Finally all settled in at Uni and I've got round to sorting out my new army! I've not had much time yet but I'm making some progress. Here's the beginnings of my army!



And here we have some greenstuff chainmail which I've used in an attempt to convert Riders of Rohan into Sons of Eorl. (Thanks UKFB for your help!)



I still need to try and file off their helmets and give them hair which I think will be a real challenge. I'm also really unsure as to how I'll make axes for them. I've started with the captain by drilling a hole in his hand and pushing through a brass rod. Then I panicked about screwing him up, put him down and did something else. The archer holding the arrow will also be particularly tough to convert.



All I need now to complete my army is the Gondor Command set (still impossible to get hold of) and Isildur foot and mount, also unavailable online. Anyway basing and assembling these miniatures has been fun and I'm enjoying making a new army for a new life at the University of Warwick. As I said in my last post, I really need some advice on how to quickly and effectively paint the warriors of Minas Tiriths' faces because they're rubbish at the moment and as usual constructive criticism is welcomed by me and if you have an tips or trick I'm all ears. Thanks for checking this out!

Lovely chainmail so far! As with anything practice and patience will bring improvement. Keep it up.

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"Rohirrim! TO THE KING!"
See my WIP

Looking good so far. For the Axe head I would be tempted to use plastic. Many household containers are made of plastic so just cut one of those up. Once you have cut it to shape, Glue the flat edge of the plastic Axe head to the rod, then get two small putty sausages and add them around the back side of the rod blending around into the plastic head.

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You don't have to be great to start. But you do have to start to be great.

that is some excellent chainmail you have sculpted there Dom. Looks great!

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Check out my WIP at http://paintingmiddleearth.blogspot.com/

Impressed with the chainmail. Good work!

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Respectfully,
Jonathan

Do what is right, love mercy, and walk humbly

Battle Companies

nice chainmail well done

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goblin: "people associate me with boogers because i am green"

Very nice work on the chainmail! I really like it! Just one thing you could improve is the leather strap above the chainmail, I think it would look better if it was flat.
I think I would do the hairs in two parts, so that you are able to hold against the green stuff. I mean you just press a little ball of Green Stuff on for example the leftern side of the head and get it in the right shape. Then you bring in the "structure" by making lines in it with a knive. Durkng that I would hold my finger at the other side of the putty, so that it keeps the right shape. When it has dried you repeat it on the other side.
I have just done one axe yet and because I have not had any plastic card I used Green Stuff. I just rolled it out keeping it wet all the time and cut it like an axe. The round side I just punched out with a protecting cap of a brush. When this has dried I applied some putty on both sides and sculpted the edge.
For a picture of both technices look here:


Hope it helps you.
Son of Fundin

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http://www.hdrskirmisher.wordpress.com

Wow Domy, what mail you hasve there. Excellent standard, and does the conversion job nicely. Well done

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"I am the Flying Spagetti Monster. Thou shall have no other monsters before me"
-FSM.

Thanks for all your advice and comments. I've been practising sculpting chain mail A LOT and I think I'm starting to improve a little bit. I'm still struggling to sculpt the mail into greenstuff when it's on the miniature and also when I tried to use two layers (as suggested by UKFB) whilst the mail did turn out better, I could never get the layers to match up exactly so ended up with sections of unsculpted greenstuff. What I've been doing is rolling out a sheet of GS, using a template to cut out a section to fit the horse then sticking it on and leaving it to dry. Once that's cured I then use the same template to make another sheet and stick it onto the cured sheet (where I never manage to match them up exactly) and sculpt chainmail onto that. This yeilds a higher sculpt quality but with sections at the edges where there isn't any mail and sections in the middle where the GS has bunched up and therefore I can't sculpt it properly because there's nothing to support it.

The other methods I've been using are 1: to sculpt the mail onto the sheet on a flat surface and then scoop it up and stick it on but the mail always gets warped and squashed and generally mucked up in this process and 2: Stick a single sheet on and sculpt it straight away which works fairly well (if a little exaggerated) at the top where the GS is supported by the horse's body but less well where it's just hanging as illustrated by this picture:



I really want this to look good and am finding it increasingly difficult not to just give up and change my army list to something else or just buying SoE models which would really set me back. Please help guys, it'll be greatly appreciated.

the chainmail looks good,
the parts where it's hanging.. i would add a layer of greenstuff there first, so that u got a solid hard piece to work on. A bit of support so that u can decide on the form of the way it hangs down first b4 adding the chainmail itself.

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goblin: "people associate me with boogers because i am green"

I've had a crack at this but I struggle to place the second piece of GS directly over the first. :/

Do u try to cover up the whole piece at once? Maybe u could add the second layer in multiple parts. First the upper part, when that part is cured the lower part...
Might be easier to apply smaller pieces then one big layer.

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goblin: "people associate me with boogers because i am green"

Don't try to match it exactly. If the first layer is cured properly, lay your second layer on and then trim the edges off with a sharp knife following the contours of the first layer. You shouldn't have bunched up areas of gs either if you have uniformly rolled it flat.

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You don't have to be great to start. But you do have to start to be great.

Here is a suggestion - I do not think the chainmail should hang so low, and I believe that it would be more realistic to have smaller, independent overlapping strips than the larger versions you are creating at present. I have been looking at images of horse armour and they tend not to hang too low as they would impede the horses mobility - after all, that is the main reason for using horses in warfare - their speed.
Examples - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barding
Some horse protection was textile, or boiled leather, or metal (usually light plate). I don't know if you have ever worn chainmail, but it is heavy, even compared to plate, so it really is not practical to give horses a lot of chainmail coverage. I like the sculpting (excellent!) and what you are aiming for but would make the mail coverage smaller, less deep vertically. Converting minis is great for adding flavour to any army.

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Thanks for the advice UKFB and Dorthonion. And yes, I have worn chainmail and I know it is really heavy! I'm a fairly strong rugby player and after 5 hours of that I was aching! That link is really useful, I should definitely do more research before sculpting next time.

After looking at some pictures and using a little common sense it does seem that any armour for a mount should extend no lower than the top of the legs as to allow a full, unimpeded range of movement but should be long enough to protect the chest (which is the largest frontal surface area) from arrows and spears. This will also have the advantage of making it easier to sculpt! Thanks guys.

The horses were of course bred to carry the immense weight of armoured riders and barding, from ancient kataphraktoi to the late medieval period and beyond.
Still, even then, the barding generally extents to around the knee or above, as to not impede the movement.
Some of the most complete suits available, as far as I'm aware (15-16th century Ottoman sipahi armour, comparable to that used by some Mamluks, Timurids and elsewhere in the region):


Following the progress with great interest, as I'm planning to make some Sons of Eorl in the near future too - and am more than happy to learn from your trials and experiences.

I've been painting up my Knight of the White Tower and I noticed that compared to my warriors of Minas Tirith he's huge! I did a little bit of maths and based on an average height of 5'9" or 1753mm and a average model heigh of 28mm the 33mm tall Knight would be 6'9"! Which is literally giant. This doesn't seem like it could be intentional, do you think it's a mistake or deliberate? Either way he's coming along nicely.

The blood of Numenor runs true in the knights of the White Tower, I guess.

Nice stuff in this thread.