LotR Fernando Touch Up Complete

Just a quick post to celebrate completing touching up my Lord of the Rings figures that I got painted by Fernando Enterprises.

First is Faramir and his Ithilien Rangers; Faramir needed more work than his men, which was slightly annoying as I paid for Super Showcase standard for him.

Then some more good-guys in the shape of some Rohirrim foot warriors.

And finally, some more opposition in the shape of Uruk Hai.  These didn't seem to be up to the standard of others so quite a bit of extra shading was applied.  Also, to make then a bit more visually interesting I added shields (3D printed from eBay) as only two of the original figures had them.

So, these guys should hopefully be taking the table soon for a game of Dragon Rampant.

***************ADDENDUM***************

As commented by someone on TMP it was a bit silly to show the retouched figures without photos of them as received from the painters.  As I didn't take any before retouching, the following photos are some of those provided by Fernando Enterprises for approval before sending them back; they are not high resolution but they didn't provide anything bigger (I did ask).

First some of the goblins - these were IMO the best painted of the different figures and I did nothing to them apart from the bases.

Likewise, the Warg riders (mounted on Ral Partha wolves) which also, IMO, needed no retouching.

By comparison the Uruk Hai were a bit disappointing (I added shields to these) ...

... especially the faces on the archers where not covered by helmets (some of these got small shields added).

The Ithilien rangers as finally received were pretty good and only had minimal retouching e.g. sword hilts which were painted brass all over and to the faces that where seen were pretty crude.

On the subject of faces, the initial sample photos (see next photo) had the eyes painted white with dots, which I requested them to change (as well as brightening up the green used for cloaks etc.).

And pretty much the same again for the Rohirrim on foot.

The mounted Rohirrim were quite heavily reworked by Fernando after I requested more work but and as re-worked were pretty good (almost nothing done to these apart from repair to a figure that lost an arm - the only damage in transit).

So, onto the Super Showcase personalities, and Faramir - with white eyes. 

I requested some rework which produced this.

I still didn't like his face so that was heavily retouched - faces seems to be a major weakness and I retouched them on all but the goblins but luckily most were obscured by helmets so didn't require much.  

And finally, Eomer in the first photo sent for approval.

This photo almost had me give up, but I requested a complete repaint of the horse and some more colourful equipment for Eomer who looked pretty dull for the heir apparent to the throne.  And the next photo received was a dramatic improvement. 

So, the lesson I have drawn from all this is that Fernando can be a bit hit and miss with their painting but are very willing to make changes or rework figures if you are not satisfied, so if not satisfied say why and ask for changes.  Obviously, it can be quite onerous explaining exactly what you want changed, but in my experience it is well worth the effort as they do their best to please.  

One final point, the figures look better in the hand than they do in the photos - I was pleasantly surprised when they arrived how much better they looked.  Of course, some of this is down to viewing them with the naked eye and not through a powerful camera lens.

WiP Basing and Some Away Games

While I've finished the basing fix for my SSM figures (last post) basing is still dominating my painting desk.  This time it's painting, texturing and dry-brushing the bases for some Games Workshop Lord of the Rings figures to allow my skirmish game to expand so I can play Dragon Rampant or similar.  Doubting I'd ever get the figures painted myself (too much else in the queue) I sent them[1] off to Fernando Enterprises in Sri Lanka.  

They took longer than I was expecting (c. 6 months) and there was a lot of to and froing as they sent pictures and I requested improvements but eventually they arrived.  I was pleasantly surprised to find the figures look much better in the hand than in the photos they sent for approval; the images they send are very small.  Now I just had some minor repairs and touching up to do, plus a lot of base work - I had decided to not let them finish the bases as I knew the painting style would be very different to mine and I wanted to make the bases the same as my other figures to help them blend in.

So, first, some of the 'bad guys', goblins ...

... and Warg riders (I don't like Peter Jackson's take on Wargs).

And, ready to ride down everything in their path, THE ROHIRRIM!

I still have some touching up to do on the Uruks, which seem less well-painted than the rest (different painter?) but that shouldn't take long now.  So with all these 'armies' gathering war is imminent; no doubt my giant eagles will keeping an eye on things.

As a pleasant interlude during all this, fairly tedious, basing work, I went down to Steve's place for a weekend's gaming get together with some others.

