Missives from Middle Earth #11 "...darkness went with them, and they cried with the voices of death."

Life has been quite busy since I shared the last instalment of this intermittent series, and the resultant combination of tiredness and the cold, dark nights have meant I haven't spent quite as much time at my hobby desk over the last few weeks. Nevertheless, I've continued to chip away at things, so as I have another four of Caras Galadhron's finest ready to pop in the cabinet, now seemed like as good a time as any to catalogue my progress.  

But wait, I hear you cry, that's no warrior of the Golden Wood! And indeed, you are correct. I felt like I needed a bit of a break from blue and gold livery of the Galdhrim and what could be more different than the black robes of one of Sauron's most feared servants? 

Keen eyed MESBG fans might spot that this particular Nazgûl isn't wielding its' original sword. When I found the model in my bits box, the original blade had snapped off, but a quick 'cut and paste' kitbash using a sword donated by a spare warrior of Minas Tirith fixed that right up. While I was pinning the new weapon in place, I also drilled out some of the resin under the Ringwraith's hood so that it would look a bit more like the ones in the movies. 

With repairs and alterations made and some texture paste slathered on the base, the mini was ready for priming. In a departure from my usual approach of spraying everything light grey, I gave the Nazgûl a couple of coats of Abaddon Black from a rattlecan instead. It would have been easy enough to paint everything Abaddon Black by hand, but this saved time and I was eager to get stuck in. 

As it happens, I ended up applying a couple of layers of Abbadon Black from the pot anyway because the spraypaint hadn't settled into all of the folds of the robes fully, but it was still faster than doing the whole thing by hand would have been. With a nice smooth basecoat to work from, I grabbed some Corvus Black and worked my way around the model using applying the paint everywhere but the very deepest folds of the fabric. I repeated this a few more times, with each pass being more focused towards the top of the model. 

Once I was happy with this, I moved on to sketching in some initial highlights with Dark Reaper. I kept these quite 'chunky' to help smooth the transition from the previous layer. Again, I repeated this a couple of times until I was satisfied with how everything looked. Next I used Thunderhawk Blue to sharpen up all of the edges and folds that would catch the most light before very sparingly adding some pin highlights of Fenrisian Grey, mainly around the edges of the hood/cowl and the wrists, but in a few places around the hem of the robes too. I kept these quite soft though because 'hard' highlights would look out of place on a matt fabric. 

Because the Nazgûl almost certainly don't spend any time looking after their garb (I mean why would you when you're an ethereal being bound to seek the One Ring?) I stippled some Vallejo European Dust wash onto the lower areas of the robes and cloak so it would look appropriately grubby for being dragged through the wilds of Middle Earth.  

All in all, this was a perfect palate cleanser and a pretty fun experiment in just putting paint on a model.

But what of the Elves then? Well, since last update I've painted another two archers and a pair of spearmen. Like the warriors with hand-and-a-half Elven swords, I built the spearmen without shields because the poses don't really work with them. As they're likely to be fighting from the second rank anyway, this probably doesn't matter too much, but it does feel like a bit of a shortcoming of the kit.

Adding these four to the already completed Galadhrim brings the current tally of painted warriors to eleven (nine warriors and two knights), so what's next? Well, I'm not sure exactly what will be on the painting table next, but the rough plan is to build another trio of warriors (two with spears, one with bow) which will mean I'll have four of each warrior type and have used each unique sculpt once. I also have some Guards of the Galadhrim Court to build along with some warriors of Lothlorien with bows that I think I might paint up as Sentinels. Oh and there's Rúmil to build as well - so I've plenty to choose from to keep me busy! As with the Garrison of Ithilien though, I'm treating this as a 'slow burn' project, working on it when I feel like it so as to get the best results. 

That's it for this update, but once I've made some more progress I'll definitely be back with another, so in the meantime, thanks for reading and happy hobbying.