Games Workshop Inspiration - Lord of the Rings / The Hobbit

I've had these images for some time now and took them at my local GW shop for painting inspiration. The painting appeared to be simple (i.e. not too complicated to imitate) but I believe it was really effective. So I took photos for a personal record for my own miniatures. So if you are looking for inspiration to paint you LotR / Hobbit miniatures also, hope this helps.

Angmar Snow Troll for Kings of War

Glorfindel takes on a Snow Troll from the Grey Mountains on the fields of northern Arthedain

Eaglemoss make a number of figurines for the Lord of the Rings and some of these are a good size to match 28mm scale (some are good also for 10mm and I'll share that in another post).

The Snow Troll towering over the orcs of Angmar

I picked up an Eaglemoss Cave Troll on eBay a few months back with a view to turning it into a Snow Troll for my Kings of War Angmar army. Its larger than the GW Cave Troll and about a head taller that the Isengard/Morder Troll also by GW. But for a Snow Troll I thought that this figuring was a good size for what I was after and looks imposing on the battlefield.

PREPARATION
I used static grass and PVA glue to attach "fur" to the trolls shoulders and back. Once base coated, the grass would look like hair or fur on the figure.

Initially I based the figure on a square base for use with Kings of War. But given that all my other trolls were already on round bases from War of the Ring, I decided to rebase the figure on to a round base also. You will notice that later on in the images below.

PAINTING PROCESS
In short, I painted the troll in the following manner (images for this process follow below).

• Base coat in White Spray
• Ink in Nuln Oil
• When dry, ink in Blue Ink
• Drybrush heavily in Administration Grey
• Drybrush lightly in Space Wolves Grey
• Drybrush lightly in White Scar
• Paint eyes in Temple Guard Blue
• Paint teeth in Rakarth Flesh
• Paint neck chain in Boltgun Metal.
• Paint nails in Bestial Brown and when dry in highlight in Rakarth Flesh.
• I painted the loincloth in Bestial Brown and the metal in Bronze.

So there you have it. One very large and imposing Snow Troll from the Grey Mountains near Angmar.

Angmar Lesser Wights for Kings of War

Lesser Wights emerging from their barrow.

Having played the Lord of the Rings online MMO some years ago, I was impressed with the renderings of certain types of creatures that they had within the game. Wandering around the tombs, you often came across undead spirits and wights that looked cool and ghastly.

I wanted to create some Lesser Wights for the Angmar army I'm painting for use with the Kings of War rule set.

So I chose the Mantic Games Ghouls as the natural miniature for these Lesser Wights. The perfect choice for a LotR MMO Lesser Wight proxy. Below is the painting method used as both a reminder to me and just in case you are interested in achieving a similar result.

Painting Method
Basecoat in Army Painter Grey.
Drybrush in Citadel Rotting Flesh.

Paint clothes in suitable colour (I chose to use a watered down Terracotta).

Paint nails in the body in Boltgun Metal.

Ink in Army Painter Strong Tone Shader and allow to dry.

Once fully dry, spray in Anti-Shine Varnish.

Drybrush in White Scar very, very lightly.

Paint eyes in Temple Guard Blue leaving shaded eye sockets and only doing raised areas of the eyeball as a point of weird light for the eyes.

 And you are done!

Some more eye candy images.

One troop down, one more to go!