Botwt's Hobby Blog

I was never really impressed by the official Games Workshop offering for this character because of how they took the lazy way out by simply modifying the Balin sculpt. What I did for this model was to take my Heroes of the West Gimli and remove the upper part of the helmet, sculpted a bunch hair, adding bits of green stuff to his outer robes similar to that of the official model, and reworked the axe to give it a unique look.

The color scheme was derived from the newer look that Games Workshop gave their model in the Khazad-dûm Sourcebook…while it doesn’t completely mesh with the dark scheme I have going presently with the rest of my Dwarven models, I thought with him being a hero it really shouldn’t matter too much. For his axe, Barazantathûl, I did something similar like what I did with Balin’s axe…this time it is supposed to be made of Mithri, so I painted it in varied silver tones with gold accents.

Dáin Ironfoot 

Had this guy in my collection for a while and figured that this model will serve perfectly as my Witch-king for my Angmar army leaving my Games Workshop version of him exclusively for my Mordor army. He was painted in a series of blacks and greys with just a touch of silver to his armor, while I painted his sword (Morgul blade?) in a sickly metallic green.

Witch-king of Angmar 

I kept his colors very muted in order to keep with the rest of my Dwarven color scheme, but still wanted the red cloak that Balin wore in The Hobbit. So the reds were mixed with browns and the shading done with a watered down Scorched Brown, giving it a color that was designed to match up better with the rest of the color palette used on this model. His outer robe was done in a series of darkened browns and the clothing under his scale armor was done in a lighter brown, while his gloves and boots were done in blacks with silver accents. I wanted to pay homage to my friend Mark Farr’s Balin miniature that he did a few years back, so I tried to keep the colors very similar to his. Finally I finished my Balin model off by attaching him to his resin base and added some snow flock.

Balin

I wanted to do something different for Durin’s Axe. This axe is supposed to be a treasured Dwarven heirloom and it really couldn’t look like just everyone else’s axe in my Dwarf ranks, so I painted the entire axe in Shining Gold, washed it in Devlan Mud, then gave it another wash with Woodland Scenics Green Undercoat. This product does a great job of adding a realistic patina to bronzy metal colors. After that I added highlights of a 50/50 mix of Dwarf Bronze and Shining Gold and added some silvery bits as well.

Experimenting with different colors today…

After a couple of hours of coughing in bed I decided to get up and try to work on Balin a bit…so far I have the base color of his skin and his eyes painted on. It’s nearly 2:30am so I think I’ll pack it in for the night.

Well, I’ve been battling a horrific sinus infection that has knocked me on my ass for the last several days and now finally have recouped enough to get this model primed and a paint job begun. Started on the base first due to less chance of a major screw up if I start a coughing fit. I went with a typical stony look (series of greys, blacks and earthy browns) as to not stray too far from the rest of  the bases my dwarves are standing on. Also, I had to remove a fern that was sculpted onto the resin base and mask over it with some ballast…I’ll add the snow to it once Balin is glued in place to bring it all together.