Missives from Middle Earth #9 "...and they were grave and beautiful."

As you can probably tell, I managed to find the Galadhrim Knights. They turned out to be in a wee stack of other MESBG kits and not in the bottom of a storage box like I thought, but I found them in the end. Although there were three left in the box, it seems that when putting together the others back in 2015[?] I paired up two halves of one of the horses incorrectly. I obviously didn't notice it at the time, but I definitely did while I was dry fitting pieces a couple of weeks ago and found that I could build two horses with gaits that looked 'right' and one that looked decidedly 'unnatural'. Casting the rogue parts into my bits box, I cleaned up and assembled the two 'right' looking horses and their riders and before long I was getting stuck into painting them up. 

The Knights themselves are painted to match their unmounted brethren but as I plan to go into detail on the paint recipes used for them in a forthcoming Missive from Middle Earth, much of the rest of this post will be focused upon the horses. Just as when I painted the Knights of Minas Tirith, I actually started out by researching real world horse breeds with pale coats and then looking at how other painters had gone about painting miniature horses with light coloured coats. I did briefly consider going for a darker tone on mine, but only briefly because I wanted to make sure the mounts of my elves were very visually distinct from those ridden by the scions of Gondor. 

The last time I actually remember painting up a pale horse was in the late 90s and I'm pretty sure it was the 1997 Bretonnian Hero on Pegasus rather than a 'proper' horse and I just painted it white, but I digress... after an evening's reading and watching videos I had a clear idea in mind: my Galadhrim would be mounted upon steeds inspired by both Arabian and Akhal Teke breeds. Not only do these horses often have pale coats, they're also among the oldest breeds of domesticated horses, which felt fitting for the long-lived children of Ilúvatar.

To painting then, and I started out by basecoating the horses' coats with a few thin coats of Ulthuan Grey - I can't remember exactly how many it took, to get a smooth layer, but it was around 3-4 I think. This was then shaded with a 1:1 mix of Apothecary White and Contrast Medium. Once this was fully dry, I used a 1:2 mix of Baslicanum Grey and and Contrast Medium to sketch in the stockings on the horses' lower legs. After the first layer of this had dried, I painted in a few more layers, but focused the paint a little lower down the legs each time until I was happy with how it looked.  

Once I was done with the legs, I glazed the horses' muzzles with Targor Rage and then a little thinned down Cadian Fleshtone. From here, I stippled on a layer of Ulthuan Grey, being sure to avoid it going into the shaded recesses around the horses' muscles. This was refined with a stippled highlight of Corax White and then finished off with a highlight of pure White Scar. With their coats complete I turned to their hooves. I basecoated the hoof walls with Abaddon Black and then layered up with streaks of Dark Reaper and Thunderhawk Blue. I also picked out the horseshoes (where they were visible) with Leadbelcher and then painted a thin layer of Nuln Oil over everything. Once the shade had dried, I picked out the edges of the horseshoes with Ironbreaker.  

Although not completely 'real world' accurate, I decided to paint the horses' manes and tails a darker shade of grey so that they were tonally similar while still adding a splash of a contrasting colour. I began by basecoating them with Mechanicus Standard Grey and then shaded them with Nuln Oil. I tidied up a couple of places where the shade had pooled a little too heavily with Mechanicus Standard Grey and then set about highlighting the strands of hair. Beginning with Dawnstone, then Administratum Grey and finally Grey Seer. 

The last thing to do was the horses' eyes. I carefully picked them out with Abaddon Black before highlighting them with Dark Reaper, then Thunderhawk Blue and finally a wee dot of Fenrisian Grey where they would catch the light. Once they were done, I applied a light glaze of Basilicanum Grey around the eyes to help add a bit more visual distinction to them. 

So, with a handful of Galadhrim painted now, what's the plan? Well, I've managed to get my hands on a sprue of warriors on foot so I can fill out an initial warband that will be led by Orophin who should be arriving sometime in the next week or so. This is partly because I love the sculpt of his model, but also from a thematic perspective, I can see Orophin leading patrols through the borders of Lothlorien to keep the embolden forces of the Dark Lord from encroaching upon the forest realm, and a couple of outriders and a handful of troops seems appropriate to deter most raiding parties. I'm not as keen on the Rúmil miniature, but as he and his brother are both Heroes of Fortitude, and I quite like the look of the Guards of the Galadhrim Court, I may have to employ the Warden of Caras Galadron somewhere down the line. But I'm getting ahead of myself, this is going to be another slow burn project I think and for now I've some warriors to assemble. Until next time, as always, thanks for reading and happy hobbying.