Dwarfs of Monte Trocchio (September 24th - assorted dwarfs completed)

[Major_Gilbear]

It's a nice idea, and it reminds me of the shields along the sides of a Viking longboat!

If you want to save on shields, you can try press-moulding them using Oyumaru (or similar) for the mould, and a suitable cheap putty like Milliput for the casts. The other advantage is that whilst the putty is still not fully cured, you can gently flatten them a bit to make the less concave (but be gentle, and do it when they're partially cured!).

[Luigi]

if you put a few shields together, you can make a multi-shield mould too, which saves you casting and placing each one individually.

If nothing else was going to convince me, this absolutely would .

Why didn't I think of this?

And thank you guys!
My throng has been languishing for far too long

[Luigi]

I also created a quick list of the models I have and that are yet to be painted.

this is not a comprehensive list, as I went from memory and haven't checked my collection yet or put any of the vast majority of heroes  (we're probably missing another 100 or so miniatures)
These are obviously "naked" units and lack any Runic upgrade. the cost of command has been included for those units I know for sure I have the models.
For artillery I'm counting 4 models a piece (war machine + 3 crews) even though many of them came with 4 or more crews. the extra crews (which I have yet to tally up) will end up as Engineers characters.
the Lord on shield bearers I wasn't unsure on whether to count as 1 or 3 miniatures, so I count them as 2.

The first observation is that I have way less miniatures than I thought. Which is a really good thing as the whole project looks a lot less daunting than I thought it was going to be.

the second thing that jumps to the eye is the fact that I sorted most  them in groups of 10, for the most part. This is done intentionally as it's either how I obtained them (Thank you Battle for Skull Pass for providing years of dirt cheap dwarfs), or it's done to make painting easier as I'd be focusing on 2 ranks of 5 at the time.

The list will be updated over the next few days as I go through my collection and many boxes to see what I have and what I forgot I had


Less than 1000 miniatures is a much more approachable goal that I can actually see myself complete, wish me luck

Edit: I forgot to post the link to the list.
Here's the list

If you sort them by ascending name you'll actuallty sort them by Core-special-Rare etc, since I numbered them accordingly

[Emporium]

Wow, that list is heavy as a dwarven list should be! Please keeep it up, I really like huge projects as yours, grats for the painting and the lore.

[Luigi]

Wow, that list is heavy as a dwarven list should be! Please keeep it up, I really like huge projects as yours, grats for the painting and the lore.

thank you thank you

Yeah it is a big project, But it's not as gargantuan as I had first thought ("Gargantuan". You know, I've always liked that word "gargantuan", I so rarely have the opportunity to use it in a sentence).

The lore actually turned out to be the part of the project I enjoy the most.

[Luigi]

New pictures.
Not really progress, but I did attach two shields to the hammerer command group and based a total od 6 miniatures.


 The front


The back

I also started playing around with an oathstone

[Luigi]

New update.

I've finally finished all the hammerers I had primed and prepped.

I still have some 25-30 others hidden somewhere but they have to be found, stripped, and primed.
I absolutely LOATHE painting these models. I'm not sure why, but they're just a pain to paint.

for now I'm calling this unit finished, here they are.

The Green Maul


I also touched up and based this crew member/engineer


More interestingly, I've finally started working on my main army standard. I still don't have a model picked out for the BSB himself so, the Thane here is just for  Scale


and here's with a quick paper mock-up


I might remove the cone/tip but I'm liking it more than I originally thought I would

[Freddy]

Now thats a banner to paint freehand on!

[Luigi]

Very minor update today,
In a rush to finish my last batch of half started miniatures before the birth of my firstborn, I went ahead and applied some finishing touches.

Mostly, this meant basing some miniatures and prepping the bases for a few others.

To make my bases I usually use a mix of grout, sand, filter medium, discarded flock and anything ese that's granular enough I can just scoop into an old jar.

For some reason, this time, the grout clumped up on a number of bases; and, after drybrushing, I was left with whitish globs.

I decided to try and paint details directly into the base to hide the clumps and to add a touch of colour I went with mushrooms.


yay or nay?

[AndrewBeasley]

Nothing wrong with the odd mushroom or two...

