WIP: GW LOTR Mordor Orcs - Basing Done

I managed to work on my first ever miniatures last night and earlier today and I am excited to show you my first " basing " attempt.



These are 24 miniatures of Lord of the Rings Mordor Orcs from Games Workshop. They are half the size of your usual Warhammer and WarMachine / Hordes miniatures but they pack enough details and are very cheap. The price and the smaller size of these minis makes for great practice pieces as I will find other minis huge once I work on other kits ( lol ).



First I added bits and pieces of styrene on all the bases and then I glued ( wood glue ) some aquarium sand on them. My eldest daughter was the one who sprinkled the sand on the glue. I then primed all of the figures flat black and let cure overnight.



Earlier today I overbrushed ( drybrushed ) some light grey over the black figures and I eventually started on painting the bases. All washes and paints are Vallejos. The base is almost done as I just need to paint the sides of the bases with black ( not brown ). Maybe I could also add some static grass once I get my hands on them.



For the mean time here are some photos of my progress so far... ( time to walk my dog, hehe )



Nest stop, painting the Orcs themselves!

GLUING AQUARIUM SAND 

 BLACK PRIMER

 

 OVER-BRUSHING

 

 

 BASE COLOR PAINTING

 

 

 

FINISHING

 

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GW LOTR Mordor Orcs set - unboxing

Finally I had time to post this little critters. This Games Workshop ( GW ) Lord of the Rings ( LOTR ) Mordor Orcs set will be my first ever venture to the world of miniatures. Apparently after a bit of research, I learned that these figures are almost half the size of your usual Warhammer and WarMachine / Hordes figures. I hope to get a figure of a Horde soon and will shoot some comparison photos.



The figures are very well detailed and are beautifully sculpted as expected. More than enough details and textures packed in such small figs. There are 24 Mordor Orcs figures in the box. However there are only 12 unique sculpts multiplied by 2. So you'll get two of each unique sculpt. I tried to modified how each " twin " figure posed on their bases and also tried vainly to alter the angles of a few arms.



Most of the figures came in one piece sculpts, save maybe around 6 in which you have to glue the arms with the weapons ( spears ). I have washed all the pieces in water and dish washing soap and have glued them on their small bases already. Will start on the basing before I paint and work on the figures themselves.



You basically have to remove mold lines all over the figs and reculpt a few details like creases on the clothes and armor parts. I have prepped only 4 figures so far and should continue to clean up the rest of the figs. Much like Gunpla, will build up my skill first on cheaper sets and figures before I attempt to paint the more expensive ones ( hopefully soon ).



Hope to be painting very soon and hope to get my first Privateer Press Hordes figure very soon too.

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HORDES miniatures by Privateer Press

As usual whenever I am excited about something... I blog about it... and I blog about it a lot!



I have been working with a commission work on a few modular pieces for a table top gaming table for the past few weekends. The modular pieces are for the miniature table top game WARMACHINE. Nope not the WarHammer miniatures... but WarMachine ( ala Iron Man sidekick ).



I have zero idea about the lore of Warhammer and any other table top miniatures, although I know that it has been around for a while now. Warhammer  is like " Colgate " of toothpaste and " Kodak " of photography ( for me at least ).



Much like Gunpla I am more into the " hobby " side of these figures, thus I judge them base on the designs of the characters.So honestly speaking, I find steam punk robots in WarMachine a bit more appealing than the Sci Fi look of WarHammer.



I have been into Gundam plastic modeling for 4 years now and I will be venturing into miniature painting as soon as this coming weekend. Will take a vacation from robots for now and I will be painting 24 pieces of Mordor Orcs from Games Workshop.



However, while I was researching about " WarMachine " stuff to understand my commission work deeper, I came across a separate line of characters from Privateer Press ( manufacturer of WarMachine ). And they are PERFECT!



As I've said, I love Fantasy and most specially Lord of the Rings Fantasy, I love steam punk ( as you can see with my old Gunpla projects ) and a combination of mechanical steam punk stuff and organic fantastical monsters is sooooooo perfect!!!



