Main parts of Fountain Court done

I wasn't able to get pics taken yet, but I've gotten all of the basecoating done for the Guards, and now just need to get detail and highlights. They're looking pretty sharp, though I probably could have done a better job with more time. I'll get Ecthelion and a couple of Dunedain with spears primed this morning to see if I can get them knocked out tonight.

I hate painting white...

OK, I just spent a little over an hour to get the white onto these five models. Figure about 22 minutes a model to paint the feathers and the tabards from black to brown to bone to white.



Ugh, what a pain in the rear. There just isn't a lot of options - a white undercoat wouldn't have worked, and from my experience it is harder to get a really good shadowing on white base coated models. It's great for set pieces, but for speed, I prefer black priming.

Of course, then you still have to deal with white.

Ecthelion Conversion Done

OK, Ecthelion is done apart from the shield, which I'll put on later. OK, minor conversion, but most LOTR conversions are simple anyway.



I green stuffed the gap in the neck and created longer hair to cover the shelf in the back of the model. All in all, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.



"Bro, that ain't cool."



Heh heh heh... Well, now it's time to sand that guy's base and maybe get a little more painting done on the Fountain Court guards.

Bro, I'm gonna rip your head off

OK, it's time to do Ecthelion. I've decided to use the following models of the brothers Boromir and Faramir. This is particularly appropriate since Ecthelion is their grandfather.



I really like the Boromir model, but between not having a shield and the misaligned mold it just didn't justify building. On the other hand, I HATE the Faramir model, since it is about as non-dynamic as it gets. He does have a nice helmet on, though. So I decided to chop off their heads and put Faramir's helmet onto Boromir's body. Here is the implement of decapitation!



Boromir was pretty straight forward, particularly since the model doesn't have much of a neck. I just chopped across the top of the shoulders. With Faramir I went in a V to preserve something of the neck, then wiggled the head loose.



Next I checked the fit of the two pieces and filed them down to they fit, and just glued them together. I did have to trim the hair a little bit to make it look somewhat natural, though I'll still need to use Green Stuff to make it look better.



I'll be readying a Minas Tirith shield that I'll probably slap on after I've painted the model. Well, I'm going to let the glue set and get some dinner.

First Fountain Court done to minimum standard

OK, so my test model for the Guards of the Fountain Court is done. I am pretty happy with it, but I'm going to have to determine how to do it more quickly than the hour and a half or so that it took me to do. Assembly lining it should help, but some parts are just going to take a while.

So I started off with a coat of Khemri Brown, a tan Foundation Paint, covering the areas that will be white. Nexxt I put down some Bleached Bone - I had to put a couple coats down on the flatter areas - keeping light colors smooth is a huge pain. I tried to keep the darker Khemri showing in the low areas.



Following that, I put down Skull White, again in some cases having to put down a second, more watery coat of paint to smooth things out. The feathers on the helmet did take a significant amount of time here.



I then put down Dwarf Bronze on areas that would be metallic gold, including on the edges of the shoulder plates. I then put down Shining Gold. The Bronze is a key element to put on first, because without it the Gold looks thin and streaky. I'm going to have to pare this back - the armor edges were a huge pain in the rear to get right, so I'll probably just stick to the helmet and the tabard. I also had to put some Ogryn Flesh wash on the decoration on the helmet then flat highlight with Shining Gold, since the texture wasn't very deep and the paint was thick. Next time I'll just put down the wash over the Bronze. I also put black paint into the areas along the gold to separate it from the white cloth.



Next came putting black on the shield, including taking the time to put some black between the branches on the shield. This does make the shield look nicer, but I'll only do that on all the models if I'm flush on time. Not bloody likely at this point. I also put a black wash over the chest armor, which brought the tree out nicely - it kind of looks like a Spiderman symbol while painting it...



Finally, I highlighted the black cloth with a mix of black and Shadow Grey. This was the hardest decision for me, since I really wanted to black to look black, but in the end I thought tying the highlights into the rest of the force would work. I then painted the skin inside the helmet with Tanned Flesh, painted the eyes white, dotted the pupils with black, and highlighted the flesh with Dwarf Flesh.



At some point, I want to improve the highlights on the cloak, highlight the metallics, and put a design into the gold trim. Oh, I need to paint the spear shaft brown as well, but that's a must do. I'll probably do that later tonight or tomorrow. I think next up will be converting Ecthelion.

I'm way behind...

Well, the great push I planned over the weekend ended up being a flop. I did get the following done:



So I've got all of my basic troops done to a minimal level and my Fountain Court are getting started, but I still need to convert Ecthelion, and I'd really like to get three more rangers converted with spears. As much as I hate to admit it, I'm contemplating calling in sick Friday... OK, I almost certainly won't do that, but I can see forgoing my sacred sleep to get some more done.

Well, at least I had fun

I ran a tournament at DundraCon today, and I had a lot of fun running it. Unfortunately, I also didn't get very much painting done, which I had counted on actually getting a significant amount done. I did manage to tank brush the troops and wash them, but no more than that, and I got a few of the Guards of the Fountain Court base coats on their armor. Uh, and that was it. Alas, I had to play as the ringer for two of the three rounds and then help the new ringer out a bit in the third. So crunch time is rapidly approaching. Maybe tomorrow I can do another painting marathon in the morning.

I did manage to get a total of 6 players into the tournament, which is pretty well attended for LOTR tourneys in this area. I deliberately played against Wyn in the first round, which was a slightly modified To Kill A King where if the kings aren't killed then it goes to killing other heroes for Minor Win determination. We got some terrific houses that you could remove the roof from, and I managed to pop Gandalf (my king - it had to be the highest point model) into it supported by other troops. Wyn, who was playing Dol Guldur, pretty much wrote off cracking that nut, and instead ran a budget wraith up and Black Darted my other Hero, Damrod, out of existence. I went running after his now fleeing force, and managed to break his army but failed to cap any of his heroes (wraith and a Spider Queen). So the ringer army took a Minor Loss the first round despite losing three models the whole game.

The other two games were both wins for the Small Errand, with Gandalf making huge contributions to both wins and becoming a bit of a joke in the room - "Oh, it's your turn to get beat on by Gandalf?" to whoever was playing the ringer army. Hey, that's not fair - Gandalf almost got crushed by a dogpile of Uruk-Hai, including a captain, which laid three wounds on him in one round - the first three fate rolls all failed, but the rerolls saved two of the wounds.

Anyway, that's it for now. Bed time.