Update Madness

I managed to prime the minis yesterday (Yay Me!).

Bilbo and Gollum (on 1/2" bases)

The Average Wight (war) Band

Ent-y!

The wights got stuck onto 1" squares for uniformity, but I think the basing will need to be prettied up a little. 

Treebeard (on his included 2" metal square) got spray-primed with a green undercoat. I was going to use black, because I wanted to make sure the leafy recesses were –ahaha– shaded. But I was out of black, so I used the green instead. Why not?

Next up: 

THE WATCHER IN THE WATER!

Yes, the pool is done. Granted, I still need to do something about the Doors of Durin, etc. But check it out (I put the bead there as a "Transfix/Entangle" marker):

Bad day for Gandalf!

The water is coated with gloss Modge Podge for sheen. I tried to make the color sort of murky. I also painted the tentacle bases with the same shades. The process was basically the same as the river pieces.

Another finished (but not varnished piece is Balin's Tomb from the GW set. 

Also, I did a color test for the Minas Tirith soldiers. It's a very quick & dirty job, but I basically went with the movie look of black and silver.

What IS that??

A pretzel gone horribly wrong?

No, it the water outside the doors of Durin. You know, the water part of "The Watcher in the Water"?


Remember when I started making the lake/pond for the terrain? Well, this is (finally) the next step. The border was covered in a mix of sand, PVA glue, and water and left to dry. I purposefully wanted it a bit sloppy to give it a natural look. The brown rectangle outside the edge is just a scrap of cardboard I laid down to catch the drips. The few edges and corners of foamcore peeking out will be further obscured by flocking and paint. The center of the MDF board will get a water effect similar to my modular river pieces. Though the pond will be more a murky greenish shade. Once the water and the border are painted, I'll add a few bits of scrub brush on the edges and some grass flocking. The piece should be usable as water terrain for any scene, but should serve admirably for the tentacle fight at Moria's entrance.

Do not Disturb the Water.

I had mentioned before about my concerns about the Watcher in the Water, and spent the last couple weeks trying to find a non-scratchbuilt solution. Oddly, tentacle minis aren't as plentiful as you'd think. Oh, there are things like "Chaos Bits" to add to the figure, but just monster tentacles are somewhat limited.

After getting sniped on an eBay auction for the old GW watcher bits, I finally found something worth giving a try at Auggie's Games. They arrived yesterday and –I have to say– I am pleased. Check these bad boys out!

Look out, Strider!

All six plus S&H was about $25. They are pre-painted, but look pretty darned good, IMO. I think I may try to make the bases more "watery" (and I may add a color coded dot to each base to keep the pseudopods straight during combat) but otherwise they are exactly what I was after. 

...Now I just need to finish the pool and the doors. 

Pseudopod

I primed and painted the test tentacle. Take a look.

1" grid on the Chessex mat for scale.

I think the color scheme is okay. The base is frankly a mess. It's mostly some watered-down blue paint and the ink washes just pooling there. The surface is lumpy from greenstuff too.

The whole this is too top heavy (falls over easily). But, I think the method will produce some decent Watcher in the Water tentacles in the end. 

Sucker Punch

I worked on the Watcher tentacles last night. I used a tip from Sytgianheart and added suckers using little press blobs of greenstuff. I super-glued them to the dried tentacle and pressed in the center with the wooden end of a detail paintbrush. Overall, I am pleased with the results. This arm may have to be just a prototype, though. I think I can do better with the sizing and spacing of the suction cups. You can see the effect is cool, though.

I also worked on the cracked lava skin of the balrog. Both shoulders are blacked in now. I added a yellow ink wash to tone down the white parts that showed through, but I think it may be too much yellow. A little more white left showing would have been better, IMO.

This weekend I may try working on the pool some more. 

Watery Works (many pics)

I was going to work on the balrog last night, but that didn't quite work out. I did manage to do some work on the Watcher in the Water portion of the set.

Back when I had made the modular river for Song of Blades and Heroes skirmishes, I had cut a bunch of other pieces of MDF in various shapes. The plan was to use them for things like swampy ground and ponds. The largest of them was for a small lake.

I pulled that out and decided it was big enough for the pool in front of the entrance to Moria. First I placed the board on a piece of foam core.

(The grid in background are 1" squares from a Chessex mat)

Next I traced it. Since the foam core was black I used a white correction fluid pen.

Once the trace was dry, I cut it out with an Xacto knife.

I traced an internal line about 1" from the edge of the foam core and cut that out.

The resulting ring will be the "shore" of the lake. I glued it down and put a couple heavy books on it to hold it flat while it dried.

The next phase will be to shape and bevel the edges a little, as well as fill them with some spackling or pumice to make them seem more natural. When that's done, I'll paint it. 

While that was drying, I took a first stab at a greenstuff Watcher tentacle. It's about 3 1/2" long, rolled around some copper wire. I made the sucker marks with the end of a detail brush handle and the point of a toothpick. It's pretty basic, but I think I'm on the right track. I may have to paint it up before I can decide.