I present to you HORDES by Privateer Press!



I was about to get myself at least one of the cheapest Trollbloods figure today, but thought I need to practice on my Mordor Orcs this weekend first. There are 5 races / clans / groups in the world of Hordes and all of them are beautiful stuff! My fav of the 5 races are the Warbeasts of both SKORNE and TROLLBLOODS. Much like in Gunpla, I love those fat dudes with huge weapons!



I doubt I could pull off perfect paint jobs like the photos from the Privateer Press anytime in the next 5 years, but will surely try and will surely enjoy the experience! This is Fantasy and Monsters combined with Mechanical Steam Punk designs! Perfect stuff for me... perfect stuff!



They even have books!!! Man these stuffs brings out my geeky side so much more!

 

 

 

 

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Miniature Painting Tutorial by DECAY

 I have been reading and surfing the net for miniature painting and stuffs for the past couple of days and I almost overlooked the best Gunpla / Miniature modeler I personally know. William Decay of Germany is one of the top modelers at MAC forums and is the best Miniature painter / modeler that is also into Gunpla. I will need to Skype with Decay sometime to get some tips as he is packed with both knowledge and skills in minis.



Apparently Decay just made a very informative 4 part video on basic miniature painting over a black base color. Perfect for what I am about to paint this weekend. Do head out to Decay's blog for the links and videos of this very informative stuff... love the husky voice btw ( lol ).

Miniature Painting Tutorial by DECAY

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28mm Rhino King painted by Roman aka JAR

 WOW! Just saw this today from Massive Voodoo and it made my jaw dropped to the ground.



Forget that this is a 28mm figure... the painting looks like it is at least 5 to 10 inches tall. Imagine packing that much details and color shifts on less than a few inches of 3D canvas! I wish I tried this miniature stuff earlier... great stuff but I need to get magnifying lens soon ( lol ).



The sculpt ( figure ) is by Allan Carrasco's Rhinotaure and was painted and modelled by Roman aka JAR to Rhino King. I can't work on my first miniatures until the weekend... However I could blog about my new interest everyday and try to poison other people.



This is out of this world stuff, Humanly impossible work from Roman aka Jar. Anyways details and a ton more photos of this stuff at Massive Voodoo, here is the link guys...



28mm Rhino King painted by Roman aka JAR

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GoodBye Gunpla... Hello Miniatures!

The photo above is a Deathwing squad from Games Worshop Warhammer 40k, modeled and painted by Ron of FromTheWarp.blogspot.com. I spent a large part of my day yesterday reading on the how to's of miniature painting. Learned a lot from FromTheWarp so much thus I bought my first minis yesterday too!



So many informative tutorials all over the net, but I got hooked to Ron's well explained tips and tutorials the most. Ron also has so many inspiring finished projects. However I am not into Warhammer ( as of now ), so I bought a box of Games Workshop Lord of the Rings " Mordor Orcs " yesterday instead. I will post some updates later today if I have the time.



Should I be renaming this site from DC23mecharts to DC23miniarts or plastic arts? Maybe once I get to finish more minis eventually or maybe when my domain expires. One thing is for sure... my display cabinet will take ages to fill up with these mini plastic figures ( lol ).



I am not leaving Gunpla or Gundam plastic modeling yet ( or at least as of this writing ), but I am super excited on painting my first minis. As most of you know, I only like the hobby part of Gundam / Gunpla and have very little knowledge of the Gundam lore, Anime or Manga. Heck I do not watch the anime / cartoons at all to be honest.



However as I've said a few times before, I am a super geeky fan of the Lord of the Rings and anything Tolkien. I love the books ( even the ones edited by Christopher Tolkien ), I have the action figures, I have trading cards and I have watched the movies at least 4 times already... including the director's extended cut.



Thus it was an easy decision for me to choose between the boxes of Warhammer stuffs versus the boxes of Lord of the Rings minis yesterday. And unlike painting and modeling Gundam kits, painting and modeling Lord of the Rings minis is far much more exciting for me.



