Hello One Ring!

So, back when I started this hobby (bought a pack of high elf spears right before my uncle told me 'You'll love this movie') I had no idea how much it would impact my hobbies and taste in entertainment. I've looked around a lot of these WIP threads and I have to say I crawled back into my cave. Many of you are extremely talented and I cannot begin to fathom how you achieve such effects on your models. Long story short, I decided to try, and I mean really put effort into my painting. The downside is, each model is taking quite some time. The upside is, they're the best models I've painted by my standard to this day. I will upload some comparison pictures between the models I finished today, then the ones I last did a few years ago. Criticism welcome, tips, advice, please! I want to use this army in my first tournament, and want them to look great.

So without further delay or rogue paragraphs clogging up my first post in this sub-forum, here is my Mirkwood Glaive/spearman.

Oh and some guy they call 'the King'.



My colour scheme. I used a 'chocolate cake' pattern on the leather cover over his scale-mail. This was achieved by a black basecoat, followed by Rhinox hide, agrax earthshade then touched up the lighter parts with Steel legion drab.

The armour was achieved by a black under-coat, Balthasar gold coat, highlighted with ghenna's gold and highlights on the edges and raised areas with Auric armour gold.




My first attempt at eyes. I think it looks okay! Better than I expected.




The King himself. Had a lot of fun with this and can't wait to get onto the mounted one (though it has some imperfections that I'm trying to remedy currently, so don't expect it soon) so just the 'foot' variant for now. His armour was undercoated black, then leadbelcher, washed with nuln oil, added a bit more leadbelcher to areas that had gotten too dark. Then I washed with Agrax Earthshade. I then highlighted with runefang steel, very carefully along the edges and decorative parts of his armour. The cloak was a 2:1 mix of abaddon black with mechanicus standard grey.




The mighty duo. Can't wait to have a full warband.

I currently have (A LOT) of elves to do, three warband's worth, with the new Legolas also. So expect some Palace Guard, Rangers, other armoured mirkwood elves and maybe some King under the mountain with grimhammers if I need a break from the Elves.

Thanks for visiting my W.I.P!

Nice work dude. Glad you're getting into it. I too feel the same way as everything you've said haha.

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Looking good, keep going with them.

That gold armour is asking for some brown ink!

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"It is the small things, everyday deeds of ordinary folk, that keeps the darkness at bay."

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thranduil looks great...you should be proud of your work on him !

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But Gollum, and the evil one crept up and slipped away with her..

Thanks for the feedback guys, I appreciate it.

The brown ink.. not sure what ink that is these days. Also with the two highlights done, not sure how that would look. Might wait around to see if anyone else does that, though I don't think the photo did the gold enough credit. It looks like a good contrast to the cloak/leather in the flesh.

I have a Palace guard base-coated, as I didn't have much time today. Hopefully I can get him completed and post up some pictures sometime in the next few days.

When applying ink, or shade paint, or making your own shade, you normally don't apply it after highlights. So I am not sure how you would like the idea of maybe going over highlights again. But, after a basecoat of gold or bronze, a wash/glaze of brown can help create the contrast and shade the gold without going into the arena of oxidation which would require greens. By shading after the base coat, you can retouch the base coat (mid tone layer) and move up the line to highlight layers and be done without much fuss. also a shade can be used to cut back a too sharp highlight. your gold is very bright and gleaming, but if you are happy with it then that is what matters first and foremost.

Anyway, I think Thranduil came out fantastic, the face is very neat. I think it is great that the film inspired you and that you are taking time to push yourself.

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Thanks very much, I'm very happy with how he turned out!

Would you suggest that I remove balthasar gold, start with ghenna and wash it with either agrax earthshade, or sepia? I'm quite new to what shades/inks to use, but I don't mind going over it again.

It looks pretty good in the flesh, it's possible the lighting in the room wasn't very good, so I may take another picture. It is very 'gold', but I'm trying to get it as close to the movie as possible, which is confusing because it seems to look different a lot. Very bright, but without shine.

Great job

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In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit.

A bit of good and bad news.

The bad news is, I've had an absolute nightmare painting eyes upon mirkwood armoured swordsmen. This is partly due to the cast and the awkward nature of getting the brush into the helmet to do a good 'eye'. After four attempts, I've decided to roll without eyes for my rank and file soldiers, or it's just going to take forever and I have a lot to get through.

The good news... Thanks to DeadMarshSpectre, I've taken his advice on how to use gold and silver together, altering my gold upon my armour. It's...very different, but I'm feeling good about it thus far. It's just had it's wash of agrax earthshade, awaiting first highlights. I will get a picture up as soon as I can. Thanks for your patience!

Exaggerate the shadow that the helmet give to the face and you will get a nice effect and no need to paint the eyes. Some miniatures are just not suitable for painting eyes. Check my avatar.

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"It is the small things, everyday deeds of ordinary folk, that keeps the darkness at bay."

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That's a nice effect, how do you have it so there isn't an obvious line from flesh to shadow?

Really nice work! I'm looking forward to some more inspiration from you, sir!

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Gondor: 2339pts
Rohan: 1318pts
Dwarves: 2482pts
Elves: 1091pts
Mordor: 2305pts
Isengard: 1762pts
Moria: 1463pts
Evil Men: 381pts

Do it gradually, I usually tend to paint a gradient of 3 horizontal straight small lines, mixing the colours. These miniatures are small but enough to drop a natural shadown because the helmet. That natural shadow will do the rest.

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"It is the small things, everyday deeds of ordinary folk, that keeps the darkness at bay."

Visit my WIP!

Just popped over here after the link on my Youtube VLOG - they look great! The colour scheme is very similar to mine and they looks great - keep up the good work and I look forward to seeing more!

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Eyes look good especially for a first attempt. Get these right and it truly sets the figure in motion.

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