Lord of the Rings GW Elves

I was thinking about doing a tutorial, because I'm in the process of painting/ re-painting my old Lord of the Rings models, so let's just call this phase 1 of my process. Basically I'm just gathering pictures and having a good ponder about the direction to take with the models. I've established how to paint the armour, but the robes and cloaks are another matter entirely.

If you watch the very first battle of the Fellowship film, the only source shown for the Elves in question, there's a bit of a discrepancy in the colouring. All I've ever seen is fairly bright, blue robes, white/ creamy cloaks, white/ creamy sash tie. It doesn't look bad per se, but it also isn't 100% accurate based on what's in the film. For a start, me and LotR models, I can't stand bright colours for the model's clothing. Watch the films. The only thing that's bright is the armour and the weaponry. Every character on screen's clothes are always really muted and somewhat dull, which I think is perfect, considering it provides a good backdrop for weapons, armour, skin, and fits in with a genuine fighting force, or downtrodden people. I know it's supposed to be "fantasy battles", but one of the best things about LotR and the likes of Game of Thrones etc. is how realistic and grounded they are. In any case, I don't think the set colours shown by GW and most painters are accurate, and I'm setting about pursuing a more accurate colour scheme for them.

From what I've seen so far, there ARE one or two elves with blue robes, they're the ones that play hit hit-his-mace-with-your-face with Sauron. Looking closely, with barely a second or two of non-blurry screen time, you can just pick out a fairly dark, deep blue for their robes. The cloaks are still way off, but I'm guessing that's the shot the GW painters got their inspiration from. Nothing wrong with that, but it's not exactly the image that sticks in your mind when you think of the Elves in battle in LotR, and with the cloaks left the way they are, it's a bit of a shame, the film has them wearing some really unusual material.

The scene everyone remembers from that battle, one of the best scenes in the trilogy, is the one where they're in a perfect battle line, and attack in synchronicity. If you look at that scene, there's actually quite a lot of seconds to work with, and the Elves appear to have really unusual, lightly coloured robes, not blue ones. Their cloaks seem to be some kind of shimmering silvery material. I'm actually thinking this will be really difficult to paint to the standard I want to, but I'm going to give it a crack nonetheless.


So, paint steps as follows, I'll add to this as I go along:


Armour:

Citadel Shining Gold basecoat
Dark green ink wash
Citadel Shining Gold mixed with about 30-40% Mithril Silver, gently highlighting the metal, staying away from recesses



I'll add pictures to each stage too, and I am still tinkering with the penultimate step, I don't know if I'll like the black ink wash or not. But what the Dark Green does is just pick out the detail really nicely, it makes the gold look great without reducing it's shine. I've done two test models this way and I'm happy with how they turned out.


Robes:

Bleached Bone/ Tyrant Skull basecoat


Cloak:

Bleached Bone/ Tyrant Skull basecoat
Mithril Silver light covering
Tiny amount of Shining Gold spread around the surface area
FreakFlex Brown Tint (may not be 100% necessary)
Boltgun Metal/Leadbelcher for recesses and to blend colours
Very light amount of Burnished Gold spread around the surface area to give the unusual shine

(Just an aside, dear goodness Bleached Bone/ Tyrant Skull has zero shelf life! I don't know how they make that paint but it's just total garbage if you leave it for more than a few months. I've had no problems with any other colour in the range, but that colour, it literally always dries out and unmixes itself)



Cracked it! :D Phase 2 is in play, I've added the steps up above but basically I've managed to make the robes nice and shiny while also being subtle enough to pass for a light-ish, almost cream colour. Hard work but I'm happy with the results. I'll add some pictures in the next little while, I've got a few more to paint to prove the method is going to play out consistently but promising signs. I'll find out if I can add pictures from the movie as well, so if you're interested you can see what I was trying to achieve.

