Middle-Earth medley... Wood Elves, Ale Carts and Durin's Causeway...

A bit of a mixed bag this blog post...

First up... I finished the four Wood Elf models that were part of Tim's transpacific parcel of goodies I previously received. Tim had used them as a paint test scheme I believe, and whilst perfectly serviceable, I wanted them to match in with my existing figures, so into the stripping jar they went. The original wood elves came in for a fair bit of criticism, being considered rather naff sculpts, but I think they have a certain charm of their own and still paint up reasonably well...

I like them anyway! I still want to get some of the new Mirkwood figures from the The Hobbit of course, the Rangers and Guards look great. Oh, and Tauriel is of course on the wants list - babe! As much as I liked Arwen, Tauriel has a bit more 'Xena' about her, if you get my drift!?

Next up today...whilst rummaging through old figures with a view to selling stuff off... I came across an old Dwarf Bugman's Beer Cart, that I had got to go along with my old Warhammer army... looking at it I was immediately struck by the similarity to the Southfarthing Beer Cart at the Hobbiton set:

South Farthing Ale cart at Hobbiton set

... and so a seed of a plan began to germinate...

A little while later whilst Chris and I were looking through the series of Journey book scenarios, with a view to models we would need to get to complete all the scenarios, one scenario Chris looked at and proclaimed, "We'll never be able to play that one properly!" ... "Why not?" I replied..., "You need Treebeard, but without the hobbits riding on him. You already made ours with the hobbits on him..."

Right thought I, not to be outdone...I later came across a new unmade Treebeard set on ebay and managed to win it for a small amount, compared to new...

And so the kit arrived with all parts complete and now I can make Treebeard by himself without being bothered by hobbits along for the ride. But it did give me a spare two seated hobbit models...Perfect, just what I needed...

And so Bugman's Beers cart went in to the stripping jar, after the dwarf driver was snipped off... a little clean up, filing and greenstuff and here we have a Hobbition Ale cart...

Complete with two hobbit drivers...

It was rather interesting to get it stripped back, it just showed how much I was still learning back then... several mold lines hadn't been filed away! So I had a bit of work to do. Also interesting seeing the copyright date on the pony's base tab ; GW 1987 I think, the last number was a bit deformed, fairly sure it was a seven, it couldn't have been a 1 as I was only 11 then and hadn't started gaming... ah well, a brief return to my youth and nostalgia!

... I'm rather looking forward to painting this up. I'll mount it on a 60mm round base in keeping with the rest of the basing for the LOTR SBG game...

Lastly for today... I couldn't resist doing a bit here and there through the week on my Durin's Causeway... adding a extra width panel throughout. Its given the whole a far more robust feel, more solid, more dwarf like!

Of course still a long ways to go, but I feel the foundation is now well made.

I am now pondering ahead to the best way to effect a sense of flame and fire below...

... and was pondering recessing a load of the those yellow twinkle LEDs into the base and covering with some diffuser and resin.... or perhaps I am going a bit over the top again???

Food for thought anyway :-)

Right, enough blogging for now, back to painting the Hobbit Dwarfs... I have a free arvo as my son is with a mate at the cinema watching Spiderman... not my thing!

Till next time...