51 Norkers

Well here it is 51 Norkers completely finished. I can not decide if they look more like crack head clowns or baboons that have learned to walk on their hands backwards. Some really ugly buggers for sure.

These are described in the 2nd edition monstrous compendium as having grey or brown skin color, yellow teeth, yellow eyes, and either red or blue noses.

I painted all of them grey just because I figured it would contrast better with the base color and it would be quicker to do them all one color. So having finished them in two days I probably could have taken an extra hour or two to make some brown.

If you do not get the baboon comment please see the last picture!!!!!

For those of you who do not know these miniatures are from the official range of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons miniatures made in 1985 by Citadel. It was a very cool line because they would take a single pose and then make multiple variations of this figure. Makes it a nice little miniature line to collect and try and get all of the different figures.

Below is pictures all of the different variants of the three basic types that I have.

Lord of the Rings Shade and Spider Swarms

Well I am almost finished with the 51 Norkers, probably be done tonight or tomorrow. But I got a little bored of painting the same figure over and over and over again..... 51 pretty much the same miniature is a killer.

So while I was working on that I decided to do some more Lord of the Rings Miniatures. So here are a shade and a spider swarm I finished. Both are quick to paint.

The spider swarm was painted with an off white color. The shade was a little more complicated. I started by painting the entire model with GW shadow grey and then giving this a wash of Ral Partha 77-723 Purple. The wash took about 45 minutes to dry at which point I mixed shadow grey with Ral Partha 77-817 Light Blue and dry brushed this over the model increasing the amount of light blue as I went. Last touch was a little yellow for the eyes.

If you do not count waiting for the wash to dry this model took about 15 minutes to paint. Quick and looks pretty good. The only problem I had was the the purple I used is about 20 years old and ended up drying a little "gritty". Not a problem but I would use another purple if I do another model like this.

Lord of the Rings Riders of the Dead

Well a little late but here are the Riders of the Dead.

Ok so these are a little but greener than the other ones but it is still hard to tell from the picture. What I did this time was use a tank brush for the final three levels of dry brushing. This kept more of the green showing.

Still not exactly what I think would look best. If I had to do it all over again I would probably use three different colors of green ink. I would use the snot green, a medium green, and probably something that is really between green and yellow. I think this would give a much more otherworldly color scheme.

But as this is all about getting large amount of miniatures painted quickly and decently this will have to wait until I have more time.

Empire Pikemen

Some Empire spearmen I converted to hold pikes. A nice 8x5 block. Hopefully I will have these painted by the end of March.

This is not a very hard conversion but rather time consuming. I used the old Empire spearmen. I think they are 5th edition models. I used 18 gauge floral stem wire. You can get this from a craft store like Michael's (in the USA anyway). I then drilled out the hands of the spearmen and slid the floral wire right in. Drilled out the top of the spear a little bit and glued it to the end of the floral wire and was finished.

And I will never do this conversion again. Using a pin drill by hand that much was actually painful (and I do mean literally).

Rogue Trader Ambulls

These have been sitting around the house for the better part of a decade and a half so I thought it might be a good idea to finish them up and see how they turned out.

Empire Outriders

I finished these while watching the Packers lose their playoff game this weekend (what a crock). But football aside I really hate painting horses. But at least the armor makes it quick I suppose.

I actually prefer many of the old Empire models as compared to the newer ones that have come out over the last few years. This will most likely lead me to do a real landsknecht army eventually but that is a few years down the road.

Lord of the Rings Army of the Dead

These are the first miniatures I finished for 2010. This is 1 King of the Dead (1st picture) with 21 more warriors of the dead. All by GW.

This was another very easy paint job to pull off. They look a lot more green tinged in person but the light washed it out of the pictures a little. Anyway, if you want to paint yours like this just follow these easy instructions.

First I primed them black. Then I took a medium color grey (neutral grey by Americana) and put a heavy dry brush on the model. Next I added some white to the this color and dry brushed again (not as heavily this time). The last step before washing it is to dry brush a light coating of white on your model. After this step I watered down some snot green and used this to wash the model.

Let your models dry for a day and then go over the steps again starting with your grey and ending with your white.

It should go without saying that you do not need to reprime your miniature or wash it again.