High Elf Trumpeter 28mm - WIP

...and even as the Moon rose above the darkness in the west, Fingolfin let blow his silver trumpets and began his march into Middle-earth, and the shadows of his host went long and black before them.

J.R.R. Tolkien - The Silmarillion

I love this scene from "The Silmarillion" and it ispired me to sculpt this trumpeter. The High Elves were my very first and still favourite Lord of the Rings army. It's a shame that GW always neglected them. My Elves contained several conversions with sculpted helmet plumes, so I decided to keep this fine tradition.


Actually the miniature is to be regarded WIP. It still needs to be sanded and cleaned and I even spot some areas I might have to redo. Hope you like it anyhow, but I couldn't await getting some feedback on it.


The idea of attaching plumes derived from a drawing I made back in 2001 or 2002. It shows "Finarfin", my RPG character for MERP. I even translated this picture into a miniature (just a conversion, no scratchbuilt) and used it as a captain of the High Elves, but unfortunately I don't have the miniature here to take any pictures.

FOR PONY!

I moved last week, so unfortunately my paints and brushes are still lost somewhere in the depths of my junk room. It was a lucky twist of fate, that I found my sculpting tools first, cause I just recently thought about a character I would love to see as a miniature… Well, I'm quite confident with this new Finiature. It still needs some sanding, but all in all I like the result. The miniature is in 28/30mm scale (close to the Discworld figures).

Allow me to introduce Richard. Chief Warlock of the Brothers of Darkness, Lord of the Thirteen Hells, Master of the Bones, Emperor of the Black, Lord of the Undead, Lord of the Dance, Mistress of Magma, and mayor of a little village up the coast.

For those of you, who are not familiar with Looking for Group: It’s the pale guy with the hood who likes to kill things…Besides, if you didn’t know this comic up to now: Read it! It’s totally worth it. For those of you, who don’t like reading, this vid might convince you that Richard is a great guy!

Enjoy, err… For pony!

Today's Gonna Be a Good Day

Great news! Found out that my local newsdealer sells "Wargames Illustrated", when buying some buns for breakfast.

Results up to now:
- Research papers written: 0
- WIs read: 1

Théodred

Every army needs its leader. I don't really think he is the man of choice if I'll be taking the guys to a tournament. I'm afraid that his lack of faith makes him hardly competitive... Anyways, he's not the guy who wins the battle. All he's got to do is to win his charge. What happens next is recorded in the books...^^

Actually it's much too early to philosophise about tactics. All I want you to do is to enjoy the pictures. I modelled some extra armour for his horse. The standard plastic mount didn't seem to be appropriate for the king's son. The base got some extra detail as well. I added the dead Rohirrim which originally was part of a Grimwarg miniature. Maybe I shouldn't have used it... It could be seen as some kinde of foreshadowing...^^

Hope you like it. The last picture is a comparison of today's Fin and ancient Fin again.

The Muster of Rohan

Thinking back, the Eorlingas were my really first wargaming army. Before FotR was released I had a small WHFB Breton army. Their leader was painted in green and his shield wore my first freehand ever, a white horse painted in green. Of course I used to call him Eomer...^^

Understandably enough I immediately had to get my hands on these guys when TTT was announced and I started painting a small force of around 300 points. Although I love their literary background, their historical references and their visualisation in the movies, I actually never played very much with them. Maybe that's the reason why I almost completely forgot their existence in the depths of my miniature cases... Until now...

This semester I took a "History of English" course at university and among others had to struggle through several dialects of Old English. I like its "archaic" and "native" sound and immediately had to think of the Rohirric names I read in the Lord of the Rings so often... Back home I searched for my old Horse Lords, but realised that their painting was much worse than I had in mind. Hardly surprising because they are about 7 years old... Therefore I thought it might be a good reason to start over with some LotR models once again. It's a shame, that I can't even tell when I painted my last LotR miniature... Even after assembling the first miniatures I couldn't escape the feeling that I smelled horses... You gotta love these models.

Well, long story made short, here are the results. I hope you like the painting. The last picture shows a comparison between the two eras of FINiatures...^^ Feel free to leave some comments.

Otto von Bismarck

It's me again... Contrary to my expectations I managed to spend some hours at the desk to paint a new miniature. I chose Otto von Bismarck, the official miniature of "Hamburger Tactica 2009" cause I wouldn't have finished a whole FOW-platoon in the few hours I had.

On this miniature I tried to do the highlighting in dependance to a fixed light source and added some blue to the skin colour to imitate more natural looking shadows. Considering, that it was my first attempt in this field, I'm really confident with the result.

By the way: Is the uniform I painted historically accurate? I really have no clue... My only inspiration were some black and white photographies.