[Luigi]

So...

Turns out I have even less time than I think. Not that I mind, but things will considerably slow down for a while.

However I did manage to finish a few things in the past couple of months.




First, these two guys.

I painted them years ago and just sat missing their left arm collecting dust. So I grabbed the left arm from the thunderers' kit (the one that looks like they're about to do something that'll get them called into HR) and did some quick and dirty block colouring + wash + highlight.

I don't particularly like them; the models AND my paint job, but they're now finished. And a mediocre paintjob is always better than unfinished models.


I also painted my very first non dwarf miniature of my hobby life.




I call him "Greendalf"

He's not really a miniature, seems to me more like some sort of (LOTR?) board game piece, I have no idea where he came from since I got it for free at a garage sale.

I do like him though and he scales really well, if I had an human army I'd absolutely use him as a wizard. Maybe he'll stand in as a Runesmith or a crew member in some of the artillery, who knows.



Finally this guy




he's a norman/viking dwarf and definitely one of the miniatures I enjoyed painting the most in the last while.

It's also my first attempt at doing coloured blades and it looks really nice. I might give him a shield at some point, and he'll probably be the champion in a unit of dwarfs armed with swords.

[Pattus Magnus]

They all look great! I like the colour palette you use on this force.

[Luigi]

They all look great! I like the colour palette you use on this force.

Thank you Pattus, that's very nice to hear!

It also appears that my green Gandalf isn't Gandalf at all, but rather one of the pieces from the board gane "The a-maze-ing labyrinth".
Surprisingly good sculpt for a kids' game; but I  swear I was convinced it was the grey wizard himself.

[Luigi]

Another minor update, do you guys  remember the big banner I was planning?

I actually started the pencil-sketch  process and will try to paint it soon.
I am, however, a bit worried about the lettering and runes. Maybe a thin sharpie or liquid ink pen could work?



I tried to base it off Italian city heraldry and came up with motto in Latin.

I was thinking of perhaps adding a crossed hammer and harquebus on one side and a crossed axe and crossbow [to keep with the motto] on the other (But I already have trouble drawing fairly easy geometrical shapes, free handing symmetrical weapons is going to be a nightmare)

[Luigi]

Another partial update:

I started painting the banner. This was the first time since middle school I put brush to paper. It’s also my first foray into free-handing.
This is what it looks so far.



For the back I’m going with a simple split scheme for now; I might go back later and add some details.


I sketched the whole banner (including lettering) on a large piece of cardstock (the backing of a note pad) and then slowly filled it in a la paint by numbers.

for reasons I’ve yet to comprehend I decided against priming; this turned out to be a terrible decision.
The cardstock is extremely absorbent and rough, this meant that every colour had to be applied over and over and over again before it stopped showing the brown of the paper underneath.

This isn’t too much of a problem for the grey area (the tower looks alright) but for the sky and the grass it was a nightmare.

I started with miniature paint but soon realized that it would basically act as very expensive primer so I switched to some cheap leftover acrylic in tiny plastic pot I’ve had for years and never used.

The roughness of the paper (made worse by wet paint) also made it extremely hard to do straight thin lines.

I was really worried about curling and warping, especially once I really started applying watered down layers for highlights.
It turned out this was not a problem at all, it is now pleasantly wavy, but I suspect that painting it on the main sheet and then cutting it after drying was a good call.

The lettering, which I attempted to do from the beginning turned out to be a problem as with every layer or two of colour I’d have to go back and re-do every single letter. So I’m just going to try and be careful at the very end.

Looking at it, I suspect that black letters wouldn’t be too readable and might opt for a bright grey instead.

The Runic inscription on the other hand, came out well and showed some staying power, albeit that too requires another passing of black to make it really pop

For the “hooks, I did not calculate the length correctly and they are now way too short; this is not a big deal as I can just cut some cardstock extensions, but still.

So far I’m very satisfied with how it’s coming along, but for my next paper banners I’ll definitely spray/prime the cardstock before I sketch anything. I’m hoping this let’s me have more vibrant colour with less layers and, to have an easier time with straight thin lines.

I’m not sure what to do with the circular window in terms of colour.