The first game was a 'chit game' of the Battle of Liegnitz (1241) which, true to history, was won by the Mongols.  I came seventh out of seven once the VPs were totalled but comforted by the prettiness of my troops (Martin's vintage 15mm Minifig Knights - I had more than this but I liked this close up).

Other games included chariot racing with a modified version of Circus Maximus using Martin's Essex Miniatures chariots ...

 

... and 6mil Napoleonic game on Steve's sculpted Waterloo terrain (really need to get the backdrop sorted).

This was a fictional Austrian-Bavarian clash (not sure how they ended up in Belgium) and really a play-test for my modified version of Jeffrey's Napoleonic rules as I very much like the command and control system.  The game showed promise but there's still work to do.  This was not too surprising as I had been adapting it to play on a hex-grid and had to rapidly adjust it for a free-form game on the sculpted terrain, but it is so pretty I'll add a few more photos.

That's all for now.

Notes:

[1.] The lot consisted of: 57 Goblins; 14 Uruk Hai;  7 Goblin Warg riders; 14 mounted Rohirrim and 12 on foot plus a mounted Eomer figure; and, 12 Ithilien Rangers plus Faramir (on foot). 

Covert Sabots - Old-School Basing

With my painting desk taken up with figures waiting for their gloss varnish to dry, and no game coming up that needs any prep, I was at a bit of a loose end.  As the figures had been varnished because I had shaved down their bases to better fit my storage trays, I thought why not a quick post on my basing system.

Inspired by CS Grant's 'The Wargame' and Brig Peter Young's rules 'Charge!' I wanted to keep my troops based as single figures.  Needless to say, this makes moving the troops a laborious exercise.  Nowadays, sabots would be the obvious answer to this dilemma, but they were less common 20+ years ago.  Also, I wanted it to look like the figures were single based.

The answer was steel bases exactly the same shape as 8 infantry figures bases and magnets mounted in the base of the figures - see below.

The custom-made steel trays were commissioned from Essex Laser Job Shop Ltd., an expensive indulgence but worth it IMO.  They were sprayed the same colour I use for my toy soldier bases.  I hope you agree they are pretty unobtrusive, or covert, as per the title of this post.

I did get some sample magnets made up, the same size and shape as the figure bases, but if I'd opted to go with these it would have been more an order of magnitude more expensive than the trays.  Also, it turned out that the magnets didn't like sitting adjacent to each other on the trays - just getting samples was a lucky escape.

In the end, the magnets I used were just readily available rear-earth disk-shaped magnets source on Amazon.  To make their fitting easier, I bought Litko ferro-sheet, pill-shaped bases with a pre-cut hole into which the magnets would fit.  The bases were then finished by using Milliput to create a nice rounded shape to the base.  

The infantry bases are 15mm wide and 25mm long, each end being a semi-circle 15mm in diameter.  My cavalry bases are the same width but twice as long.

This means that one cavalry figure has the same footprint as two infantry figures, well almost if you ignore the bit where the two infantry bases touch.  This can be seen here with cavalry figures on some half-sized bases (4 infantry or 2 cavalry as opposed to the standard 8 infantry or 4 cavalry) which used for flexibility and casualty removal.

As can be seen I use two magnets for cavalry figures as they are much heavier.  While the magnets hold the figures well, they are not as secure as glued figures.  Nonetheless it makes moving figures so much easier.

Having solved the movement problem I found that taking them in and out of my display cabinet was a bit of a chore, but I like having them on display.  So, another solution was required, and again the answer was an old favourite, movement trays!

These trays were custom ordered from Warbases with a shallow lip around the edge to keep the figures in place, as modelled here by the Hohenzollern Dragoons.

There is no lip at the back, which makes it easy to slide the figures on and off the tray, here modelled by the Hessian Erbprinz Infantry Regiment.

These trays have made it so much easier to get my armies on, and off the table.  the only fly in the ointment was one regiment that didn't quite fit on the trays.  On investigation it seems that my first trial based unit had had the Milliput applied a little more generously such that it slightly overhung the sides of the Litko base. This made them all a tiny bit wider so they wouldn't fit as planned between the tray lips.  So, having finally decided to do something about I shaved the bases down a bit with a Stanley knife and then re-painted the base where they'd been shaved back, and then varnished them.  

And, these are the figures who are currently occupying my painting desk while drying.  How can it take that long to dry you ask?  It's enamel varnish and applied fairly thickly for robustness.