Maggies Rohan cottage

Here's a little modelling by 10 year old Maggie, started at least two months ago but I don't often have her single company long enough to do anything.

Tomorrow, if the glue holds, she'll put some teddy fur on for thatching and, perhaps do walls of balsa wood.

John's Barrow and hat

John has been working on his round barrow and surrounds.

Here's the occupant, sound asleep as usual, and a neat way of fitting the barrow onto the board.

He's also put up two standing stones on a separate board as well as those near the entrance.

                                            His hat.

Speech House Defences

Here's the much improved gate.

A little less room for limbo dancing orcs to slip underneath (though that still needs seeing to)

If I started again, I'd have the spikes longer and pointed at both ends to prevent even goblins from crawling in underneath.

I'd also use wooden spikes rather than metal.

The main advantage is that, whereas before, it took two burly troops to move the pole out of the way, now one can heave the right hand side of the gate out of the lower loop and it can be opened with a push.

They've all had a go, riding on it as it swung open until Grimdol's accident.

Changing the gate also had the advantage of freeing up the spiked pole for use elsewhere.

It just needs cementing in with dark earth.

Citadel Guard unfinished

I regret that the guard have marched as far as they can. I cannot locate my plastic sheet of 'flag stones'. The bases will just have to wait till it turns up and, in the meantime, get on with that blessed gate, a new ruin, and the kilted ones, The clansmen of Lamedon. I shall endevour to give them something like the Thyme Tartan.

Citadel Guard 3

These were quick and easy to do and I like the result of the instruction to dry-brush Warlock Bronze, then Leadbelcher on armour, helms and spear tips (then my additional Chainmail).

I also went over the chest 'white tree' and the spear tips with Runefang

The bases will take as long as the models.

It will be a fiddle to re-join the cut pieces of the flagstone without holes appearing and, unlike those in the thick of battle, I shouldn't really hide the joins with rubble.

Any ideas?

Citadel Guard 2

That advice site suggests dry-brushing in bronze, then  in Leadbelcher which you see on the left.

Below is a further stage with a Chainmail dry-brush.

It's a little brighter and looks less like orc armour.

Notice there's a bright spot on number two, under the cloak near his left leg.

That appeared on two of them while I was dry-brushing and, though I saw nothing, I assume a piece of metal fell out.

Citadel Guard

Next up are some Citadel Guards. I found a site that might be very useful and it has a different approach.  Taking my time over these chaps. A thorough look at mold lines etc. A good wash and brush up. A coat of grey primer, then chaos black.

https://www.miniwargaming.com/content/rVFXMBFWX77s

John's Wight and bungalow

Here are John's latest creations.

Not GW but certainly Tolkien.

John took his inspiration for his ancient barrow from the Royston Vasey tortoise after Vet Chinnery had done with it.

I like the balanced rocks John. What do you call them?

If they look like real stone, that's because they are.

All except the one on top which John assures me is made from microwaved custard coated in brown paper.

Here you can peer into the murky depths where innumerable wanderers have met their demise.


Don't worry. Nutty Tom Bombadil will sort it out.



The wight, tucked up for the night.

I don't know why the colour change.

Thinks - must learn how to set white balance.

Wildmen of Druadan 6

 Here is Ghan-buri-ghan, the chief of the tribe, or Obi-Wan-Kenobi as he's known by his wives and his sixteen children.

He's quite distinct from all the triplets and is obviously in charge for he's not doing any of the fighting, just pointing and telling the others to do it.

All these models have still retained the shiny look from the first (gloss) coat of varnish, despite having a coat of matt applied on top.

If I do any more (doubtful), I would be more careful when clipping off all the spare bits of metal.

Many of them are not obvious until the undercoat or even colours are painted on.

There seems to be one of them protruding from Ghan-buri-ghan's left hand but I presumed that was something he was holding - a Biro perhaps.

I'd also paint the whole model skin coloured first and lay other colours on top rather than paint areas of skin and miss some.

A much quicker job.

When I had these underway, I thought they'd have the worst paint job for years but, in fact, perhaps you think they've come out reasonably well.

You might think that. I couldn't possibly comment.

Wildmen of Druadan 5

The remaining three triplets with more truck treated pine cone extracts as plants.

Of course they'll be rather fragile but I guess we'll not be playing many games in which these fellows are involved.

Difficult to move them about in the dense forest.

Perhaps the bases look rather bare?

I wonder about adding some grass or more of that mossy looking stuff that's on them.

Perhaps moss covered fallen tree branches.

Wildmen of Ruadan 4

Again, a little more added to the bases.

The strange plant in the centre is actually part of a pine cone after it has been pounded by passing traffic for a week or so.

Surprising what you trip over.

Why these guys should be wearing so little clothing when the live half way up a snow topped mountain only Tolkien knew.


I've made the assumption that parts of Ruadan forest are more akin to Peruvian rain-forest or those little micro climate bush areas I've seen in New Zealand.

