have three unassembled boxes of Knights)



The colour scheme I initially chose... not so sure about it now. I might do them in lacquered armour instead.



Rohirrim. This was the first army I bought, right after I watched Return of the King. I had held off buying the miniatures for the game until that point but seeing the battle on the Pelennor, I HAD to try to recreate it! I basically tried to ensure I had enough Riders and Royal Guards to recreate every scenario in the various rulebooks (The Two Towers, Return of the King and all the ones after).



Various Heroes and Characters (from different game systems - many will be used as proxies).



An Aragorn conversion based on Turin Turambar with his black sword Gurthang. Will use the same rules as Aragorn but I like to be a little different






Giant Eagles. At the time I hated the Games Workshop versions so I found these from an Independent company I cannot for the life of me remember the name of and got one of each. I do like the new plastic eagles from The Hobbit so may buy a box of them before 2017 too.










Haradrim. My main "Evil" force (I love Easterlings too).





Mumak conversion (I also have a T. rex that will use the Balrog rules...)



Easterlings (I have two boxes of Kataphracts waiting to be assembled too). I use them all as Black Dragons so they are an elite force and mainly to provide variety as almost all of my warriors, Good and Evil, have Fight, Strength and Courage 3 so it is nice to not have to keep rolling again on drawn Fights!



Corsairs of Umbar and Wargs (which will "count as" trained hunting beasts of some sort).



Stand-In for a Mordor Troll, mainly because I don't really like the troll miniatures much and wanted something just a tad different. I think this one is an old D&D miniature. Still needs to be based.




Various dragons. I have about a dozen of these from the old McFarlane's Dragons series, they make really cool battle game dragons. The problem is I have more than I will ever use but they look brilliant perched on top of the rack and I can vary them every so often.











This is Teronus the Ultimate Dragon from the Grenadier Miniatures range of the eighties. From the moment I saw him in a catalogue when I was a young child I wanted him; this model is probably the reason I got into miniature gaming. I will use him as Smaug.

This model gives me a struggle though, as the wings are too small for such a large body and I've always thought about converting it to use the much larger wings from a different model (maybe one of the ones pictured above - I have a spare). However due to the rarity of this model I am loathe to cut it apart and resculpt it just to give it bigger wings.





So that is basically what I am working on now... and also a set of modular terrain boards to play on. My partner and I have been using the unpainted models and terrain to learn the rules of the game (or re-learn in my case) and have been having great fun while doing it. Currently we are tied at two games each which is worrying as she had never played before...

One thing I forgot to mention is that I want every Gondorian model with a spear to have a tasselled spear, so I have converted them all to use Chinese spears from Foundry Miniatures so that I can paint the tassels as another spot colour.

Impressive collection. I reeeeeally like the D&D troll.

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The D&D troll fits in well and I like your take on Turin.

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My Lotr backlog: 305/952[][][][][][][][][][]32% completed
Painting Lineup: Mumakil x2, Rohan Heroes x8, Haradrim, SKoDA

The 1st dragon is great too!

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Awesome Mumak-Dino is awesome

Saw that "troll" in some batrep photos on the GBHL facegroup, looks good!

Looks like a good collection, and looks a like a lot of work to do!

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Today I did some test colour schemes on a Warrior of Minas Tirith and an Easterling... well, the Minas Tirith guy was more to see if I could match the colour schemes of the few I had already painted, as I mixed some bespoke metals for their bronze armour; the Easterling was the first I've done.

I used to be a bit overzealous with painting and tried to get every last detail done. In truth it is part of the reason I gave up all those years ago, as I just cannot churn out miniatures painted to that level of detail very fast at all. So this time I have decided to just get them painted to gaming standard so they will look good on the tabletop. I can always go back and get al those buckles, straps, boots and gloves later on!

The spray undercoat I used for the Easterling was a slightly unusual choice - a Montana Gold graffiti spray I had lying around (in this case Cacao). It actually worked very well, which I am happy with! I was a bit scared it would be a bit thick and cover detail but actually it was perfect. My rationale was that since I was going to be painting the model red and bronze the brown would be OK as an undercoat. Since I have rather a lot of these guys to paint I wanted to settle on a colour scheme that would be quick and easy to do.

I started with base colours of watered down Mechrite Red for the cloth and Tin Bitz for the armour (I have the Mega Paint set from yesteryear so some of the colours I use may be older ones). Over this I daubed on a copious amount of watered down Griffon Sepia ink.