Project diary/ to-do list

(**Back on track with a lot of things out of the way, so I'm going to be doing the following in the next few days**:

~ Pinning and epoxy resin gluing a batch of models (Job done)
~ Undercoating some terrain (Job done)
and either
~ Starting a cinema/ car show room building project
or
~ Painting the lion's eyes


Next:

~ Painting Lord of the Rings elves armour (I'll possibly include a tutorial, it's an easy process)

~ Mass-painting Uruk-Hai and Orcs using a range of different skin tones in mass batches for the Orcs, one consistent colour for the Uruk-Hai, and for armour and weapons, rusty/ dirty colours (Job done, phew, took me aaagggeeess)

~ Pinning and gluing resin Mordor Troll Chieftain, painting and green-stuff converting 2 other Trolls (Job done, Troll Chieftain ready to rock and roll)

~ More epoxy resin gluing of different models

~ Finishing touches to Lord of the Rings character models

~ Gather pics of Thorin Oakenshield's company

~ Paint Thorin, Dwarves and Bilbo

Aliens Hadley's Hope using Battle Systems Terrain

As you might be aware, Battle Systems recently created the undisputed best card terrain on the market. It's amazing stuff, extremely versatile, and perfect for Space Hulk and other sci-fi wargames, and the guys (Colin and Wayne) are without question the most dedicated and passionate wargaming terrain designers in the business, their work effort and enthusiasm never failed to be mind-blowing and exciting throughout the production process, I can't speak highly enough about them. In addition, the upcoming and exciting Alien versus Predator models, created by Prodos games licensed under Fox, will look amazing alongside this terrain (and I'm really looking forward to my own order too :D). There's no date for those models arriving so I was trying my best to curb my enthusiasm and hold off on doing anything Aliens related, but on request I agreed to put this together.

So, being the enterprising individual that I am, I've set about creating Hadley's Hope, the colony on LV426, from the movie Aliens. It may not be 100% perfect, but I have done a considerable amount of research, including a video walkthrough, so I feel pretty confident on the accuracy of the piece. I'm including pictures from 2 different attempts I made, and I may modify things further in the future. With Christmas festivities taking precedence, this has been delayed by quite a long time. Anyway, enjoy the pictures.

Notes: I feel the terrain is barebones without more damage, in the movie you can see plenty of wire hanging from the ceiling, along with acid burns and bullet holes. Also, as you'll see in the pics, I run out of walls during my first attempt, and so I ended up using Battle Systems "infested walls" to cover the 3 walls I'm missing. I also need to invest in a 3rd window wall as this is missing in Operations too. Finally, I don't intend just to have pure white foamboard, one panel needs to be sprayed black, the other white, to represent Operations and the Med Lab. The upper levels will probably only be Operations and the Med Lab, and the stairwells are nice and close to both entrances so it's not too hard to ignore the lack of corridors upstairs.

Future projects:

- Spray Foamboard

- Create acid burn terrain pieces out of card and glossy resin to place on certain pieces of the board

- Modify certain walls with a drill or knife to include battle damage and bullet holes

- Glue wire bundles together as terrain pieces in the main corridor


I'm going to make a complete Alien hive inside the atmospheric processor, but that will only be once the Prodos order arrives. I have lots and lots of really good ideas for it, and for the "infested terrain" walls, but I can't do anything until the models arrive because they factor into what I'm going to do with regards paint and design. Suffice it to say I'm going to have around 40 eggs, a scratch-built egg sac, and a bunch of other DIY projects. Fingers crossed the order arrives in the near future, come on Prodos! :)

FIRST DRAFT PICS:
(Operations and Med Lab are fine, but I will re-do the base underneath)

                                       Overview shot of Hadley's Hope. You're looking from the north
                                         lock down to the south. The US colonial marines entered here,
                                         while Gorman, Ripley and Burke all came in via the south lock.
                                                                     
                                                                              South

East West

North

Looking into the Med Lab from the west of the base

Another Med Lab shot including Facehugger chambers and link to Operations

Operations. Missing a single window wall but otherwise looking good

Operations from the southern perspective. The elevated position was just made using Battle Systems crates for availability and ease. Need to make some steps up to it at some stage.

Operations from the east. The entrance is accessed via a few of the Battle Systems walkways, linked round to the stairwell

Shot of the eastern stairwell. I used a single wide staircase, though for accuracy, the colony really had the thinner type of Battle Systems stairway steps, I just preferred this. Sentry gun proxy til Prodos order arrives. You can use the lower level as the upper level corridors, so the main corridor running north-south doubles up here.