I cleaned my minis yeaterday and glued them on their small round plastic bases... and as I scrub each figure, flashes of images of the movies and excerpts from the books played in my mind ( lol ). Besides, painting miniatures would not cost me much unlike Gunpla. And I get to do super small bases which I loved the most, I could even do Minis Tirith and Helm's Deep ( castle ) dioramas if I like.



Great miniature stuff ahead guys!



I also added some great Warhammer and miniature blogs on my sidebar. Most of the sites I got from my best friend Kriz of KreativeMinds. Here are the list of the new blogsites in my sidebar...

• http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/


• http://saskminigamer.blogspot.com/


• http://www.belloflostsouls.net/


• http://armorfarm.blogspot.com/


• http://smellslikewargaming.blogspot.com/


• http://warpstoneflux.blogspot.com/


• http://www.how-to-paint-miniatures.com/

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mini WAR GAMING table WIP - painting

I managed to squeeze in a few hours this weekend and I finished painting a few pieces for my mini War Gaming table modular pieces ( commission work ).



I have yet to dry brush the terrain and have yet to weather the " ruin " pieces. As always I ran out of a few supplies again and could not finish the pieces you see in the photos. The two " watch towers " are almost done and should have been done if only I have super glue and black spray paint. The other pieces was painted with Vallejo paints as usual and will be sealed with future later.



I will then weather the pieces with enamel washes and some Vallejo paints tomorrow ( once the future has cured ) and seal them in flat coat to finish it up. For the meantime here are a few photos for my client to see...

 

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THE HOBBIT movie = new HOBBY???

It has been a looooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnngggggggggggg wait and finally it is coming!



I am a huge Lord of the Rings fan, I read all the books, I have numerous LOTR books, almost have all the action figures from " toybiz ", some trading cards and even a Legolas ash tray.



Not too sure but I think I have around 150 pieces of LOTR action figures in my display cabinet. I have like 10 Frodo Baggins and around 8 Legolas action figures. All figures are covered in dust but the new up coming " The Hobbit " movie makes me want to clean them up and take photos of them for the net to see. OR better yet, I could start buying and painting some Lord of the Rings Games Workshop figures soon.



Same as when I saw the small beautiful face of my first new born child, I could not explain how happy I am when I saw the trailer of the up coming The Hobbit movie.



The Lord of the Rings trading cards are hard to come by, The toyline 6 inch action figures from toybiz is long dead and collecting the LOTR GW miniature figures is the nearest thing to what I have been doing for the past 3 years. If I get to buy my first LOTR miniature, my Vallejo paints will be of some use again.



The movie got me excited... and I might be moving on to a different hobby this 2012.



 

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AOR_OR_DIE arrives in the Philippines in 10 days!!!

Good friend back from BAKUC 2008, Omar aka Aor_or_die from Italy will be landing in the Philippines in 10 days!



Aor of  Gundam dreams is an old friend I met back in HongKong at BAKUC 2008. He represented Italy as their Italy BAKUC champion. He has produced countless Plastic and resin masterpieces since then and remains to be an active inspiration of the community until today.



Aor is now a moderator at ZeroGunz ( my old forum ) and also an active VIP member of our MAC forums. I am very excited to see him again, eventhough I am no longer that active in Gunpla these days. Omar will be landing in the Philippines ( Manila ) on February 25! And together with a handful of MAC forums people, we will be meeting him on the 26th!



So book February 26 guys and be ready to meet one of the masters of the craft from Italy in Aor_or_Die. I'll leave you with links of some of Aor's notable masterpieces...

• http://gundamdreams.blogspot.com/2010/07/1100-nz-666-kshatriya.html


• http://gundamdreams.blogspot.com/2010/03/z-gustav-scratch-build.html


• http://gundamdreams.blogspot.com/2011/04/massive-attack.html


• http://gundamdreams.blogspot.com/2011/08/1100-sinanju-rewloola-base.html


• http://gundamdreams.blogspot.com/2011/12/midnight-king-1100-sazabi.html


• http://gundamdreams.blogspot.com/2010/12/over-flag-lady-gaga-ver-commissioned.html

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