Wednesday 25 April 2012

WotR Day 13- Here at the end of all things

You'll have to excuse me being a little self-indulgent today, but it is over. From this:
The horror, the horror
to this:
War of the Ring!
in less than two weeks, including several days of prep. I owe a lot to this:
Liquid gold...
Today I painted the base edges in faction colours based on the board, and then I varnished with Micador Mat Spray:
Should be labelled 'Satin'
which is not 'mat', unfortunately (the other option was 'gloss'). I half expected this, but am not too fussed with a slight sheen on these boardgame pieces. They may be slightly less sheeny (is that a word?) than they were after the satin dip, but it's only gone from ~50% to 40% sheeniness. The Testors Dullcote I trialled a week or so ago (it feels longer...) dropped it down to 5%, but I wasn't going to waste a can or more of that good stuff on these boys. They feel plastic-y and durable now.

Then I flocked, and this really brought the figures to life. I used a green blend for the good guys, and wasn't going to flock the baddies, but I did a trial orc (they put up with a lot for me) with some yellow-brown stuff and it looked just right.

And here they are!
Mordor!
Easterlings!
Isengard!
Dwarf!
Elf!
The North!
Gondor!
Rohan!
Ringwraiths!
Mouth of Sauron, Witch King (with extra flocking...), Saruman
The Fellowship of the Ring, and friend
There we are. Two hundred and five figures, and, if I may say so myself, they look wonderful on the board. It has been worthwhile getting them painted.

This blog has been a real aid in getting this done. I'll put my thoughts on my first dip experience up in a later post.

Thank you to all those who have offered advice and encouragement, and I hope I can encourage one or two people who have been thinking about maybe getting this project done as well to do so.

Now, who wants a game?
Board set up to go!
UPDATE: Pics of the Lords of Middle Earth expansion here

13 comments:

  1. Excellent!! Really well done and great looking results!

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  2. Well done for finishing the project.

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  3. Great job, the game has come to life.

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  4. I love this game, its superb. I've thought about painting the minis but I have enough lead and plastic to paint already!

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  5. Thanks all, I just couldn't leave it unpainted.

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  6. This is absolutely phenomenal!!! I just started playing this game and love it. I am going to start painting my miniatures in the coming week. I was really curious how long this took you? 100+hours??

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    1. Thanks! I'm not sure how long this took, but I'm sure it was a lot less than 100 hours, much closer to 40-50 or so (note that my ACW project (http://wargamingwithbarks.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/battle-cry-diary-day-45-finished.html) only took 4 days to do 120 admittedly simpler figures). I spent a fair bit of time planning ahead and experimenting with 'the dip', and it paid off. Most important is a production-line technique and stubborn determination... Let us know how you go, and good luck!

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  7. its a bit old but...
    hello! wow!! nice work, really!!! you worked really really fast with excellent results!!!
    i'm going to try this too, i just want to ask you... the plastic is smooth, not rigid (as you said in your first post), so... the paint remains attached to the miniatures?? or when you manipulate them not too accurately it comes off from the figure?
    ps: sorry for my bad, bad english!!

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    1. Thanks, Roberto, it's very kind of you to say so!

      I haven't had big problems with paint flaking off. The following steps help:
      Washing the figures in soapy water
      Using a proper primer as undercoat (e.g. Army Painter, Games Workshop, Krylon)
      Acrylic paint
      Acrylic stain

      I'm sure if I did bend a figure the paint would flake off...

      Grazie, Roberto, è molto gentile a dire così!

      Non ho avuto grossi problemi con la vernice sfaldamento. Le seguenti operazioni consentono di:
      Lavare le cifre in acqua e sapone
      Utilizzando un adeguato fondo come mano di fondo (ad es Army Painter, Games Workshop, Krylon)
      vernice acrilica
      macchia Acrilico

      Sono sicuro che se ho fatto piegare una figura la vernice sarebbe sfaldarsi ...

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    2. ok! perfect, thanks for your helpful advice! i'll send you some photos as soon as i get some results!

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  8. I've quickly seen the posts about those WOTR figures !
    I'm impressed : both quality and quality !!
    It seems that I've some more figures to find to complete the collection ...
    (even I'm not able to paint so much figs like you !)

    Great ! and many thanks for the link !

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