Legolas and Gandalf the Gray

I recently opened up my Fellowship of the Ring set and started working on some of the individual characters. I decided to try a different priming method that I've read about on TMP...a black sprayed undercoat with a drybrushed white coat on top. The idea is to get brighter color results while keeping the dark recesses that come from the black undercoat. So far, I've been pleased with the results...

The first two are Legolas and Gandalf the Gray...While they're not masterpieces, I'm happy with them.

The pictures are a little dark...I dipped Gandalf after painting him, but wiped most of it off. He looks suitably musty, I think. Legolas is my favorite so far...I tried to do his hair pretty light, more like the movie version. His green stands out pretty good, thanks to that white drybrushing primer.

Thanks for looking! Next up: Aragorn and some Mordor Orcs!

Ruins from the Two Towers boxed set

I bought the Two Towers boxed set a while back and didn't even realize it came with a little ruins set. I pulled it out the other day to see what I could do with it. It's not a great piece, but with a little kitty litter and a decent base, it's usable. Kind of small, but it was fun to practice on!

The front entrance is almost big enough to squeeze in a mounted soldier. I cut out a base from some 1/4 inch wood and kind of jigged out a contoured edge instead of straight sides.

After gluing the ruins on, I covered the entire thing with sand and kitty litter. Then I undersprayed the entire piece with cheap Walmart flat black spray paint.

I drybrushed the entire piece with three layers: Medium gray, light gray, and faint highlights of white. These rocks were made from foamboard scraps.

I added a few tufts of static grass mixed with flock, and added some straight flock for ivy on one wall. You can see the approximate size from the 28mm Legolas inside...

All in all, a cool piece...especially since I didn't even realize I was getting it! I liked the results of multi-layer drybrushing as well.

Next up: Legolas, Gandalf, and progress on Aragorn!