Paradigm's Ongoing WIP-The Forces of Mordor: Morannon Orcs

Paradigm · **Joined:** Sun Jan 11, 2015 11:56 am **Posts:** 264

Welcome to my WIP thread! FIrstly, some background:

I have been collecting LotR since the start of the Battle Games in Middle Earth magazine, but in general, neglected painting a lot of it in favour of 40k and other games. But having spent most of the last year painting Space Marines to the point where I have more than I can shake a proverbial stick at, I began in about November the process of painting up my massive backlog of LotR stuff. This revival so far has seen probably just upwards of 100 minis painted so far, so rather than showing all that here, I'll just post my more recent work by way of introduction:

Click to: Show

So that brings us up to date. And now, looking ahead...

My current project is based around The Battle of the Five Armies; to go alongside the supplement I've written for it (available in the House Rules forum) I want to build armies for the two new lists I've written up. The Army of the Iron Hills, and The Army of Azog and Bolg.

For the former, my first warband consists of King Dain (a repurposed old WFB mini), 9 Pikemen and 3 Kingsguard (elite troops). Here are the conversions from Grimhammer Dwarves:

As I type, these are on my desk awaiting washes, so pending lighting tomorrow I should have the finished Warband to show off. Here's the one already painted mini, King Dain of the Iron Hills:

I need to go back and add the crest to his helmet, but other than that I think he works well enough.

That's all for now, thanks for taking a look, and I hope some of you follow me as I attempt to plough through another couple of hundred LotR minis! Finally, if anyone wants a closer look at my LotR stuff as it stands, you can view my gallery of completed stuff here:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-77159-44169_Lord%20Of%20The%20Rings.html

Dead Marsh Spectre · **Posted:** Sun Jan 11, 2015 3:56 pm

Nice work my friend. I like the mouth of sauron in particular.

Morgoths_crown · **Joined:** Thu May 27, 2010 10:53 pm **Posts:** 161

Welcome Paradigm

Nice gritty lived in look to your figures, particularly the rangers. I always enjoy WIP threads so will enjoy your progress. I am a fellow BGiME addict although I mainly enjoyed the painting and gave my magazines away to a kid on our street years ago and how I regretted that now......keep up the good work

Gandlaf the Grey · **Posted:** Sun Jan 11, 2015 5:25 pm

Welcome, some nice work you have done here, love those Grimhammers.

Paradigm · **Joined:** Sun Jan 11, 2015 11:56 am **Posts:** 264

Thanks chaps!

Got the nine pikemen finished and based this afternoon, now got the Kingsguard and Kili on deck, at various stages of completion. Should be a pic-filled update tomorrow, unless the lighting is bad!

Dead Marsh Spectre · **Posted:** Sun Jan 11, 2015 5:47 pm

haha we're all a slave to the lighting huh

Melkor the Mighty · **Joined:** Wed Nov 27, 2013 9:05 pm **Posts:** 10

Nice work Paradigm! Particularly looking forward to seeing how those Grim Hammer conversions turn out...

Also that Dain is awesome and really fits in compared to other Fantasy models.

Sithious · **Posted:** Mon Jan 12, 2015 2:13 am

Your initial body of work is great. The rangers look so dark, very cool. Like the red on Elrond as well.
The conversions came out very good for the Grim Hammers to Pikes. Should do the job for sure.

Paradigm · **Joined:** Sun Jan 11, 2015 11:56 am **Posts:** 264

Thanks guys.

Right, had a bit of a dwarf-a-thon yesterday, so here we go with the Not-Quite-As-Little-As-Hobbits Folk. First off, the Kingsguard elite troops in Heavy Dwarf Armour, and many many weapons:

The lighting isn't great, but hopefully you can make out the gold accents on the armour and the grey beards, both of which set them apart from this lot, the Pikemen of Dain's army:

Pretty happy with how this lot have come out, the shields are maybe a bit flat but once on the table they look fine mixed in with everyone else.

And to finish things off, a selection of well-known Dwarves:

Oh, wait, there was a Dwarven shieldwall here a minute ago... That means there must be

Click to: Show

Now that's it for today, thanks for looking in and I'll have some more minis done soon. It's Uruks or Warriors of Minas Tirith up next, and I'm open to suggestion on which one to do.

