Sam, running

A quick phone snap of this lotr mini I had in my lead pile. I think I got it with some other bits when pre-ordering Warhammer 7th edition. I stopped playing that same year, but not before buying a box of warriors of Minas Tirith and some uruk-hai.

I'm a bit tempted to start some warbands up for Saga Lotr gaming after seeing some brilliant stuff over at LAF. We'll see about that.

Edit: Updated dwith a decent photo while shooting my thugs.

What I painted in 2013

I'm a terribly slow painter. But somehow I still managed to paint some lead last year. Hopefully I'll get some more painted this year, but painting slow and taking my time has really improved my painting. My two warbands are nearly finished now, the shadow warrior still need a decent mage (should have gotten the Mordheim elf mage before GW pulled the plug on Specialist Games) and the Undead could use some more zombies and ghould. The dregs are in the painting queue, they should be finished in 2014 at least!

The group shot.

The Shadow Warriors

Metal 6th ed Shadow Warriors from GW

Aenur will be used as a Shadow Walker

Undead

Dire Wolves from Otherworld

Armored Skeletons, also from Otherworld

Vampire from Reaper

Workbench shot

I have been away and haven't have had so much painting time lately but here is quick snapshot of my workbench. The wyrdstone counters are done, really happy with how they turned out. The skeleton is almost finished, just got the base and some minor touch ups left, same with the dire wolf. I have to say the Otherworld minis are really fun to paint, brilliant quality and I'll definitely be buying more lead from Otherworld in the future!
I'm not entirely happy with the bone on the skeleton, but I have just placed an order on some W&N inks that I'll be experimenting with on the other two. Also as per Stonecoldlead's instructions I need to get hold of some VMC "greys", medium, stone and silver grey.

Workbench shot

A lousy phone cam shot of my workbench today. Just got some stuff from Otherworld that I have cleaned and assembled. I bought a pair of dire wolfs and some skeletons to fill out the ranks of the undead warband. Top quality minis, can't wait to get these ones painted. I will probably be getting more stuff from them in the future!

In the background you can also see some wyrdstone counters I'm working on as well as that necromancer I wrote about a while ago.

[Tutorial] How I varnish my minis

I thought a quick guide to how I varnish my minis would be appropriate as it seems to be something many people struggle with.

My way of varnishing was inspired by Orctrader. His excellent guide came up while I was searching for a good way to get a matt finish with brush on primer. I thought a guide with pictures maybe could help someone  First off, I use a brush on varnish because of the dangers of frosting. The phenomenon when a spray based matt varnish can leave a cloudy finish. As I have never gotten a spray primer to work well for me I just went straight for the brush on ones. As Orctrader I use two varnishes:

• Daler Rowney Soluble Gloss Varnish
• Daler Rowney Soluble Matt Varnish

Gloss Varnish apparently protects your minis better than the matt one does. I don't know how much of this is true, but having a gloss coat over your paint job makes it easier to see any spots you've missed with the matt coat.

Here is a mini before any varnish, nice matt paintjob.

I start with a thin coat of the Gloss varnish. As when painting your minis, don't just splash the varnish on. Wait 24 hours for it to dry. It gives a wet, glossy finish. Yuck.

After waiting 24 hours I varnish again, now with the matt varnish after shaking the bottle vigorously for a while. Brush the varnish over the whole model and do just one thin coat. The gloss varnish helps you spot any places you've missed. Wait 24 hours for it to dry. If you see some glossy spots, do another layer. You can also leave some parts glossy. I sometimes leave metals, gems, guts etc glossy to add to the effect I want to create.

And there you have it. A varnished miniature with a matt finish that won't cloud your paint job, but protect it against wear and tear.

A shadow elf and some wandering zombies

Here are the latest additions to my Mordheim warbands. As usual they were finished a while ago but I haven't bothered to take pictures.

I also made a little road sign out of a piece of skewer and some scrap bits of balsa. It got the generic fantasy treatment to work in as many settings as possible!

I tried an old school freehand shield design on the zombies shield. Unfortunately I overdid the orange glaze which took away some of the highlights and depth of the design. Its also a bit assymetrical but I'll probably get better at painting more symmetrical freehands with some practice. For a first attempt I think it went really well and I'll definitely be doing more old school shields in the future.

A Tolkien Bestiary

Yesterday I got this:

Tolkien was what got me into fantasy in the first place. I got the Fellowship of The Ring as a Christmas present from my aunt as a kid, finished the trilogy, proceeded to The Hobbit and Silmarillion and later got into Warhammer. I never had the Bestiary, but seeing it mentioned in a forum discussion about pre Peter Jackson LoTR and hearing about the artwork meant that I just had to get it. A quick check on Amazon and finding out that used copies are going for about 1 penny didn't make it a tough decision.

Overall the artwork has a much more dark age feel to it. Everything just feels more dark and sinister (and everyone wears chainmail). I haven't got time to look at anything more than the pictures so here are some photos taken with my phone camera.

See, John Blanche! 

Really cool map of Arda. Not all parts existed at the same time, but seeing it laid out made the different changes to the land much easier to grasp.

Look at those Uruk-Hai! 

Battle of the Five armies. I really love this one.