Sunday, March 19, 2006

Simply gorgeous

As requested, here are some photos of my painted War of the Ring figures. This project has lasted a few months, but to say that I am pleased with the end results would be an understatement.

I went for a very simple approach, aiming to treat the figures as functional playing pieces more than full-blown wargaming miniatures. In summary the technique goes like this:

    Carefully remove flash with Stanley knife.

    Wash in warm detergent, rinse and dry.

    Bent figures get dunked in near boiling water, reshaped, then dunked in water/ice cubes.

    Spray with Games Workshop "Chaos Black", 24 hrs drying, then a second coat.

    Paint with Miniature Paints (acrylic) base colour. 24 hrs drying, then second coat. Another 24 hrs to dry.

    Dry brush, usually but not always with base colour mixed with white.

    Paint the base, grey or blue for Free Peoples, black for shadow.

    24 hrs drying, then spray with Games Workshop "Purity Seal" varnish.

    24 hrs drying, then bundle back into the box tray - don't bag them.


I'm pretty pleased with the results, but my technique did get better as I went on, so that the Elves for example look significantly better than the Rohirrim. Two mistakes I made with early figures:
    Too much paint on brush for base colour, obliterating the black underpainting entirely.

    Spraying too close/too long with the varnish, giving a glossy finish.


Here are the Companions and Minions. I gave these a more detailed paint job, still using dry-brushing of lighter colour on top. I think they will look great on the board next time I play!

Tag:

3 comments:

Phil said...

Two points:

1. I love the name "chaos black". Simply ridiculous.

2. Why don't you bag them? Is this one step too far into obsession? Because if it is, well.... we should have a chat some time.

Anonymous said...

Very good especially the figures in the last photo. I painted a few of these years ago although I never played any games with them...just thought they looked cool.

Peter said...

Correction, I didn't use Citadel paints, I used Miniature Paints. I've amended my posting.