I'll keep it extra-short this time. I've been having fun painting a bunch of Skaven pawns. Originally they're from WFB 8th edition box Island of Blood (dated 2010), the one with the High Elves too, but these are great for any game from WFRP to HeroQuest. Enjoy.
I have been quite hyped with Middle-earth lately, possibly as a consequence of the new TOR RPG Kickstarter, and I decided to dig up some baddies from the Mithril leadpile. So here we are with these Mordor Orcs: M151 from 1990 ("Mordor Orcs") and M310 from 1993 ("Mordor Orc Standard Bearer").
I went for a simple paint-job: dark brown skin-tone, black and tan clothes, black leather and iron armour and weapons. I added a bit of bronze/brass here and there, and a red eye painted on the standard. Overall I am pretty pleased with the result, considering the effort - Orcs do not require too much detail after all.
Bard of Esgaroth. First sculpt of this character by Mithril, in 1990. Solid figure, in quite a theatrical pose: not really suited to be used as a playing piece, but easily associated with the topical moment of Bard's life - when he shoots the Dragon.
I always liked Bard, since my first reading of the Hobbit. There is something fresh with him, that being essentially an anti-hero, a stern man with a coarse voice, whose grim advice goes unheeded by the people until the moment of need, when he turns into a real hero, a Dragonslayer and then a true king, not only by blood but also by merit. Like Bilbo, he was underestimated by all, and possibly by the reader too, which makes his rise even more surprising.
He's been variously portrayed in graphic arts:
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| A perpetually angry archer by M. Belomlinsky (1976) |
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| A scruffy looking man from the animated Rankin/Bass animated movie (1977) |
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| A determined warrior in the Dixon graphic novel (1998) |
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| A bewildered vagrant by Denis Gordeev (200?) |
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| A handsome single father in PJ's movie trilogy (2012-2014) |
