Spider Queen and Swarm

   Spider Queen is the largest and the cruelest of the spiders. Its S6 and special rules such as Venom or Progeny make the Spider Queen a deadly opponent on the battlefield, a very difficult enemy for the good warriors to confront.  

   I placed the Queen on the base of a "Dweller in the Dark". I cut the upper step of this base and added some more tiles on its floor. Finally, I did a little research on the internet and found photos of a Mexican red-kneed tarantula to use as a model for my Queen's painting scheme. Below you can see the results:

The Spider Queen

     

"Dweller in the Dark" base

The extra tiles

Plaster covers the rest of the base

Mexican red-kneed tarantula

Kissy kissy?

Spider Queen and Swarm

Swarm

   I have promised that every time I add a new miniature in my Moria Display Box I will post a photo. So, here it is: 

   That's it for today! Stay tuned for more!

Fallen Trees and Bushes

   Six new terrain pieces of fallen trees and bushes are ready. These pieces are the perfect covers for archers to hide behind them. I will use them in one of our next games.  

   To make them, I used natural twigs, Styrofoam, white glue, hard paper, black wood putty, little stones, foliage (medium green and dark green), static grass and lichen. First I glued the twigs and the Styrofoam rocks on the hard papers.

    Next I covered the remaining surface of the hard papers with black wood putty and stuck the little rocks on them.

    Afterwards I sprayed everything black and when they became dry I painted them with the basic colours, neutral grey, black brown and burnt umber.

   I highlighted all of them a couple of times and when all got dry I stuck the foliage and lichen here and there. Below you can see the final result.

 Drar and a Dwarf Ranger among the fallen trees, ambushing and ready to release their arrows.

   That's it for today! Stay tuned for more!

   Danisnotatree, welcome aboard!

Wooden Fences

   Wooden fences are my latest scenery pieces. For this project, I used the following materials: hard paper, wood putty, white glue, little rocks, static grass, balsa woods and natural little tree twigs! I preferred twigs to balsa woods for making the fences because I wanted the final result to have a countryside look. 

The fences

The picture that inspired me

   First step was to cover the hard paper with black wood putty. After that I stuck the rocks on it,  as well as the balsa woods vertically and the twigs horizontally to make the fences.  

   I painted everything with the base colours, neutral grey for the rocks, cork brown for the balsa woods, black brown for the twigs and burnt umber for the soil.

   Next step was to highlight whatever was painted with dark colours and wash the balsa woods painted cork brown. Finally, I glued some static grass here and there.

The final result

   Below you can see Drar and his Dwarf Ranger for scale of the fences.

   That's it for today! Stay tuned for more!

Ponds

   Ponds are bodies of standing water in real life. For our games they are perfect to represent impassable terrain. I made three of them, a large one and two smaller. I used materials such as Styrofoam, hard paper, white glue, little rocks, wood putty, hair from a brush, varnish and static grass. Below you can see the three ponds:

Ponds

Hard paper and Styrofoam

Wood putty and little rocks

I used the hair of a brush to make creeping spike rushes

Everything is painted. The next step is to varnish the surface of the ponds

The large pond 

The first of the two small ponds

The second small pond

Drar and his Ranger help to have the sense of the ponds size

   That's it for today! Stay tuned for more!

   By the way, I want to welcome Karavatis to my blog. Karavatis, welcome on board! 

Ironhelm, the Iron Guard Captain

   Ironhelm is the Dwarf Iron Guard Captain according to the "War of the Ring" rulebook but GW never released such miniature. Once the WotR system is abandoned in our days, I don't think the miniature will ever be released in the future. Besides, there isn't any need for this since the Iron Guard Hero doesn't exist in LotR SBG rulebook. 

   The other day a friend of mine gave me a Chaos Dwarf. He knows that I have a Dwarf Army and he thought it would be nice to add the miniature to my collection. And I did so, but not before I converted it to an Ironhelm Captain! First step was to remove all the skulls from the miniature and there were too many of them! After that I had to change the shape of his hat to remind the Iron Guard helmet. Finally, I cut the horns, the pointed ears and the long canine teeth and gave him a moustache and a closed helmet by using green stuff. The whole idea was to modify its warhammerish look and I want to believe that I succeeded! I painted him with green and blue colours to match with both Iron Guards and Iron Guards Ancients. Below you can see the result:

The Ironhelm leads his Iron Guards

I found this photo of a wonderful painted Chaos Dwarf on the internet

The green stuff work

The Ironhelm

The original miniature

Ironhelm and Iron Guards Ancients 

Ironhelm and Iron Guards

The "family" photo!

   During games I will use the Dwarf King's profile and at an additional points cost Ironhelm will carry the deadly Durin's Axe! He is a killing machine for sure!

   That's it for today! Stay tuned for more!  

Trees

   There are various designs of trees for our miniature games at stores. I had seven pine trees of different height, each one of them stuck on a separate base. That was a problem though and I will explain why.

  Very often, during our games someone's sleeve overturned one of the trees sweeping off many miniatures on its way. Whenever this happened, it brought chaos to the table and the game stopped! In order to avoid this I stuck two or three trees together on a larger base, so simple! Below you can see some photos of the final result, as well as the progress of this step by step.

The forest 

The seven pine trees on separate bases

The new bases

I glued the old tree bases on the new ones

and covered everything with black wood putty.

Drar and his Dwarf Ranger help to have a sense of the forest size!

   That's it for today! Stay tuned for more!