Howdy all! Welcome to my WiP thread and "Warband a Week" project. Like everyone else, I've got a huge backlog of miniatures I need to paint, and recently, I decided to make a sort of project out of it. I'll have to apologize for picture quality, I'm currently in a room with only one window (on the far side where my roommate sleeps) and I'm stuck with my iPhone camera.

More or less, my goal is finish a warband's worth of models (13 or so, more or less) every week. This can depend on what type of models I include in the warband (I.E. Trolls, Ents, etc.) Since there are about 13 models in a warband, I can more or less spend a day working on 2 models or so, or separate some steps across an entire warband throughout multiple days.


As for background, I bought my first set of LOTR minis way back in 2006, but was much more interested in Warhammer Fantasy and 40k. At the release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, I fell back in love with Jackson's imagery and Tolkien's world. I began an earnest collection back in 2012/2013, but only recently have I decided to extrapolate and really flesh out the collection, especially in light of the drastic changes to GW's flagship licenses.

Currently, I've been working on my Mordor army. While technically speaking I'm in my 3rd week, I'd like to count my next warband as my first for the purposes of this thread. Nevertheless, I still have to finish the Captain to lead my warband, which is the Fimbul model.

Starting off though, here's my previous warbands

Warband 1: Orc Warriors w/Captain

I really love this model. One of my favorite out of the LOTR line



And his followers. I try to convert one or two orcs in my units so that the entire unit is not entirely homogenous with copies. Ideally, I try to ensure that one model, converted or otherwise, is unique to a warband.



A close-up of the banner-bearer. It took my quite a while to get an Eye of Sauron shape that I liked. Inspiration came from the Weta Workshop pin made for crew on the set of LOTR. This is another personal favorite model of mine, it oozes character.



Warband 2: Orc Warriors w/Captain

One of the new captains from The Hobbit. At first, I was worried that he was too "uruk-hai" like in stature, and that his helmet would not fit with the mordor orc design, but I'm quite happy with him now.



I personally find it a bit difficult to paint un-uniformed miniatures. To my eye, my efforts do not really look truly "random", and sometimes too much random can result in a too-disjointed look, so I settled for 3 colors which I would apply randomly to the cloth. I need to go back at some point and paint some eyes of Sauron on some shields, but I get the feeling that it will be sooner rather than later.



Finally, we get to Week 3. The Warband in question here is just about done, but I'm still chewing through Fimbul in both his on-foot and mounted self.

The Orc in question. I really like the look of Fimbul, and the look of the Hobbit Wargs in my mind now surpasses the older looking Wargs, being closer to wolves. Fimbul is only a temporary captain of this warband, I was able to locate the Mordor Orc Captain blister with the two variant captains, and when they're done Fimbul can go back to leading a contingent of Warg Riders. I'm looking to finish Fimbul by tomorrow, which I should be able to get some pictures of.



Fimbul's followers were a bit strange to work on. This Warband includes 2 Mordor Trolls, so instead of 12 models I worked on 10. This is more of the "hodge podge" warband in terms of equipment, but I look forward to fielding them nonetheless



The Trolls I finished before the rest of the warband.

The Mordor Troll always captured my imagination. It is, to my mind, the archetypal "big bad military monster" type for evil factions.



The Drummer Troll was a bit harder for me. The "under" skin of the Olog-Hai in the movies is a little more grey and less "flesh" toned, but I liked the look of the GW examples in the Mordor book so much that I decided to go with it.



And that's it for now! I'll hopefully get some more pictures throughout the week as I finish up my Mordor project and move on to my Easterlings!

Warband a week. Are you insain!? lol Nice work.

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Never commit to one style, to keep an open mind.

What tips do you have in making the orcs look varied?

Wow, those trolls are really good. A Warband a week is great going, are you not worried that you'll actually run out?
As for the shields, I implore you, for your sake, to finish them now. I ran into the same situation with my Uruk Hai, and let me tell you, trying to delicately paint 50 White Hands onto shields is not fun.
Good luck.

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Brilliant start to a WIP Thread!

Wicked! warband a week is an epic challenge.

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Hey guys, thanks for all the great responses! It's definitely a project I'm really excited about, despite the sometimes insane amount of pressure.



Hey Sikano! My advice is to pick 3-4 colors you'll use across all of your orc's clothing. From there, "randomly" apply one color to one part of the miniature's clothing, and then apply the other colors in the other spots. In this case, I used the Orc's shirts and pants as my two main spots, and I used Dryad Bark, Mournfang Brown and my own personal 1:1 mix of Mechanicus Standard Grey + Abbadon Black as my colors. So for some orcs, I'd put the grey mix on the pants, and the Dryad Bark on the shirt. Then on the next I'd use Mournfang on the shirt and Dryad Bark on the pants, etc. From there, highlight/shade away.

Sorry I didn't get that update in yesterday, was busy doing something productive...



Or... maybe not =p

Anyway, it's Week 4, so you know what that means. Easterlings!

But before we get started there, let's take a look at Fimbul and his finished warband.

Here's Fimbul on Warg.



If there's one thing I don't like about this miniature, (and the design in general) it's this weird bone-cloth-thing that Fimbul has around his neck. It's way less red than this in the movie, but it grew on me a tiny bit and I didn't really know what colors to use to emulate the movie.



And here's the finished warband (minus the trolls)




And here's a quick overview of the Forces of Mordor, 3 weeks in.



Finally, let's turn our eyes east, shall we? It's definitely a lot of Easterlings, and I plan on adding a box of Cataphracts (Yeah, Kataphrakts, but I'm not a huge fan of GW's spelling)



I've worked out a test scheme for the unit. Khorne Red, washed Carroburg Crimson, then highlighted with Mechrite Red. For the armor, I didn't want something too dull, like the actual movie, but I also didn't want something too bright, like gold, so I mixed up Hashut Copper with some old Shining Gold (I've got a ton of the stuff) and I'm pretty happy with the result.



That should wrap up Week 3 then. I'll hopefully have some updates on the banner or some of the unit by Wednesday!

Looks like a sizeable alliance already. Fair play.

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Ambitious........... the trolls are lovely!

A war band a week! And here I am happy if I manage a model a fortnight. Best of luck with your challenge, you have a sizeable force already and you continue at that rate you'll soon outnumber the forces of Sauron himself.