Sithious · **Posted:** Mon Jan 12, 2015 5:05 pm

Wow. Love the elves. Your dwarf heroes came out awesome, I hope mine can look that good (they look tough to paint).

Paradigm · **Joined:** Sun Jan 11, 2015 11:56 am **Posts:** 264

Thanks!

THe Goblin Town plastic Heroes aren't actually that tough to paint; the detail is all there for you so washes can help a lot. In fact, painting Kili was simply a case of blocking in the colours and hitting it with a Nuln Oil wash, which did all the work for me! The only challenge is in the colours. In the film, each Dwarf has a limited pallete to distinguish him visually, but on the minis, you need to brighten/darken things a bit to get some contrast.

Paradigm · **Joined:** Sun Jan 11, 2015 11:56 am **Posts:** 264

Got some Uruks done yesterday, 2 Warbands of them. One with Captain, 3 Swords, 4 Pikes and a Beserker and the second the same but sans Beserkers.

Like most of my stuff, this is mostly washes for shading, but I think they've come out nicely enough. I do have a 3rd Warband ready to go, but I'm a tad tired of plate armour after these and the Dwarves, though, so I've now got some Rohirrim halfway through painting.

As ever, thanks for reading, and any comments/criticism/questions are appreciated.

Paradigm · **Joined:** Sun Jan 11, 2015 11:56 am **Posts:** 264

Apologies, I've neglected this a bit, as well as getting distracted with some Deadzone stuff (anyone interested can follow my general project log here on Dakka Dakka). Anyway, time to catch up with the highlights from my recent LotR stuff.

Some Warriors of Rohan, probably to be used as Helmingas:

Some of their Rider comrades:

Eomer:

Gothmog:

Shagrat:

And that brings us up to date! As ever, let me know what you think, and thanks for reading.

Dead Marsh Spectre · **Posted:** Sat Jan 31, 2015 8:23 pm

I like the gritty feel your models have. Really seems to help give each model its own individual character. Reminds me of another painter from the One Rings work but i can't put my finger on who it is.

Oropher · **Posted:** Sat Jan 31, 2015 8:49 pm

The dark colour pallete on those Rohan is excellent. You've managed the proper battleworn and natural look with those shields. Nice one man.

Dorthonion · **Posted:** Sat Jan 31, 2015 8:49 pm

DMS said

Quote:

but i can't put my finger on who it is

You might need very long arms, depending on how far away they live

Paradigm · **Joined:** Sun Jan 11, 2015 11:56 am **Posts:** 264

Thanks guys!

I must admit, the 'cover them in grime' method is about the only way I could get Rohirrim looking halfway decent, and I think they might still need a little work, but I was hurrying through them as Eomer took me to 100 minis this year. I may well go back and revisit them.

Earlier, I finalised my February pledge for the Dakka LotR army painting challenge, so over the next few weeks you can expect to see:

6 Rohan Outriders on foot
5 Osgiliath Veterans
24 Morannon Orcs
10 Corsairs

This adds a bit to each of my 4 'main' armies, and I may well grab some more Dwarves for Iron Hills conversion as well. Depending on what wins the vote for the Feb Painting contest on here, I may have something to enter there too.

Up tomorrow will be 5 Nazgul, the original Fellowship metals.

Paradigm · **Joined:** Sun Jan 11, 2015 11:56 am **Posts:** 264

Ok, a day later than promised, but here we have 5 of the original metal Nazgul. Some of my favourite sculpts, I can't believe it's taken me over 10 years to get them!

The Witch King

And the 4 others:

And the start of my entry for the Feb painting contest, a WIP Moranon Orc Command group (the banner was added to a spearman, the Captain has a WoMT shield)

That's it for today. For the rest of the week I'll be working through an odd assortment of stuff I've already primed, as I'm currently out of primer. Off the top of my head, that's some Uruks, some Hobbit characters and possibly some Rohirrim.

Thanks for reading, any comments welcome!

Ridgeback · **Joined:** Mon Dec 22, 2014 3:25 pm **Posts:** 105

Nice work paradigm .

The ringwraiths look very awesome!

Paradigm · **Joined:** Sun Jan 11, 2015 11:56 am **Posts:** 264

Cheers. I'm rather happy with the Wraiths for a simple 2-step scheme (drybrush grey, wash black!)

Paradigm's Ongoing WIP-The Forces of Mordor: Morannon Orcs

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