Oin

Here's yet another member of Thorin & Company.....Oin, son of Groin.  Thorin's companions continue to grow and I can actually see light at the end of this long painting tunnel.  The signs and portents speak of a completed project in the not too distant future.

In The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Oin doesn't get much on-screen time.  While he does have more lines than Bombur (it's not a difficult task considering that Bombur does not even speak the entire movie), he does not have much to say beyond telling the company about the portents that suggest Smaug might be dead or ready to be killed.  "Ravens have been seen flying back to the mountain as it was foretold: When the birds of yore return to Erebor, the reign of the beast will end." Since I painted Oin completely in browns ( and a little grey), I really don't have much to say either.  He was a fun mini to paint but the color palette was not all that exciting, leaving me with little to comment on.

I am excited about the sculpt however. The details were crisp and prominent and the stance was pleasing to the eye.  In addition, I like that he, along with Kili, has his hood on.  It's not a big deal, but the hoods were an important part for me growing up reading the book.  I remembered the color of the hoods before I got the names of the dwarves right back in those days.  I think it's a proper acknowledgement to the Professor that Peter Jackson, and GW in return, kept that part of the book somewhat accurate.

Oin can now stand beside his brother Gloin in the display case.  Then one day, after the dwarves are finished and I power through all those goblins in the Escape from Goblin Town box set, I can finally sit down to a proper wargame with the miniatures.

Thanks for reading.....

Gloin - Baby Daddy of Gimli

I'm still working on those darn dwarves.  Will the insanity never end?  As I continue to paint, I'm also in the process of photographing and posting the completed furry-faced fellas.  Today I offer Gloin, son of Groin, and the father of John Rhys-Davies (also known as Gimli).

I have mentioned before that, with the exception of Fili (which is an absolutely horrible model), GW did a wonderful job on the miniatures in the Escape from Goblin Town set.  Gloin is a well-detailed mini with an exceptionally pleasing dynamic pose.  With legs spread and arms poised for battle, one can almost sense the kinetic energy built up in the sculpt.  Gloin is definitely one of my favorites in the set.

 

Painting was fairly straightforward and mostly agreeable to the GW scheme.  His armor was basecoated with Dark Flesh.  Scorched brown was then mixed in to provide shadows while several flavors of red were added for highlighting.  The armor looked pretty good but it needed something else.  So I looked at photographs and searched the web for inspiration.  My efforts brought me back to the source however.  I was very much impressed with the freehand work on the Gloin miniature by the GW painters in the December 2012 issue of White Dwarf.  So I attempted to add a bit myself by adding a dwarven themed cross pattern on the armor after the highlight phase.  I used a watered-down darkened brown (Walnut Brown from Reaper if I remember correctly) to allow the paint to flow freely from the brush during the freehand.  For the most part the technique worked.  Though it's tough to see in the photographs due to my washed-out pics, it's much easier to discern in person.  I was thinking of going darker but then I would be worried that the effect would be too harsh and not appear to be part of the leather.  What do you think?

The under-tunic was painted with Reaper reds.  Deep Red (09002), Blood Red (09003), and Fire Red (09004) resulted in a deep rich red hue that suggests a fairly nice item of clothing.  Though the movie makes much of the fact that the dwarves were without a home, it must be remembered that according to the books, the dwarves abiding with Thorin before the Quest of Erebor did rather well for themselves and would have had access to above average garb.  Just as the under-tunic needed to look warm and vibrant, I tried to do the same for the trousers.  I basically started with Highland Moss (09083) and fudged the color up and down for the shadows and highlights to suggest a material of higher quality.

 

The rest of the miniature was pretty standard stuff....leather trim, boots, and metallics were all completed using basic colors.

So Gimli's father is now complete and can join Thorin and Bilbo on their trek over the edge of the wild.  Hopefully the rest of the company will join them ere the break of day 2014.

Thanks for reading......

Thorin Oakenshield - The Leader of the Company

As promised, I'm starting to post individual photographs of the dwarves I've been able to complete thus far in the Thorin & Company project.  Here we have Thorin Oakenshield, son of Thrain.

Those that read this blog know that I'm not a big fan of plastic.  Metal is the way to go for me.  However, as far as plastic goes, Thorin is a good sculpt.  The detail is more than acceptable for this particular medium.  The details are crisp except for in a few spots: the armor on the shoulders is rather lacking and the area around the bracers and hands is devoid of much relief.  Otherwise, I think Thorin is rather well done.  I hate Finecast almost as much as plastic but I'll be interested to see how detailed the resin version will be.  Alas for the loss of metal....

I'll not go into much detail on the paint job since the color scheme is rather straightforward.  I used Reaper paints throughout, which mostly matched up well with the suggested GW paints.  I did choose a slightly different blue to better match the color of Thorin's tunic in the movie photography however.

 I have been torn on the subject of basing Thorin & Company.  I almost went with a stony "Mines of Moria" base to better reflect the company's time in Goblin Town.  However, the battle scenarios listed in the Goblin Town set will become stale after several games and I thought the miniatures would be more flexible with standard "outdoorsy" bases.  I'll need to surf the web a bit to see what others are doing with their bases.

Anyhow, the figure completion count continues to rise for Thorin & Company.  I'll try to get Gloin posted a bit later this week.

Thanks for reading.....

Thorin & Company Update #4

Yep....still working on those darn dwarves.  Hopefully this will be the last update before completion. 

As of the end of January, these are the members of the company that have been completed:  Bilbo, Thorin, Gloin, Nori, Ori, and Oin.  I posted close-ups of Bilbo last week and will try to get the rest of the boys on the blog soon.  The photos are already taken.  I just need to find time to sit down and post them.  Easier said than done these days.....

The next batch are the members of the company that are nearly complete.  In fact, I finished Balin last night.  Dwalin, Bombur, and Kili need some additional highlighted then they should be good to go.

Finally, Dori, Bofur, Fili, and Bifur are the minis that need the most work.  Well, that's not exactly true,  Right after I took these photos with my phone the other night I finally figured out a color scheme on Dori that I was happy with and ended up completing him in that sitting.  I photographed him with the good camera last night (along with Balin) and will post the completed close-ups of them soon.  But the others do need considerable attention...especially Fili and Bifur.  I have done very little work with the latter just because he always seems to be at the end of the assembly line.  As for the former, if you've read the other updates, then you probably remember why Fili has seen so little attention.  I hate strongly dislike the sculpt so it's hard to get excited about working on him.

So there it is.  The second to the last update.  I wonder if anyone else is taking this long to finish their dwarves?

Thanks for reading.....