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Sunday, February 24, 2013

The Goblins of GoblinTown - The Hobbit

I recently managed to get my 3rd submission in Curts, 3rd Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge...

As always click on pics for a larger view.

I burned a bit of the midnight oil and finished off the 36 goblins I have been working on, off and on, since the beginning of the challenge. The quality of the plastic sculpts was very good, and the amount of mould line to scrape away was minimal.


As for painting them up I was in a slight dilemma as to what colour to paint them. They were not going to be classic 'green' as the majority of the Moria goblins are.


In the movie they come across as having a yellowish hue, yet a lot of stock pictures show them with a pale grey skin colour. I can only assume the lighting effect in the movie from the flaming torch-lit caverns of GoblinTown would have cast a yellow colour to their actual pale grey skin.


So I went with the pale grey base tone. After this they had shading washes and heavy drybrushing to set the flesh tones. The loin cloths and equipment were painted up, and finally the disgusting spotty lumps and bumps were given red and purple washes and the yellow spot heads added, just ripe for popping! An adolescent kid would have a field day on these buggers! ;-)


Finally facial features were added, including eyes and teeth/mouths.


I have to confess to the eyes not being the best - normally I do the eyes at the mid point of the models, but with so many washes and dry brushing going on they would probably have got messed up, so I left them to the end.

Typically by which point my fine detail brush had given up the ghost! So with nothing good to hand to dot the pupils I resorted to trimming a cocktail stick to a sharp point and used that!

Not the most accurate way of doing things and some of the eyes went a little off centre, but in the end I think it actually added to the character of the mis-shaped limbs and general ungainly poses. Bases were PVA sand textured and painted and drybrushed.


So I am rather happy with the way they turned out. Suitably loathsome!

So whilst they and their setting are clearly suitably for playing the Hobbit games in Goblin Town... I did have a bit of a lateral thought, with all this Empire of the Dead stuff taking off...

Wouldn't they do wonderfully as evil minions of the Vampire faction? I can just see the underground catacombs below the vampire castle teaming with these little villains... perhaps there to protect the Vampire when he rests in his coffin, and aid the master in his evil plots and plans...





I could run them as a 'thrall' with a hand weapon or improvised weapon, or perhaps make them a little weaker, in stats for a suitable cost reduction?

Above you can see the Vampire Hunters searching out their prey in the catacombs below 'Castle Dracula'  !

22 comments:

  1. Holy cow! Magnificent! These look great, and have so many uses beyond just goblin town. Great job.

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  2. Great stuff Scott. I know from experience how much time these blighters take! Love the spots - reminds me of my 6th form class photo.

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    1. LOL, thanks. "6th form" - haven't heard that term for a while, are you a Pom?

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  3. great work on those figures! (even if I don't like them a lot!)
    Impressive Goblin-town !

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  4. "suitably loathsome" indeed. those things are hideous. nice work.

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  5. They look fantastic Scott. And I think you got the colour spot on.

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  6. Superb mate they look awesome, Very disgusting looking. Having played my first game of EotD last night I think using these as Thralls would need some extra gear, long range firepower is quite lethal and I was only using hunting rifles!! Expect a batrep on the blog later this week.

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  7. Thanks all guys!
    @ Simon - we did actually play a game with them this afternoon'. Took two basic starting factions as per the boxed sets and adding a bunch of Gentlemen and Jackanapes to both sides. The good guys took Cedric Hyde, Lady Luck, Cirque du Noir Man Ape and Holmes and Watson. Evil got Mr Chop and a whole bunch of 'goblin'-thralls...
    Played Find the Artefact in the catacombs of 'goblin town'...
    Rolled 3 objectives.
    Catacombs so Night rules for LOS and Vampire powers...
    Vampire Faction managed to get to all artefacts first but all were empty...
    Lady Luck and Cedric Hyde were most devasting with their shooting, and Cedric took out Mr Chop in melee.
    Graf took out Man Ape with aid of thralls...
    Vampire faction won in melees where they managed to overwhelm with numbers but shooting took its steady toll on exposed thralls... Eventually Vampire faction hit break point and then Graf failed his Bravado roll and feld, as did half the remaining figures, so we called it.
    Great fun game, getting back in to it.
    Lady Luck and her telescopic sighted Hunting Rifle is the business! I should have sent the bats after her earlier to keep her tied up!

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  8. Brilliant work. Your Goblin town is awesome! My daughter wants me to do Hobbits first though!

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  9. great quality work. Beautiful painting ...
    It takes a very large room ...

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  10. Thanks again guys, much appreciated :-)

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  11. My word Scott, these are mightily impressive; just love the colour that you've gone for.

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  12. Wow - those look great - the skin tone is just great. The basing also is fantastic. And the production numbers all the more impressive. Well done again. Dean

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  13. I agree the goblins would be good for a vampire minions. We used Ringwraths and zombies for our vampire squad in our last campaign.

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    1. Yes, "Pointy the Ringwraith" and his cohorts were truely formidable.

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  14. Nice work with the bileous skin tones on the Goblins Scott. They look positively putrid...in the nicest possible way of course.
    Looks like this Vampire Hunter caper is just the break you needed from FOW.

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  15. Thanks all again guys, much appreciated.

    The Empire of the Dead is certainly a lot of fun and although similar to LOTR SBG in style is subtly different which I have to try and remember through game play...

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  16. Hi Scott,

    once again some really nice painted figure. Well done!

    And the terrain pieces are actually awesome. I'm looking forward to your next projects.

    Cheers
    Stefan

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  17. Nicely done. Gives me a few ideas for when I finally start on mine.

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  18. The grey works well and they have turned out superb. Love that last picture.

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