Sunday, July 31, 2016

More prep for Lord of the Rings

As I continue to work on my display projects for the Capital Palette at NOVA Open, I also continue to fit in work on my LotR orcs, in preparation for the gaming events I signed up for.

Aarrgh!!  A leader for one of my Orc warbands. 
Problem is, I'll probably need 3 or so leaders, and I have only 1 leader model!
I'll have to proxy models from the Warrior models.


I thought I had posted the next photo in an earlier blog post.  I sure wish I had, because I was going to describe how each approach was different for painting the metallics for each of the 3 figures.  Now I can't remember, of course, and it will be back to the drawing board!

Looking for the best 'assembly line' recipe to use for the rest of the army.

I think I decided on a simple 2-step solution.  Basecoat with a brownish-red and then dry-brush with metal.  Some of the experiments involved washes before and/or after the dry-brush, and I think I decided the wash didn't make enough difference for batch-painting 48 models.

The next experiment was to decide what color combinations to use for the skin tones.

Looking for skin tone combos that I like.

In a mass of 48 orcs, I don't care if the group contains some failed experiments.  For instance, I didn't like the results for the grays and the brighter greens or reds (the reds look like Darth Maul!).  But I'll keep them in the army anyway, i.e. it's not worth repainting them.  Certainly not worth stripping them.

I do like the orangish-reds, the orangish-yellows, the olives, and the chocolate browns.  Four combos should be fine.  One for each instance of each pose.

I'll be under pressure to finish the display pieces and the gaming models in time for NOVA.  This month is going to be intense at work.  I don't know what I'm going to do, if I don't have Warg riders and Haradrim cavalry painted up.  I suppose I'll have plenty of Orc infantry, but I would really like to have some more interesting units in the mix.

Eventually, though, I will need to make time to paint Darth Maul facial tattoos on that red-faced spearman...


7 comments:

  1. That is shaping up to be a really impressive army. Are you playing in the Lord of the Rings tournament, or is there some other event you are playing in?

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  2. You know me, John, tournaments are not my cup of tea. However, the great thing about the D.C. Hobbit League is that they organized about a half-dozen different types of events. Including at least two narrative events, which I'll be participating in. The organizers of the other game systems could sure take some lessons from these guys. There's something for everyone. And at least one of the narrative events offers complete flexibility as to when you play. There are around 3 or 4 different time-slots for the event, and you can play as many or as few of them as you like. Perfect for the likes of me!

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    1. I'd love to be able to choose time slots for games. As it is, I've not signed up for a single game!

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    2. You should at least do the narrative scout mission john :)

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  3. Looking great Mike. For batch painting, these guys are looking fantastic!

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    1. Thanks, Greg! I don't know how much more I'll be able to complete before NOVA. Time's awastin', while I'm stuck working on a proposal at work.

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    2. I know! When hobby hang out emails aren't flying around, you know Mike is in mega crunch time! :)

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