Pockets of rampant ferns surrounded by rolling sheep filled fields

Perhaps there are hot springs trickling out of the mountains creating an area full of giant anacondas and brilliantly plumed parrots as well as these guys.

I'm surprised that Tolkien didn't mention it.

Wildmen of Ruadan 3

 Here's the first group with improved bases.

I've tried to give them some variety by by letting some avoid putting their grass skirts in the washing machine for a week or more.

So some skirts are brighter than others.

Wildmen of Druadan 2

Apart from the bases, these guys are done. I'll do the bases when they are all finished.

Speech House Fire

 Tinkering with Speech house.

Something to cook on.

The ash is breeze block, crumbled fine.

Third Ruin 6

Just added dry grass, some weeds and a couple of bushes and dry-brushed some green and brown, here and there.

Mostly there.

I'll call that done and maybe think about coigns later.

Third Ruin 5

 After accidentally using the wrong tub, I sprinkled small rock all over instead of fine sand.

I intended using fine sand rather than Dark Earth to see the result.

In fact I think the small rock looks OK.

So here we are after painting, dry-brushing and grassing Third Ruin.

More grass to go on, perhaps mostly dried grass.

Weeds too and a touch up on the central wall, added before it was finished.

Third ruin 4

Progress has been made.

The wallpaper 'pavement' laid and a small piece of polystyrene covered with filler/glue mix.

Small gravel, stones and some off-cuts from the walls were pushed into the mix.

 Once dried overnight, I've painted both pavement and heaps with thinned emulsion.

Perhaps too thinned because some stones have retained their colour but dry-brushing should hide that.

There are heaps outside the walls too, here after dry-brushing.

Now I know that it looks OK I can go ahead with more heaps and glue sand to the floor.

Wildmen of Druadan

The first of the Wildmen of Druadan nearly completed.

Using catachan green for the base, dry-brushed with scorpion green, I'd hoped for a 'forest floor dappled with sunlight' effect.

I'm not sure about it but I have other tinkering to do on the base yet to see if I can improve things.

I've found them tricky to paint, never mind that there is hardly any reference material available to guide you.




They turned up in one of GWs cheapskate boxes with no illustration and no colour guide.

Notice too, that I usually give a back view on this blog.

There is even less info, out there, on how models look from the rear.

I assumed that these guys could handle bronze and gave them bronze spear tips but I suppose they have a whole heap of ambushed orc weaponry stashed somewhere so other metals could also be used.

I gave this guy bronze limb decoration but I'll have a try with a lighter material like raffia so that the shading is visible.

As this guy has bronze decoration, as second in command (he's not been told of his promotion) I suppose the chief should have gold or brass.

Something shiny, anyway. It's his shiny thing.

Third Ruin 3

Outer walls glued, that's double thickness 5 mm foam board.

Painted and dry-brushed with my new money saving emulsion paint and now glued in place.

There are a few inner walls to go in and maybe a low section of back wall.

Several times I've done things in the wrong order as I experimented so there are errors.

I'll make a list for the next one.

Speech House 9

John suggested making the barrier a little less orc friendly by the addition of a spike or two though what Milligan or Jones have to do with it, I don't know.

Cocktail sticks clipped and inserted in holes in the barrier, painted and washed with armour wash.

Still doing third ruin in stages and painting a little when I can face up to the detail on the Druadan tribe.

Third Ruin 2

Here's the result after using a slightly watered down Dulux 'Quartz Flint 1' sampler rather than Games Workshop's overpriced 'Dawnstone.


Cheaper and I can do a loo wall in pale grey!


Then a drybrush of 'Niagra Blues 6' sampler rather than Administratum Grey.

It seems to work well and there's enough of both paints to do fifty ruins.

Colour change in the photo is simply the kitchen light being on.

Now to cut through the inner wall and giver it the same treatment.

3rd ruin

A start on the third ruin, a much smaller affair and easier.

I've planned and cut the outer part of the wall and glued it to a fresh board.

Then I coated it with glue/filler mix so that all walls will look the same.

The 'kek' (cow parsley) stalks with a coat of grey and dry-brushed lighter grey and white, start to look the part.

Yes, that's right, very old Edinburgh rock.

No, stone pillars, you fool!

Speech House 8

 Further progress on 'Speech House'.

 The dowel is threaded through four of the fittings from a set of curtain rings.

With advice from John, I've dulled down the metal with 'armour wash'.

I'd still like to see them with spikes but I'm not sure how to achieve it.

Various boxes were made from a piece of 1 by 1 cut into smaller pieces (not very accurately, as you can see)

I don't know which of the veterans requested the hat in the round hat box.

I suppose it could be a birthday cake.

There's enough beer for a great party.

First ruin finished

 There. That's the 'old ruin' finished by the addition of the tree.

It's a Fuchsia root with commercial 'Foliage' glued on using Copydex and spray varnish then sprinkled with the powdery stuff I've used for weeds and moss.












I'm not too sure about it myself.

Let me know if I need to uproot it and plant potatoes instead.

Note the rubbish stonework and the wildmen skulking in the background