Arget8's Game of Thrones: The Rains of Castamere (Lannister) Update on page 4!

[tomrommel1]

nice

[sukhe_bator]

For a first attempt at horses, they've come out pretty well! I hope I do my gee gees justice when I come to do them because  am woefully out of practice. I'm liking the Frey spearmen, and the gents on horseback have come out really well. I particularly like the gold borders to the couters, pauldrons  and knee cops.
I am less convinced by the faceplate. The visor is made from a single sheet of forged metal, and is thickest at the 'nose'. Having to be the strongest part of the armour, a softer metal like brass/gold or even mercury gilding would make it physically weaker. Museum examples of 'real world' armour tend to have decoration concentrated on little touches like rivets, borders, and even sometimes applied strips above the vision slits to make eyebrows etc. Apart from that he is a striking figure.

[arget8]

Thanks for the positive comments and the suggestions! I'll repaint the face plate to be brass rimmed then. While I am certainly not a button counter, I do prefer to have some semblance of historical accuracy in my minis. It looks a little funny anyway I think.

I'm thinking that I may also add another layer of highlights on the horses, my girlfriend said they look too flat and not enough like they have beautiful coats of hair shining in the sun.  Any suggestions on how to do so?

[tomrommel1]

do a few washes

[Charlie_]

Yes, washes are your friends here I think.

I've recently got stuck in to painting my first horses, and am finding washes very useful.

Experiment a bit with colours. There are an abundance of different horse 'colours', but to be honest you can't go wrong with any shade of brown. Do a base coat, then a wash of some sort (I do a mix of burnt umber with a little black, varying the ratio for different levels of darkness). Then re-highlight the muscles with the original colour... Then perhaps a further highlight, but I haven't found that necessary yet. And often just the basecoat and the wash is enough, especially for rich, dark browns.

Also, if you want to do black 'points' on the legs (my research has told me that all bay horses are some sort of brown or another, with black 'points' being mane, tail, ear tips and lower legs), try applying just a few layers of watered down black ink wash. Build it up in thin layers, works much better than just painting them black. Especially easy and effective on otherwise dark-coloured coats.

And I've found this chart very useful for references and getting the colours right. https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/fb/02/79/fb02793367bb247cfb5720f5a6b62664.jpg

[arget8]

I've got one wash and repaint on them already, but I was thinking an edge highlight on the edges of the muscles. I'm relatively new to the highlighting game, so I hesitate to go overboard. I'm normally a basecoat and wash guy. Does anyone know where I could find a tutorial on painting horses?

[sukhe_bator]

I've also tried dry-brushing with a lighter tone of the horse colour with a fairly large flat brush. This has resulted in some shaggier looking gee gees...

[arget8]

Back again and this time with some completed mounted knights! I've finished the mounted knights from Houses Erenford, Charlton, and Haigh. See pics and individual descriptions below.




First up is House Haigh. As you can see, their sigil is a black pitchfork within a yellow bend over a brown field. If you can't see it, I've attempted to represent a russeted, or browned, armor for most of the suit. I will say that it looks a little better in person than in the picture, it seems a little more brown and less silver.





Next up is House Charlton. Their sigil is three sprigs of mistletoe, green and red, on a gold field within a green border. With him, I though that some bronze or brass plated armor would look good on him. I wanted to take the opportunity to add color into the unit a little more as the Freys are all Blues and Grays. As always, the camera is unforgiving and I am my own worst critic, but I am pleased with them in person.




And last is House Erenford. Their sigil is a golden heron, beak and legs black, standing with a silver fish in its beak, on a pink field. They are truly the color in the unit along with House Charlton. I decided that I wanted to get some painted armor in the sworn houses and this guy offered the barest armor, so he was a good candidate.




Let me know what you think! Frey knights next.

[tomrommel1]

very nice mounted knights !

[Dilettante Gamer]

Circling back to hobby life after a half year of real life preoccupations.

Enjoying your project here and salute your contrariness in choosing House Frey.

I'm guessing you'll have it pretty much to yourself. 

Keep on!

[arget8]

Thanks for the compliments! I'm hoping to get started on the Frey knights today or tomorrow, which means that they'll be done within about a week.

After that I'll start painting Bolton infantry and building Bolton cav, both heavy and light. I was able to get a bunch of Perry cav for a bargain and it will make me feel better about hacking them up and experimenting with converting the mounted sergeants.

[arget8]

So, it's been a long time I guess. Been tied up with other projects and also a little burnt out on painting. So I decided to try my hand at some Lannisters. I'm quite pleased with them myself. They are obviously based on the Lannisters from the show, which are a little too fantasy, but I think I've brought them down to earth a little bit. This is my first real attempt at using greenstuff on a mini. The breastplates are just the normal torso smoothed down, but the hip plates are green stuff. The heads are from Mirliton. I still need to do their shields, but I'm waiting on the transfers before I can finish them.




Got to get back to work on the last three Frey knights, but I've decided that I hate painting horses. I'm working on a bunch of different stuff too at the moment. Namely Stone Dornish (Yronwood), some Martells, and the Boltons. The Yronwoods are going to be mostly unconverted perrys with some minor conversions as the Stone Dornish are said to be little different than the rest of Westeros. I'm also taking a more Spanish lean to the rest of Dorne rather than the full middle east lean that the show has. This means that even the Sand/Salt Dornish (Martells and others) will maintain a mostly European look rather than a completely foreign look that people imagine.


Let me know what you guys think!

[Ogrob]

A unit of those should look really good!

[Charlie_]

I'm also taking a more Spanish lean to the rest of Dorne rather than the full middle east lean that the show has. This means that even the Sand/Salt Dornish (Martells and others) will maintain a mostly European look rather than a completely foreign look that people imagine.

Good, I agree that's the way to go!

The Lannisters look great. They are recognisable as the TV Lannisters, yet look less fantasy and more realistic. Very successful conversions!

[tomrommel1]

very nice green stuff work