Painting Easterling Dragon Guard

Slow progress. Rain is falling. The ministry has fallen.
    The images should be in order, but aren't... do not be deceived by the progress or illusion thereof.

On some images I have applied washes and on some not. My intention is to probably make the cloaks more gray than green... whatever...
   Still, the cloaks are beautiful and it would not be optimal to not take advantage of their nice detailing.

I am experiencing some minor difficulties at the moment that I am trying to deal with, and in order to come to a satisfying conclusion of said difficulties I need to concentrate on these matters instead of hobby or anything else, in fact.
     You could also say that I am punishing myself [by removing all fun distractions] in order to get things done. You know, when the carrots do not suffice, the cane has to, because if it will not, you'll shoot the donkey and that is not good economics. Also, that is why some people still whip a dead horse - there still might be something in there...

Painting the Dragon Guard

Sorry Blaxcleric, I have no better pics of these fellas when in their underpants only (undercoated) - I undercoated them and got straight into smearing on the basecoats, so they look a mess...
     Black boots on white undercoat, gold details and armour on brown basecoat. Just literary smeared it on - I have developed my own way of painting that works pretty well for me. At least I get things done and in normal cases within (what I consider) acceptable tabletop standard.

Not much to show, but WIP-pics is something I enjoy, so you're welcome. Or more correctly: I'm welcome.

The circled in guys are the least LotR-y looking and the most WHFB-looking. Not sure on the OtT-hornblower, but the horn kind of reminds me of a dragon, and these guys are sort of rocking that theme so we'll just go with it I suppose...

Dragon Guard, phase 3!

...

Not finished with the very small amount of sculpting needed for this project.

Two bases are marked with questionmarks to indicate I have no idea what to put there. They will be some sort of fillers... not sure what... The circled area around the arrow:ed model is a remainder for me to put a little stone under his foot to get the posture I had originally planned.

Two or three of the helmets look really stupid so I will have to do something about that this weekend.

All in all these are turning out just slightly worse than I had imagined. Turns out this was not a particularly enjoyable project. What will be fun though, is the painting! I am looking forward to that.
      Have a nice weekend bloggers, readers and hobbyists and gentlemen (and the occasional gentlewoman).

DIY vacuum chamber, last phase.

It can be used, well it used to be able to be used. It broke after the second test. I need thicker plastic, which I knew beforehand but I still went through with the test since the lid was my biggest concern. Rubber mat will be purchased along with some heavy industrial plastic sheeting and then it should be good to go.

Money well spent. Below follows some bland images on the "details" of this beauty. Somehow this gives me the impression of "In mother Russia... ". Sort of a 40K-ork-contraption.

Here is the second run's break. It is an old pipe that I never bothered to remove completely. The inside of this fantastic machine is an old washing machine drum with plenty of space. Problems to get it completely airtight with silicone rubber made me just cover it in plastic and voila, it worked.

The intention is to attach a vault here - unless it turns out I'll never get the darn thing totally air-tight, in which case I stay away from that particular expense and just let the vacuum cleaner run the 6-7 minutes it takes to degass silicone.

Laureate Patrick Modiano - Nobel prize in literature 2014

Congratulations Patrick Modiano. What implications will this have on our hobby? Huge, I say!

The man without teeth. Always hiding the lack of teeth 

behind his golden hand..

The man with the golden hand (hand shown above). Also known as The Sculptor from Paris - Le Sculpteur d'Or de Paris. This man has sculpted most of the models in the Confrontation line and was now awarded with the Nobel prize in literature. Much like Klas Östergren, AKA the Strangler of Herring. We congratulate you, you prince of Wales, you duke of Herring.

Easterlings: Kitbash & Conversions

Using the OTT Warhammer Dark Elf/Dark Elves Corsairs I am slowly piecing this project together. In the Warhammer-box came 10 warriors and my intentions are to make two companies for War of the Ring, which of course means 16 bases distributed on two 8-men trays. 
      These bases preferably have warrior models on top - not that it matter since War of the Ring is more about the companies' placement rather than the individual models' ditto. Why it do matter slightly is naturally because of the hobby aspect. We all know that fillers can be overused, and also: In order to not willingly and knowingly confuse your opponent, it should be obvious what profile or slot your models represent, if a company - such as these two that you will see below - consists of a mongrel mix it can be quite the challenge to identify the type/corresponding stat-line!
    In this case, I go my normal Llama-route and invent my own stat-line - a stat-line based on some background I have typed up and that basically says that these guys, although accomplished warriors in their own way, more are some sort of private police of some mighty oligarks in the Rhûnish capital of Bórost rather than the elite heavy infantry they look like. The individual warrior of the Dragon Guard has slightly bigger aspirations than the normal warrior (as well as a slightly more evolved political awareness that may help him survive in the long run) and I wanted these guys to be especially different from the normal stereotype of any elite warriors depicted anytime or anywhere, whether it be within a historical context or an imagined elite warrior: The soulless warrior-bot that would execute his brother in arms just because someone higher up in the hierarchy ordered him. A stupid stereotype that I remember being exposed to numerous times in my childhood - and certainly a stereotype with some sort of foundation within some or the other human culture, but nevertheless a stupid stereotype.
    I have a tendency to drone on about some detail for a while I have noticed. I'll just stop myself here and post a separate post with the background story that motivates the rather bland statline below:


