Hitting the G-spot

Time to show some other stuff I have been painting lately. By some random chance I have been painting things starting with a G, namely a gaggle of Goblins and Gloin the Dwarf for Lord of the Rings.

Grrr! Get back to your own movie!

Gloin is from the "Escape from Goblin Town" starter set while the Moria Goblin is from the previous starter set "The Mines of Moria", both by Games Workshop. It's essentially the same game although the Goblin Town naturally is inspired by the recent Hobbit movie. The rules are slightly updated and stats (although no points costs) are provided for models from previous editions of the game.

Spice Girls during their Moria tour.

I bought the Mines of Moria starter last summer and while the kids have been very interested in playing with the figures we haven't got a game in yet. I decided to try and get the set painted anyway as the models are really nice and it might encourage the younglings as well. I painted the goblins with similar colours to those in the paint set. Most colours can be replaced with other brands if you want to.

• Undercoat black and drybrush with a medium grey (in this case Coat d'Arms Slate Grey, 533).
• Paint skin GW Gretchin Green.
• Paint weapons and edges of armour and shields with metal.
• Paint clothes GW Mechrite Red, highlight with Vallejo Blood Red.
• Paint wood with Khemri Brown (bow, spear and arrowshafts).
• Paint the quiver with a medium brown (I used a foundry, but can't remember which one).
• Dull everything down with a wash of Devlan Mud and/or Gryphonne Sepia. Repeat until you get suitable muted colours. (The reds are not as bright IRL as they are in the photo above.)
• Rehighlight the skin with Gretchin Green.
• Do the teeth with white and eyes with yellow.

Gloin, the father of Gimli. Note the axes which are identical to (same as?) the ones Gimli uses.

Gimli was harder to paint. First and foremost because he has some strange gear, the surcoat has like three sets of trims on it. Everything is either brown or reddish-brown or beige-brown making it hard to distinguish exactly what each piece of clothing is. Most of the movie images I could glean from the net is either in bad lighting (inside a cave, at night, beside a fire) or not showing Gloin in full figure. I also used some online painting guides to discern what colour the various pieces would be but I didn't follow them to the letter. I guess I could have sprayed him brown and dunked him in army painter, but what is the fun of that?

Baruhk Khazad!

I mostly used the Kevin Dallimore three-tone layer method but used some additional washes and highlights on some areas while other areas only needed two layers. First colour listed is the base, followed by midtone and then highlight.

• Undercoat black.
• Trousers where done using Coat d'Arms Dark Earth (234), Tank Drab (527) and Russian Brown (528)
• The tunic was painted GW Mechrite Red and Mephiston Red. (GW lists Mephiston Red as a replacement for Mechrite red, but it is lighter and not the same.)
• The coat was painted Mechrite Red, washed with Devland Mud and rehighlighted slightly with Mechrite Red giving it a more darker and murky look.
• The leather boots, pouches and the trims and shoulder guard on the coat were all done using Coat d'Arms Negro (216), Horse Tone Brown (235) and Beige Brown (529). With the leather trims I used Beige Brown only on the edges because in the movie they are edged with a lighter material.
• The axe handles were painted with Negro and very lightly highlighted with Horse Tone Brown.
• The gloves were highlighted with Coat d'Arms Slate Grey (533).
• The beard and hair were done using Wargames Foundry Dusky Flesh (6A, 6B, 6C).
• The face was done with Wargames Foundry Flesh (5A, 5B, 5C), but it looked like shite, so I repainted it with just the shade and Mid-tone, and used GW Ogre Flesh wash to shade it. I'm still not entirely satisfied as it looks a bit too reddish now. I might redo it later, or maybe I won't. 
• The axes and belt buckle were painted GW Iron Breaker and given a black wash.
• The shoulder armour plates and armoured gloves were painted Coat d'Arms Magic Metal.
• GW Auric Armour Gold was used on the axe ends.
• Finally I painted two white lines for the eyes and dotted them with black. I then touched up around the eyes with Flesh shade (6A) again.

All in all I'm very pleased with the paints from Coat d'Arms. I had tried a couple of them before, but not this much. It's the same factory that makes Foundry and Privateer Press paints as well, so they are good quality paints. What's special is the range of colours which exactly matches the old, old, GW paints, those of you who painted during the 80's might remember them. They also have additional ranges with historical colours and are available in singles, sets and triads. The brown and green-grey above was done with the suggested triads Dark Brown and Military Green for example. Highly recommended!