Med Lab again. There is an error here in that on the left hand side, those walls ought to have windows through into the area Ripley and Newt slept, when Burke released the facehugger. I may tackle this in the future and create window walls. There's also supposed to be one looking into the facehugger chambers room.

On your right you have the Med Lab's main entrance, and the area Newt and Ripley slept in.

Med Lab again

Newt/ Ripley's bed

Distance shot down the main corridor from the north lock (entrance). Use the middle piece as a landmark if re-creating the set-up yourself

Another distance shot of the colony from the north (far left on the gaming table)

These are living areas and the main thing I got wrong on the first attempt. There should be 4 rooms not 2, and the upper room here isn't in existence in the films.

From the eastern perspective

Closeup of Med Lab examination area. This is where Bishop dissected the facehugger. The Battle Systems consoles stack, so I used 3 circular on the base, and a further 2 on top.

Operations from its eastern entrance

This is the way to the Med Lab from Operations. Along this narrow passage next to the data banks, Ripley shot a xenomorph on warning from Newt, and Hudson got taken by the xenomorphs, pulled below the floor grills.

This is the doorway intersection where Burke locked everyone out, and Newt opened the little access tunnel for them all to escape. The access tunnel is something I may create in the future. To the left hand side of this picture, the door leads out along an access corridor, leading to another building in the colony.

This room is to the model's right upon entering the colony, and I didn't know quite what to do with it so it became a generator room. This is directly below the Med Lab.

This is directly below Operations and as you can see I haven't worked out any purpose for it yet.

Close-up of the north stairwell (left hand side of the table)

More pictures to follow of the amended base, I'll come back to it later today.

Part 2/ Amended Design

Okay so this is probably a more accurate Hadley's Hope design, there's not a symmetry to the layout, which you can see just from the blueprints. Basically it's much larger on the east side than the west, and this layout reflects that. Something really cool, which I thought would be a design issue but is actually just serendipity, the Operations windows overhang the base just slightly now, which is exactly what they should do by the look of it, so that's cool :). I'm maybe going to have to reinforce the foamboard with wooden slats but that's easily done.

Also, one other thing I haven't included here, in the outlying corridor, the one that runs all the way around the outside of the base, there should be doors or even walls, blocking these corridors off at each of the four outer doors. It's already in place at the north and south locks, it's just the east and west doors where there should be an extra 2 doors or walls flanking the entrance.

E

NS

W

Extra room added on the left hand side when entering the colony via the north lock

A look through the 3 rooms to the barricade in the corridor beyond

Close-up of the barricade

Colony main corridor shot. Managed to get the connecting piece on the floor tiles to fit in more smoothly this time :)

The new layout means the rooms are that little bit smaller

Moved the generators to the left hand side/ east of the colony as there's more room there. It's open to debate what all the rooms contain, but I know the generators were somewhere on the west side of the colony, so this placement of them here isn't necessarily accurate

Corridor shot from the west side. The wall ramp on the right hand side of this picture is negligently not the correct one, I should have used a double sided piece but just didn't remember to change it around. Woops

This is something you can do if you run out of floor tiles, simply take 4 of the square gantries and put them in the middle, they fit quite nicely, and once walls are over the top, you wouldn't even notice the difference

The new layout with Operations and Med Lab back on top. I didn't link the walls or line up the terrain properly because there are already better pictures of this area of the colony

The Operations windows now overhang the building just slightly, which is actually more accurate, so setting the base up with 9 walls along the length instead of 11 was beneficial in this regard

Shot of Operations and the colony from the south side

I included some models in a corridor shot for fun. Aliens vs Rambo

Uh-oh...

Samurai vs Aliens

Shot of the replacement "infested walls" on the outside of the Med Lab. And a samurai, stoically facing his doom

These are Heroclix Aliens

And I can't remember the Samurai's origins but I feel like it's GCT's "Bushido" game. I can check if anyone's interested, he comes with a separate helm and a Naginata spear weapon choice

Shot with the lights off and flash enabled

Long corridor shots with the lights off and flash enabled

So that's my Hadley's Hope. Again, may not be perfect, I could have missed something, but I'm confident in it personally. If anyone has any questions or comments, I'll have the base up until Monday 12th January 2015, at which point I need to deconstruct it back into the storage boxes, so I'll only have the pictures to refer to from then on out, until I get my AVP order from Prodos.