"Welcome, Mr Bowman, to the Company of Thorin Oakenshield!"

Did you see what I did there? ;-)

Well its been a long journey, but I finally, almost 18 months later, finished my set of the 13 dwarves from The Hobbit, Escape from Goblin Town (Ltd Ed) set...

So to set the scene... cough, deep gravely voice..."Far Over,..."

I started off quite well, and even DIY-ed a whole Goblin Town layout, then got the Goblin King and the minions of his subterranean kingdom all painted up... then stalled at getting the dwarves done... not sure why, I guess I got distracted by other things and disillusioned at the time over subsequent pricing of the forthcoming GW range...

Months later, Balin managed to sneak back into the painting queue as part of this seasons painting challenge, but still the rest went for quite sometime before I knuckled down and got them finished, probably again at the instigation of my son saying he'd really like to have a play of the Goblin Town scenarios, having watched the DVD movie several times over...

So finally I can present The Company of Thorin Oakenshield!

Thorin

Dwalin

Balin

Gloin

Oin

Bofur

Kili

Bifur

Ori

A little enforced conversion work, for Ori;  I recall two summers ago now, trimming these dwarfs outside in the summer sun quaffing a foaming ale whilst doing so...everything on a tray, sitting at table on the patio...when I brought tray back inside I couldn't find Ori's catapult holding hand, so had to do my own. I trimmed off a hand from a spare plastic figure, and fashioned a catapult out of melted and stretched plastic sprue, then used some fuse wire for the sling shot part. I thinks he's come out OK, and it makes him a little unique!

Dori

Bombur

Fili

Nori

"Nori" or Jed Brophy, is our local celebrity, as he's from my home town vicinity, here in NZ, and also played, among other roles, Sharku, captain of the Isengard warg riders in the Two Towers...

I think perhaps part of my delay in getting them done was actually a little apprehension, that I was rather conscious of the fact I wanted to do a good job on them and that meant trying to get the colours right. Most of the time painting mini's you can easily decide on colours; brown here, green there, vary the shades a bit, and all is well. But when you are painting something that everyone is familiar with, there then is the expectation to get it 'just right' - and that means the right shades...

I looked over the painted examples from GW, and also got the Visual Companion, to further give me clues, but if anything this further muddied the waters as the shades seemed to blend together before me into so many subtly differing shades of browns, grays and reds... I also endlessly poured over the making of DVD of the Extd Ed of the Hobbit, just for differing lighting shots of the costumes, as lighting makes all the difference in the way colours look on screen...

In the end I more or less followed the GW painted examples as a guide, matching the colours as best as I could figure out with the paints in my collection; a mix of GW, Foundry and Vallejo...

I hope they meet with your approval, and Chris and I can now look forward to some games, "Down, down, down in Goblin Town..." :-)

I just need to finish the weapon pile and then get the Ltd Ed Radagast model done to complete the set... after which I might be eyeing up the boxed set of the three trolls I have on my shelf...

I'll sign off with Neil Finn's Misty Mountains Cold... enjoy!