Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Group

 The Steps

1. (Base coating)  To begin with I painted the base colours. For the cloak; Caliban Green. For the tunic (and arrow feathers); a 1/1 mix of Rhinox Hide and Gorthor Brown. For the under-tunic and around the top of the quiver; Dawnstone. For all other leather (boots, armour, helmet, quiver, belt), the bow/spear shaft and the back of the shield; Rhinox Hide. For the hair and beard; Yriel Yellow mixed with a little Mournfang Brown. For the skin; Cadian Fleshtone. For the front and side of the shield; either Caliban Green or Mephiston Red (I went with half red and half green). Paint the sword, spear head and the metal on the shield with Leadbelcher, but leave the mail for now.

2. (Skin 1) Paint the skin with a mix of Ratskin Flesh and Kislev Flesh, aim for more Kislev than Ratskin, but I encourage you to mix two or three slightly different skin tones to give the models a more varied appearance.

3. (Wash) The next step, as with all models I have recently painted, was to give the models a black wash. To do this I simply mixed Abaddon with about 2-3 times as much water, but you can also use the black wash sold by GW that is already mixed with water. Cover the whole model with this black wash, using a semi-dry brush to remove excess and ensuring that only a little removes on the skin. After this has dried apply a wash made up with water and Ratskin flesh, to the skin.

4. (Skin 2) Drybrush the skin lightly with Kislev Flesh.

5. (The Mail) Drybrush the mail with Leadbelcher, and then a 1/2 mixture of Leadbelcher and Runefang steel. Follow this with an extremely light drybrush with Hashut Copper.

6. (The Tunic) Begin painting the tunic with a 1/2 mix of Rhinox Hide and Gorthor Brown, taking care not to paint the darker areas. Then drybrush the tunic with Gorthor Brown, and while you've got it out also drybrush the arrow feathers.

7. (The Leather) Paint the higher points on the boots, leather armour and helmet again with Rhinox Hide, and paint the belt. Leave the helmet and armour with just the Rhinox, but drybrush the boots and belt with a 1/1 mix of Rhinox Hide and Mournfang Brown. Also paint the straps on the braces and quivers (for archers) with Mournfang Brown.

8. (The Cloak) Paint the cloak with a 1/1 mix of Caliban Green and Castellan Green, but take care not to paint over the shadows inside the folds. After this paint the high points with straight Castellan Green, covering less area than the previous layer. Follow this with a drybrush with a 1/1 mix of Castellan Green and Loren Forest and then a really light drybrush with straight Loren Forest, again covering less area each layer. Finally mix a tiny amount of Scar White with Loren Forest, use this to drybrush the most extreme highlights, paying particular attention to fine folds of the hood.

9. (The Hair) Drybrush the hair and beard with Yriel Yellow (this can be hard to do because the yellow paints are very watery, so be careful not to get too much paint on your brush). Follow this by mixing a little White Scar with Yriel yellow and lightly drybrushing again.

10. (The Shield) Red: Paint the shield with Mehpiston Red mixed with just enough White Scar to tint it slightly. Follow this by painting the edges of the shield with Mephiston Red mixed with more White Scar.                                                                                                            Green: Paint the shield with Castellan Green. Then paint the edges of the shield with a 2/1 mix of Loren Forest and Castellan Green.                                                                               After painting the colour on the shield, paint the emblem using white scar and highlight the metal in the centre with Runefang Steel.

11. (Fine Details) Drybrush the metal on the weapons and paint the trim on the helmets with Runefang Steel. Also paint the the pommel and guard on the sword with Hashut Copper and any visible part of the handle with Rhinox Hide.