Well this
self-imposed challenge is turning out to be more of an ordeal, and a lot more
challenging than I had expected. I lost my painting mojo (and blogging mojo
too - no posts for a few months) towards the end of last year and it's been a while coming back. But the
good news is that (finally) the Horde are completed and ready for battle. Apologies for the quality of the photos, as well - lighting was not great at all - I need to improve my setup on that for sure.
As expected, future
posts in this series are now more likely to follow individual armies rather
than tackle multiple factions at a time. And given my rate of progress, I'm
deliberately not going to count the weeks. That part of this challenge fell by
the wayside a long time ago!
Hearthguard |
As the hearthguard
are the army's elite, I opted to give them a sort of uniform , so they are
painted with red and white designs where they are carrying shields or wearing
tabards. The green-skinned look seemed to suit them.
Three creatures |
The Champion |
Sorcerer (left) and Warlord (right) |
The sorcerer was the
only figure here that wasn't already at least partially painted, so most of
these just required touching up damage and tidying up details.
Eight Warriors |
Another eight Warriors |
About a third of
these needed painting completely and the rest needed quite a few repairs and
touching up damage and details. They don't have any particular uniform being
less well organised than the hearthguard, and are well suited to warriors owing
to their smaller size.
Sacred ground |
The sacrificial
stone was painted in grey and detail dry brushed.
Chariot |
This was the major
speed bump in my painting progress. Unpainted, it didn't look very good to me
at all and I couldn't see how to make it stand out. My logic with the reins and
tackle on the boars is that the chariot would be controlled by way of reins attached
to nose rings on each of the boars.
The nose rings are
made of metal rings used for jewellery, bought from Hobbycraft. They were
attached with glue and strengthened with green stuff moulded in such a way as
to enlarge the noses of each boar. The reins are made from thin strips of
paper.
The whole was
assembled before painting. In hindsight, I could have made it much easier for
myself by painting most of the components before assembly. I stuck to the red
and white colour theme with the main orc's jacket, the shields on the chariot
sides, and the reins. I'm really pleased with the way this turned out; the
painting has hidden a lot of imperfections!
Raaar!! |
As far as the
challenge goes, I'm deliberately slowing down, so it's likely to be a while
before I blog again about this topic. In the meantime hopefully I'll be able to
blog some reports of games!