Having enjoyed both extended editions of LOTR and The hobbit films, I came across this jewel from Irbis Miniatures , which incidentely is PACKED with lovely little details.
I particulalry enjoyed The Wee Jin's performance as Dain, coming to the battle field on his hog, saying things (in a heavy Glasgow accent) like 'may I have a wee moment of your time, and ask you all to BOGGER OFF....' and 'Elfish Princess' when referring to the Elven King

Onyway, this blog will be occasionaly updated as my work progresses.
Started with the ground work. Found a beautiful base (Pete's Bases) that fitted well with Weta Workshop's concept design of dwarves. Glued on the base, and found the edges wanting - so in the process of extending them somewhat in the style of those watercolour paintings one can find in older fauna books.

I see this scene possible at two points in time: 1) Dain is leaving the iron Hills following a summons of the King under the Mountain (Thorin Oakenshield), or 2) Dain is now King under the Mountain, and is a few weeks/months after the Battle of 5 Armies temporarely leaving his office for a ceremonial handing over of the reign of the Iron Hills to his replacement there. If I can find it, I will include a Raven - if anyone knows of a good Raven in the 75mm scale, much appreciated

Blocked in some of the details of the battle results laying on the ground - armour, lost equipment, bones and skulls, etc. Same with the hog - blocking in colours to try to find my vision. The green of the saddle will be a very dark velvetty green, while the orange of the hide at the back will be darker too. Both will be covered by Dain and his luggage anyway, so I thought a splash of colour might be interesting.



I want the blue a bit more vibrant, and the chain mail and armour will be highlighted with Darkstar metals. The flag, armour and skull are finished for now (may want to make some adjustments when I have the whole composition settled).

I am considering making the armour plating on both the hog and Dain blue steel, with gold and red highlights.

Little more work to do at the edge of the base to improve the structure before giving it a coat of paint.

That's all for now, Folks........
heheheHEhe

"The Wee Jin"....
Now there's an interesting play on words....

yep, as he (Billy Connolly) is know as 'The Big Yin'

Calling the ground work finished for now. may consider adding a small amount of weeds to indicate the passing of time between the battle and this scene, but need to give this some more thought. would appreciate any thought on this from the wider PF community.



The green saddle needs to be a lot darker green, but happy with the orange bit behing it - this will be covered by saddle bags, so I think most of it will be covered anyway.

Played around with the colour setting. I see this as a handy tool to check if I got the shadows/highlights consistent.

I did not work on this figure due to my attention being taken up by my dissertation work, but now that is out of the way I have picked up the brushes again.

Finished some gold on the armour plating, put some highlights and shadows on the green saddle, and added a red rim to the blue blanket.


Next step will be to finish off the mouth of the animal. I will wait with painting the bit and associated ribbons until the figure has been mounted.