The red cloth was highlighted with a watered down layer of Red Gore, and then with Red Gore mixed with Dwarf Flesh.



The armour was a bit more involved. I layered Shining Gold over the Tin Bitz and then over that I used a mix of Black and Green inks to give the bronze that aged look. This was followed by a highlight with.... I don't actually know. Over ten years ago I mixed a whole pot of highlight colour for the armour (I think it was a mix of Burnished Gold, Tin Bitz and Mithril Silver). The pot was still full so I used that! Then a mix of the highlight colour with more Mithril Silver.



I have seen people paint the eyes and skin on the Easterling's faces but I have nowhere near the skill and patience to try that on the plastic models. Besides, I like the rather sinister look of having the visor shaded.

The warrior of Minas Tirith was painted in a similar way but from a black undercoat, and the armour was made a little more shiny and golden.





The idea is that the "good guys" will be painted with a blue theme and the "bad guys" will be painted red, so they are instantly recognisable on the tabletop.

Anyway, I was fairly pleased with how quickly I was able to paint these two... just a few hundred more to go!

Wow. I really like the simple but effective color scheme for your easterling! The colors for the warrior of Minas Tirith also works very well.

I'm not sure I really like the green color for the base rim though.

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My WIP page: Click Here! -->So It Begins

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Thanks, I was quite happy with how quick it was to paint, gives me confidence that I can batch paint them to that standard reasonably quickly (I suck at painting large numbers of figures).

Yeah, I'm not sold on the green either. It was Camo Green. I will leave it like that until I get some terrain boards done and see whether some shade of brown looks a bit better.

Couple of work in progress models I am making a start on tonight.

First up a test model for my Haradrim infantry. I started with a sprayed on undercoat of Wine Red. Over that I used a watered down base of Mechrite Red, and then a quick highlight with Red Gore followed by a liberal wash with Gryphon Sepia to deepen the red and add a bit of shading. I will follow up tomorrow with some highlights.

(Again these are not meant as display pieces but gaming figures so I try to paint them neatly but quickly, taking as few steps as I can to get them to the required standard).







Next up a character model. It's actually a Reaper miniature, the first I've ever purchased. Not sure what I will use her as in-game; I was thinking possibly a stand-in for a Mage or Shaman.

This particular figure is one of the Bones series (flexible resin). I actually bought two versions, one in resin and one in white metal, to see whether there was any actual difference in the mood quality. I have to say that while the Bones version is half the price and very affordable, I found the detail was sadly lacking and nowhere near as crisp as the metal version.





Sadly my mobile phone does not catch the subtle layering I've spent the last hour doing on the skin, but it is looking better than the pics suggest (I'm hardly an award-winning painter, but I do like to dedicate a little more time on the character pieces).

I happen to enjoy painting skin tones and voluminous cloaks/ robes the most so I am enjoying myself with these figures.

The Bones figures tend to prefer a sort of bold colour scheme and broad painting. They rarely look much cop close up. Still, at the price, one can hardly go wrong!

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Dreaming of getting back to painting...any month now.

Got to agree there! I am thinking of getting two copies of each of the ones I like, the metal figures for long-term display and my best paint jobs, and the Bones figures to use on the tabletop as I kind of prefer gaming with plastic figures (rather, I feel safer as I find they don't chip or flake).

I am experimenting using different inks and washes at the moment. Previously I relied on layering and one ink wash, but I'm trying out various glazes to try and speed up my batch painting. I kind of like the result, although it is subtle.

A short step by step of my progress with the Haradrim test miniature. I've been using lots of inks so it's taken a fair while to dry in between each stage.










Given I am trying to paint them up to tabletop standard I think I am paying a little too much attention to detail and do not really think there has been any real improvement in the figure from the first pic to the last.

Still a few highlights to do on the little details though.

The biggest improvement my poor eyes can see is the detail to the belt, causing it to pop. If you do an whole army to your high level of tabletop standard, they will look great.

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"Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer."

Got a bit tired of painting green scales so turned my attention to a group of Warriors of Minas Tirith tonight. I have swapped their spears for Foundry spears that have a hassle, because I think these will look smart and unify the army a bit more (thinking of painting the tassles white to match the shields and having the spears lacquered black).





And a brave Captain to lead them.

Your 'Mumak' made me smile. You could start a whole new genre of books and films, which would be a combination of fantasy and the land that time forgot.

You will certainly be very busy painting all those miniatures. Good luck!

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Painting again...