Great Source of Inspiration

I have a soft spot for George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire since he released his 5th book A Dance with Dragons and HBO aired the first season of A Game of Thrones. At the moment I search for fitting miniatures to paint some of the characters of the books and will presumably be using the GRRM-Masterworks range of Dark Sword Miniatures or converted War of the Roses/Hundred Years' War miniatures from Perry Miniatures.

In search of inspiration I found the books The Art of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. These books (two volumes up to now) contain illustrations from Fantasy Flight Games' various board and card games.

Whereas I was a bit disappointed by the first volume since most artists did not meet my expectations of late medieval Westeros, the second volume was much better. Especially the double paged artworks of Tomasz Jedruszek belong to the best depictions of Martin's universe I have seen up to date.

TYW Imperialist Officer

Yesterday I painted this Imperialist Officer for the Thirty Years War. The miniature itself is from Warlord Games and was painted for a user of the tabletop-hdr.de forums.

I'm sorry for the crappy pictures but I had to use the camera of a flatmate.

Impetus Magneticus I

Only a small update today. Finally the polystyrene sheet and the magnets I ordered for my Impetus bases have arrived.
The Impetus bases for my infantry will measure 11,4x6cm. Most players glue their miniatures to the base and use them for Impetus only. If they want to play the LotR skirmish system theyuse other miniatures. Unfortunately I'm such a slow coach when painting, that I decided to magnetise my miniatures.
Now I have the possibility to use them for the skirmish system and Impetus. If I strictly place 8 miniatures on one infantry base, I can even use them for WotR.

Of course all you can see, has to be considered "work in progress", as I still have to see, if it works out with the scenic Impetus bases.

Sneak Preview of My Next Army

Hello everybody,

I'm in a hurry, so there are just some pictures of my first paint scheme testers and conversions I'm currently working on.

The army is intended for Impetus Phantasticus, so the round bases are just a temporary solution.

Enjoy.

The Orc-Host is Ambushed in Brethil

I just foraged my favourite Tolkien artists for inspiration and found this beautiful painting by Ted Nasmith:

The Orc-Host is Ambushed in Brethil

I love the scene and the great design of the First Age armament, but I'm still not sure which faction the attackers belong to... Are they men of the House of Haleth, who live in the Forests of Brethil? I never pictured them as that highly developed. Or is it possible that the picture shows an Elvish force? Sindar Elves from Doriath maybe?

Does anybody of you know what Ted Nasmith wanted to display? I searched the web for information on this picture but did'nt find anything?

Ghosts of the Past

No, it is not the Ghost of Chrismas Past, but some pictures of Elves (and a Bretonnian) I found on my hard drive. As promised, I have searched for a pic of my old High Elves army. What I found, were some well hidden treasures that bear witness to the progress I made in painting and sculpting over the years. Enjoy!

Picture No#1 shows the first miniature I ever painted. It's a Bretonnian archer from the 5th edition Warhammer starter box. Looks quite decent and it probably took me ages to paint it...^^ Unfortunately I can't tell you when exactly I did it. Has to be sometime 1998ish.


Next are the High Elven captains I told you of. Do you recognise the guy from the drawing?
Back then I used Milliput Super Fine White, an utility knife and a needle for my conversions. Didn't know there were better things to use. Although I would do some changes nowadays, I still like them. Crimson plumes and High Elves definitively fall into place.
The picture is taken in 2004 but I'm quite sure they are older. Late 2002 - early 2003...


Next one is an Êlnaith, an Elven Knight which was converted from an archer and a Rider of Rohan. It was the last miniature I did for my elven army and I never finished the whole squad I originally planned. As you can see, the sculpting and painting is already much smoother than that of the captains. Nonetheless I wouldn't use my old technique for painting white anymore.^^
The miniature was converted and painted in Summer 2004.


After a longer break I sculpted this female Elven archer in January 2006. I did it after I had some great days on the Kauzenburg convention, a gathering of users of the tabletop-hdr.de forums. I had some great chat with Ebob there and he encouraged me to do some more sculpting, and so I did.
This miniature was supposed to be the first official "FINiature". A company called "Noha Studios" was about to cast it, but unfortunately the miniature broke during the moulding. Nevertheless they managed to make 2 copies of it. One has been painted and was gifted to Ebob, the other one is still with me, but slightly damaged, due to the ruined mould...


Last Elf I did, was this banner bearer. He was made as a trophy for the winner of Kölns Klamm 2006 (Cologne's Deep), a tournament of the LotR Strategy Battle Game. Although I'm not quite confident with the paint job (the highlighting on the banner is much to strong), I think the sculpt itself was pretty good... I really should have made a copy.



Hope you liked this nostalgic trip to the past although I don't know how someone could benefit from these wooly thoughts. Perhaps I just got carried away...