Pics as Promised

Skull Pass Baddies

LOTR/Moria figs

The "Nazgul" is a Reaper wraith that I bought two 4-packs of years ago, along with Murkillor as the Witch King. The idea was to acquire the Nine cheaper than the GW sets. I only have a couple left to do. 

GW Dark Elves

Furlough figure painting

For those few of you reading this blog who were not aware, I am a federal employee and have been furloughed these last two weeks (yay. :-/ ). On the up side, I have had time for painting. I'll try to get some pics up later, but I am heading out of town tomorrow for a few days (trip was planned and paid for weeks before the shutdown), so if I don't manage it today, it may be this weekend.

On the Moria front, I finished the cave troll from the "Mines of Moria" box set. I also painted a few figs from the WFB "Skull Pass" set: a night goblin, a spider rider, and a troll. I even finished three Dark Elf crossbowmen!

I have also actually been working on a commission from my brother. His new RPG "Call of Catthulhu" has been getting some nice reviews and he wanted some kitty minis to go with his demos, etc. I have one more to do, then I'll be finished with his order. I can't post pics of them yet until he gives the say-so. For the record, though, these minis are TINY! They are Reaper figs, I believe from their familiars packs. Thank goodness they don't need complex paint jobs. Although I have tried to do different breeds. So far there is a "Tuxedo" (black & white), a Siamese, a Russian Blue, a Calico, and a pure white shorthair. The last one will be an orange tabby. I've also tried to have fun with some of the bases (GW 1/2" squares).

Shadow & Flame (finally!)

Well, I have declared the balrog table-ready! He's been spray varnished and photographed, so now he's ready to drag some wizards off some bridges.

I beefed up the base with some green stuff for stability and added  a few Hirst bricks and gravel for rubble. The broken axe was part of the sculpt, but the cracked shield and the skull (in back) were added.

Going for the whole "fire on the inside" look.

Distance shot.

Not 100% happy with the molten sword, but it gives you the idea. The "stripes" on the wings are more molten-y goodness.

Prime Time

Not much painting lately, but I'm going to painting club tomorrow. After which I hope to have the balrog table-ready. For now, it's 82º, low humidity,  and just a bit of a breeze. So what do you do with a day like that when you have some leftover Army Painter blue primer (and plenty of white), along with kids who are scared of zombies?

You turn two of these* (free from a head-injury awareness fair):

Into this:

I stuffed the vents with newspaper before spraying and covered them each with a layer of gloss spray varnish afterwards. I wish my youngest had chosen the Dragon Red over Skull White, but whaddya gonna do? Kids!

*Not the exact same model helmet, but the paint job was identical (I forgot to take "before" pics).

Odds & Ends & progress pics

This little fella is a squire from Reaper's Crusaders (Warlord Line):

 Here are a few Skull Pass figs I cleaned up and primed, just to have for fun-time painting.
(Night Goblin, Troll, and Spider-Rider)

And here's the balrog so far. I need to do some gray highlights on the black, touch up the face (glowing eyes, etc.) and a few details on the base. Then I think I'll have to move on.

Cleanup

I had to go back over a bunch of the balrog's black areas. I noticed that the grey from the base had spattered a bit. Hopefully I'll be able to sit down and finish him off over the next few days.

I also prepped a couple GW minis from the "Skull Pass" WFB set, just because they looked like they'd be fun to paint.

Progress Behind the Scenes

I haven't worked on the Moria stuff in the last few days, but I have been painting a bit. I also finally got around to fixing my painting table. The surface is a metal tabletop that hangs on a free standing frame with shelves (IKEA, I think). I'd had to move it about a year ago. When I reassembled it, I hung the table two notches too high (about 36" off floor). It made for uncomfortable painting, but I didn't realize my mistake until much later and I'd put everything back. As a result, I was painting less. On Father's Day, I spent some of my "Me" time fixing it, and now it's back at proper desk height.

I also painted a few older figs to practice some layering techniques I'd been studying from Miniwargaming.com's videos (I recently signed up for their Vault membership). I will post some pics soonish. I also worked a little on the GW Dark Elves.

Lastly, I made a purchase last night. I picked up a Paintier 80 carousel from my FLGS. It should make seeing and finding my paint colors a bit simpler than the box cases I've been using.