Silmarillion and other Fantasy Stuff. Oathmark Elf, Dwarf and Mongrel Human

[Ethelred the Almost Ready]

I would love to see closeups of that Thunderbolt Mountain elf lady. Such a nice figure!

Now please remember I haven't sorted out a decent host site for my pictures, don't have a program on my computer at this stage to edit my camera photos, so I have used my phone in possibly not the best lighting.  BUT, here is the elf maiden and her friend, also from Thunderbolt miniatures.  As with all close ups, all the errors can be seen and I find these miniatures don't deal with handling well, so have required touch ups the more I game with these (have I missed any other excuses?).

[beefcake]

I'm looking forward to seeing what you get as a Balrog.

[Ethelred the Almost Ready]

I'm looking forward to seeing what you get as a Balrog.

The Balrog is ordered.  It is without wings! Looking at the postage tracker it is now in the country, so should arrive in a day or two.  Other than that, you will just have to wait.

A thought on size of Balrogs.  That is, big doesn't have to be of the order of several times the height of a man.  To an averaged sized man a rugby player or basketball player seems huge.  If we also think that the bulk of a professional athlete is greater than even a well conditioned man. If we go to the bulk of a mountain gorilla, at up to 195kg, but only 1.8m tall we can get some ideas as to how much heavier a "large" creature is compared to a man.
If we use Body Mass Index as a way of estimating weight of a creature like a Balrog we can get some interesting results.  A rugby player will come out with a BMI of 32-33, a mountain gorilla over 50.
If our Balrog is only 1.5 times the height of a man (lets say 2.7m tall) witha BMI of 35 it's weight would be 255kg.  If we go towards gorilla size and say BMI 40 we are at 291kg, BMI 45 = 328kg and if we are more gorilla-like at BMI 50 then we are 364kg. 
So for a little more height and a heavier physique the Balrog is many times heavier than a man and would be a truly daunting opponent.

[Ethelred the Almost Ready]

A mixture of figures.  Again, taken by phone - I have now found I am missing my SD card for the camera!!!

Anyway, here they are:

Ent/treeman in action.  Black Tree Design



A First Age werewolf.  Reaper Bones


And a size comparison.  Some cheating here as the base is built up, but still quite a brute.


A k-nigg-it.  BTD







A gryphon (or griffin?). Wizzkids miniatures.






The bronze bull.  Reaper bones.

[beefcake]

Looking good. You have made that bronze bull look great. My own is rubbish, I might need to repaint it.

[Severian]

Very nice work! And a great range of useful beasts.

As beefcake says, the bull looks great. Mine is wholly unpainted...

[Ethelred the Almost Ready]

Looking good. You have made that bronze bull look great. My own is rubbish, I might need to repaint it.

I can't claim any great painting skill here.  It was a quick job that turned out well.
Black undercoat.  Dark brown heavy dry brush, lighter brown dry brush.  Then bronze dry brush followed by a red/brown wash.  A little more bronze to pick up any highlight obscured by the above.  A dot or orange-red for the eyes and nostrils.  Each layer was probably a 1-2 minute job, all up about 12 minutes excluding drying time.

[dadlamassu]

I painted my bronze bull in brighter colours and may now repaint it!

Thanks for posting your progress.  We have a setting called "Morval Earth" created by John (Slim) Mumford.  The original inspiration was drawn from Middle Earth and D&D which has expanded as collections grew.  Th e brief history (of nearly 40 years of wargaming in) Morval Earth

http://www.morvalearth.co.uk/me_brief_history.htm

[Ethelred the Almost Ready]

Looks like and interesting and fun world.  Thanks for the link.

[Ethelred the Almost Ready]

My take on trolls.









Reaper ogres made to look more trollish.
Looks like they need another hit of matt. I prefer the first troll I did, which is the lightest of the three, but for quick paints I am happy enough.

[beefcake]

I like those miniatures. I never thought of painting them as trolls though. Nice choice.
Tom, Bert and William?

[Gallahad]

Lovely trolls! For what it is worth I prefer the darker skin on them. They look so good I'm feeling inspired to paint my own! Thank you for sharing!

[Diablo Jon]

I like the trolls are the Reaper miniatures?

[majorsmith]

Love the wolf and brass bull

[Ethelred the Almost Ready]

Thanks guys.
The poor photography doesn't quite do them justice.
They are Reaper ogres.   I have used a GW textured paint to roughen up the skin and some greenstuff lumps were added, most noticeably on the spine of one figure.
Reaper Bones are a bit unusual in their painting, bur I quite like them for larger creatures.  All the ogres had casting problems - where the spine should be there was a deep cleft that needed to be filled in.
I did try to paint these in the same manner that Hobgoblin uses, but it didn't quite work out, so it is a semi-Hobgoblin semi-standard paint job.