The Ents are Marching to Isengard!

Adepticon is right around the corner.  One of the Lord of the Rings events that is being run is a War of the Ring Big Game.  The game is designed around the Scenario where the Ents are Marching on Isengard.  One of the things that I said I would do to help out is the painting of several Ents for the game. 

I’ve acquired several Tree Giant models from a friend of mine that started sculpting his own models – Majestic Bear Miniatures.  These Tree Giants make fabulous stand-ins for Ents and should allow us to have a nice variety in Ents to use in the scenario.

Here’s  three Tree Giants assembled with the gap filing.  They are the Linden Tree Giant, the Birch Tree Giant, and the Willow Tree Giant.

The Unexpected Party – Finished

I’m so pleased to show that I finished my Army (and Display) for the Gathering in the Desert Tournament.  If you’ve been following my blog you’ve seen many of these models throughout various stages of development.  I’m proud to show off an image of the completed army.

The tournament was completed this past weekend and I was very, very pleased to win the Best Appearance Award!  I’ll have a lot more details to post over the next few days/weeks in regards to this tournament but for now, its just a picture of the finished army. 

The Unexpected Party

Painting Challenge: The Nazgûl

In 2010, the One Ring has started a monthly painting challenge. Last month, the theme was Gandalf the Grey. I submitted the Gandalf I’ve been working on as part of the Unexpected Party. This month, the theme is Nazgûl. For Christmas, I got the Betrayer model and I’ve wanted to paint him as a possible addition to my Harad Army. So it was an easy choice to paint this model for the competition. The challenge was that I was distracted with the Unexpected Party the entire month and never got a chance to work on him! So finally this afternoon about 8 hours from the monthly deadline, I put brush to mini and got him painted. Its not as great as I would have liked but given the amount of time I spent on him he came out okay. Its one of my hobby goals this year to try and enter every Monthly Challenge at the One Ring so I’m glad to have beat the deadline (had 105 minutes to spare!)

The Betrayer

More WIPs for the Unexpected Party

I’ve been making steady progress on the Unexpected Party.  I’ve got three new models to show off today and well as a group shot.

First off, a model that I finished a while ago.  He’s a replacement for Bofur (orginally planned to be Bifur as well).  I grew to detest my first conversion for this model (back when we has labeled Bifur).  So I had to go in and create a new one.  Much happier with this version.  So why the name change??  Well, when I started painting names on the rims of the bases I messed up and I painted Bifur’s base with Bofur’s name.  Huh?  Confused?  Anyway, since they are dressed the same, they are interchangable so Bifur became Bofur and Bofur became Bifur.  Got it? 

Bofur

 

Next up is the venerable Balin.  Balin was described as wearing a scarlet hood (cloak) and a white beard in the Hobbit.  So that’s what he got.  My sculpting  on the back of the cloak let me down a little so I couldn’t paint him as well I as I was hoping.  However, he still looks okay to me.

Balin

 

Thorin and Company came to Gandalf because they needed a Burglar.  And a Burglar is what they found.  Here’s the Hobbit that made the Journey “There and Back Again…”  Bilbo Baggins.  Bilbo was late catching up to Thorin and Company.  So late he forgot to pack his cloak.  So he managed to borrow a dark green one from Dwalin.

Bilbo

 

Finally, here’s a group shot of the Unexpected Party.  I’ve got all these models assembeld on their scenic bases (purchased from Back 2 Base-ix).  Missing from the group photo are Bombur and Thorin Oakenshield.  Both of these miniatures still need a significant amount of painting and havent’ been mounted on their bases.

Portions of the Unexpected Party

 

If you look closely you’ll notice that the names have been painted on the rims of the bases.  I did this to add character to the army.  I also used two different colors for the name plates to differentiate those that are “Heroes” and those that are “Warriors” in the army.  This is to hopefully help my opponents when they are facing off agains the army.  I hope that distinction works and makes game play easier.