Dragon Guard, rare formation (XX points) 
================================
Fight: 4. That's high enough for this urban and softened "elite" unit.
Strength: 4. A lot of formations have S4 in WotR, and so too does this one have.
Defence: 6. This is high for a shieldless formation and I have my reasons - they also have another "save" planned under Specials.
Resilience: 1.
Attacks: 8.
Courage: 5. This might seem a bit high, but I have my reasons for this.
Specials: Something pertinent to their faked dragon paraphernalia and also something that ties in to their cloaks and stupid dual-wielding that is such a shitty fantasy klichée... Still, these models were very well suited for dual-wielding swords.



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The very humble beginning:

By using paper one can quite easily get a more Easterling look on the armour; making small scales is actually not that difficult with this very suiting thick, glossy paper, what is difficult, though, is attaching it. I literary had little pieces of paper and glue all over my fingers after finishing this one little model to the above left...

Easterling heads come at a premium, which is a price I am not willing nor able to pay, so I gladly took on the enjoyable task to look for suitable heads. Some without helmets and exactly the same head as a certain War Priest controlling the Rhûn War Automatons/Rhûnish Stone Brutes...

This is the obvious filler company... left over models, 40K-pieces, old bases and even a little baby dragon, for some reason... This is what I classify as an enjoyable problem: It is a problem to try to fix this into something nice but it is a problem without any repercussions of true meaning. This is an enjoyable problem unlike the problem of not having enough money, or quitting your job because you hate your boss, or not having a home etc...

Size comparison (the painted models are just basecoated, I have actually gone from n00b to newb when it comes to painting, and rightly so after 7-8 years and 1000 models later). The Dragon Guard probably is twice the size of the first models from Lord of the Rings (Warrior of Minas Tirith and Warrior of Rohan, I am looking at you.)

Finishing the Pelargir Beast

This magnificent fastitocalonical creature is also nearing completion. I am tinkering with the large base at the moment.

Army Painter's expensive Poison Ivy (or should I say poisson!) will work as seaweed. Some rather annoyed tries to make my own seaweed with paper resulted in a big vein on my forehead forming. Still, that particular project is not abandoned.

Dead or stranded fish to suggest that this is creature of the waters. The waters of the southern reefs of Pelargir? No, not really... but sort of... or something. Okay, I don't know where Pelargir was placed by mr Tolkien, if it was a river city or harbour.

Speaking of fish, this wonderful meal consisting of home-fished white fish (sik, whatever it is called more specifically in English) and home-plucked svamparélles - in English: funnel-shaped mushrooms - and wonderful factory-grown broccoli was my dinner yesterday.
    With instagram-esque food-pictures, we continue with something else, equally vulgar and populasish, Warhammer! I have bought me a box of cheap (!) Warhammer Dark Elves Corsairs to remix/convert/modify into Easterling Dragon Guard. See the difference there? Guard - not Knight!

They will fit pretty well with the new versions of the Easterling Kataphracts when it comes to size. Design-wise, well... that's my mission for the nearest hobby evenings. It shall prove a mighty task to crowbar these into the aesthetics of Middle-Earth as depicted in The Movies. I am currently collecting bits. Dragons, Rhûn, gold and Easterlings in general are the themes.

Painting the War Statues, last phase!

Closing in. We are nearing the end of this project. I need to conform the bases on the two automatons to the rest of the Rhûnish army, but that army is placed in a storage unit and can for the mo' not be reached!

Attentive (or is it attentative?) readers might notice that one of the crew lacks weapons, and the reason behind this wonderful and rather pacificist-weaponlessness is due to me considering putting an ugly banner in his little plastic hand, but this did obviously not happen.

 

I am forcing myself to fix the banners that are attached to the stone-machine, but it's super boring... that's what a real manly man's hobby should be, of course, super boring so that he scares away children, spouses and other assorted human beings so that he might enjoy his own company. Remember kids, life isn't always fun. Funny, yes, but not always enjoyable, and this is one of those times.

The black marble is still a work in progress, though I am having problems with the actual progression! The leather was dyed in a dark green hue by the Easterling dyers, because they had read somewhere in Gondor's big inter-scroll-library that green is a complementary to red and was trying to tie in the red with the gold and black. I think they did okay. No one knows how the tusks are attached to the creature, not even me...

Still undecided on this particular War Statue's weaponry or if he'll get a shield. Or two!

Started working on the base for the goodguy-beast, the Pelargir Beast. If anyone has a better name for this creature, please, do indulge me...
    Plans for the base included water, sea-weed and fishing utensils to further the picture of the ocean around Pelargir. Today I just settle for some round rocks and three dead fish.

Apparently, these little vaktel-ägg's are called quail-eggs. Never heard the English word before, so thank you goggle -o-o translate-. Reminds me of the word veal, another word seldomly used in my world. Anyways, it looks more like a seagull-egg, but it is not. These are some good eggs when compared to hen-eggs - but they're still just eggs. An egg is an egg. 1-2-2, 2R3.