Bombur

I'm still officially on a break from my Thorin & Co. project.  But when I sat down at the desk the other night to finish my previous miniature, I realized that Bombur was nearly complete.  All I needed to do was add a few highlights to move him out of the painting queue.  So I made an exception to my forced hiatus from those pesky Tolkien dwarves and polished off the big guy.

Bombur had zero lines in the theatrical release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (perhaps that will change with the upcoming extended edition).  It seems like all he did was eat.  Just like the lines on that jolly dwarve's script, my screen is pretty much blank when it comes to talking about the miniature.  It's a fine sculpt, for sure, and GW did a good job rendering the likeness of Bombur onto the mini, but that's all I got.  There's simply nothing special about Bombur or my paint job.  So instead of my usual running commentary, I'll just end here and leave visitors with a few more photos. 

I need some inspiration to finish off the last four dwarves.  Any ideas to get my dwarven groove going?

As always though, thanks for reading!!!

Athelglyth the Warrior-Maiden

Athelglyth the warrior-maiden is done.  After sitting in the painting queue for nearly a year (Nov 2012), she is finally complete.  She also brings to a close a fairly lengthy period of inactivity at the hobby desk.  The little guy has been keeping me quite busy and painting has been non-existent for weeks.  I cannot begin to explain how good it felt to sit down and paint again!  I think I'm on a roll...

I have no idea what took me so long to finish her.  Looking at the photos, I now realize she is a fairly simple miniature.  Sure, there is lots of skin tones to paint and a few small items, but for the most part the mini is not all that detailed or intricate.  I think my inability to complete Aethelglyth was mainly due to pure laziness.  I just couldn't bring myself to pick her up whenever I found myself with the free time to paint.  It's a poor excuse I know, but an honest one.  It wasn't until this year that I found myself with a good great excuse.

Aethelglyth is a former Maelstrom Games product.  I say former because apparently the company is no longer in business.  I'm sure this is old news for most of you but I only found out just last night.  No worries though.  I wasn't a huge fan of the line anyhow.  I think I purchased one or two other miniatures from them last year but that's it.  However, if you fancy yourself an Aethelglyth of your very own another company has picked up the line.  She can be found here.

As I said, the rest of the line really doesn't do it for me but I very much like this particular sculpt.  I'm not sure of the lore behind Maelstrom's miniature game but to me, this model certainly exudes an Anglo-Saxon/viking aura.  I immediately took a liking to her and was happy to add the mini to my collection.

As for the miniature itself, I'm mostly pleased with the product.  The lines are clean, the weapons and parts in proportion, and the stance interesting.  The details, although sparse, are appropriate and more than enough to fit the Dark Age theme I find so entrancing.  But this model was not perfect.  As I've said many times before, I strongly dislike resin miniatures.  They are too frail and usually come with various imperfections in the form of holes and divots...which of course are always in the most obvious places.  Aethelglyth was no exception.  I broke off her sword at least six times during the painting process and nearly destroyed her axe.  She also sported several holes in the resin that I had to fill in and resculpt.  Unfortunately one of those holes, the one right on her chin (naturally!!)  opened back up when I was nearly finished with the model.  I could have refilled it with green stuff and started over but by that point I was unwilling to do so.  When I'm mentally done with a model, that's it!  I want nothing more to do with it.  Such was the case with Aethelglyth.

All in all however, I'm still happy with the miniature.  I like the sculpt and I'm fairly pleased with the finished product.  I just wish she would have been available in a metal version.

I'll sign off now rather than ramble on and allow those of you still here to see the rest of the photos undisturbed.  But first, as always, thanks for reading!