How To Paint Iron Hills Dwarves

Following a brief stint back in the grim darkness of the far time to come (with a little Blood Bowl squeezed in), it's time for a return to Middle-earth. Today, I'm going to be talking nearly my Iron Hills.

I'd been contemplating picking up some Iron Hills Dwarves^ane for several months earlier pulling the trigger back in March. The stars had finally aligned: I'd cleared a number of outstanding projects from my backlog, and – having simply finished piece of work on my Moria ground forces project – spent a couple weeks merely painting single character model projects. I felt refreshed and gear up to tackle something bigger and birthday new. Enter: the Fe Hills.

Starting an new project is wonderful, infectious, intoxicating. It's incredibly easy to lose your caput when starting out with a new project. We've all been in that location – a couple hours in BattleScribe, and next thing you lot know your cart is full to the brim with brand new miniatures. That office is a lot of fun. Problem is, before you know it a pile of plastic and resin turns upward at your door. Suddenly, you realise that you lot actually take to do something with information technology.

Occasionally, yous strike gold. You might fall absolutely in dearest with the project; the miniatures are exciting you, the rules are fascinating you, the hobby process is smooth and effortless. Sometimes, the hype for the project just keeps your motivation at a constant high and you boom through it at a steady charge per unit. Mostly though, the hype fades as soon as you break the seal on the shrinkwrap and the corporeality of work you've just signed yourself up to hits domicile. Sometimes, something brand new is announced that absolutely steals your center away. Sometimes, the color scheme y'all wanted to paint your models just isn't working. Maybe the rules plough out to exist really boring. Heck, y'all may even find yourself "just not feeling it any more than."

It doesn't really matter what the reason was, the end consequence is the aforementioned; you're off the hype train. Now you lot're stuck with a bunch of blisters, boxes and partially assembled miniatures that you just can't bring yourself to care virtually whatsoever more. This is how a lot of people detect themselves with more unpainted models than painted.

In an try to practice the very restraint that I'1000 preaching here, I started pocket-size – with just 12 Iron Hills Spearmen and Dáin Ironfoot himself. It's non quite a playable force, just enough to look good as a display slice or even an centrolineal warband in a pinch. My other reason for keeping things minimal at this early phase was that I really didn't desire to rush through this item project. Subjectively speakingⁱⁱ, my Rivendell and Angmar armies are nonetheless pretty fresh and heady to play, and I'd similar to give them a trivial longer in the spotlight before another army comes in. Without that self-imposed pressure to go something on the table quickly to play with, information technology felt similar I could actually requite these awesome (and expensive) ForgeWorld sculpts the fourth dimension and attention they deserved – and that's a really refreshing sensation. To that terminate, I find that buying an army a unit or ii at a time tin can aid to minimise some of the self-imposed pressure to 'clear the pipelines', which often encourages me to blitz on alee.

Alright, alright, and then what virtually the minis? Well, I'm glad you asked!

*The first five Atomic number 26 Hills miniatures that I painted for this project. Sort of going for a Political party-Upwardly-Front, Business-in-the-Dorsum kinda experience.*

I decided to beginning with the Spearmen – better to mess up on the generic infantryman than the ForgeWorld Graphic symbol Series model, right?

First things first, I had to pick a colour scheme. I knew I wanted something that wasn't a million miles from the standard directly-from-the-films scheme, merely still deviated a little bit in favour of richly saturated colour (as with my other Centre-earth Skillful armies) over muted realism.

The armour would accept to be silver. To change this to a painted pastel color or even another type of metal (gold, bronze, copper, etc) would have been a bit much of a difference from the films – they are the Iron Hills after all! Having painted a few thousand points of Atomic number 26 Warriors, this wasn't exactly uncharted territory. With my hands tied on the plate/chainmail, that left me with some decisions to make over their hair, trousers/belts/straps and their shield design. I considered my Rivendell Elves and how the bright, cold blue of their robes contrasted nicely against their warm golden armour, and decided that I wanted a like issue with my Iron Hills.

After some deliberation, I resolved to pigment their armour in the mill-standard silver with gilded accents and their undergarments with practical leathery chocolate-brown tones. On their shields and other decorative features such equally barding on the state of war goats nevertheless, I would take a more personal approach – a quartered pattern of brilliant orange and a warm off-white. I took pains to ensure the hair and beards on my Spearmen were as varied as possible – including red, blonde, light and dark brown and black hair – though I tried to limit how much dark brown and black at that place were as those detail colours didn't quite pop every bit well as the others over the steel plate.

The final, universal consideration for this army was basing. Certain things were out of my hands – I universally base my Center-earth armies with either a 'Good' or an 'Evil' theme – with the Skilful usually involving some warm, lite brownish world and bright blue waters, and the Evil a muted brown with snow, expressionless plant-life and maybe some dark and dingy puddles. With that being said, this was a fancy army, and a fancy army demands a trivial extra effort.

For inspiration, I looked to the scenic basing on Dáin Ironfoot himself. Nothing too crazy, in that location'southward some textured earth on there and some big stones, and peradventure the odd stray helmet or weapon. I had a little look in my basing-bitz box and institute a large bag of slate pieces that I bought some time ago (and, come to remember of information technology, accept barely used). I do rather like slate – particularly compared to the rather popular corkboard that I've seen a lot of people apply – because aside from adding a satisfying and stabilizing weight to the bottom, it's a actually organic and natural looking cloth. Slate is worn and chipped and shaped in a very unique mode that scales nicely with 25mm miniatures and doesn't accept that slightly contrived/man-fabricated look that corkboard sometimes has. Every bit it needs to exist large plenty to stand upon evenly, the slate itself takes up much of the 25mm base of operations, leaving just a little room for extra texture and flourish. I was worried that this would pose an issue of consistency due to the predominance of gray stone, notwithstanding the natural look of the stones coupled with a drybrush of Vallejo Khaki over the stone itself keeps the base feeling as warm and vibrant overall as the basing on my Rivendell Elves.

Every bit a final touch, I decided to utilize my signature water effect to the base of each and every Fe Hills rank and file and not just the cavalry and characters. When I made this decision, it was actually only to get a little more than 'me' into the ground forces every bit the metallic-heavy scheme didn't leave a whole lot of infinite for personalisation beyond the the orange/foam shields. This ultimately worked out in my favour, as the bright blue really pops against the bounding main of muted metals and warm oranges and browns. Bonus.

After churning out the full compliment of 12 Spearmen³, I turned my eyes to Dáin Ironfoot himself to reward myself for my patience.

Starting time up was Dáin on foot. It made sense to me to tackle the non-mounted miniature kickoff, as this would give me a hazard to focus on painting the man (Dwarf?) himself in isolation⁴ – without his mount complicating matters.

Both The Battle of Five Armies and the example pigment job on the ForgeWorld website portray him wearing a sort of red leather jerkin under his armour, which differs from the usual dark-brown colour scheme on the material and shield designs of the rank and file. I swithered over whether or not to alter this to amend suit my own colour scheme earlier ultimately deciding confronting it – as the only proper named character in the Fe Hills list, I decided I wanted him marked out a niggling as an individual. Aside from that, one of the corking things about the on-foot version of Dáin is that his helmet is on the base – pregnant his full, braided locks are out on display. Fortunately for me, his hair and moustache are a bright orange and white respectively, which effortlessly ties him dorsum into my armies colour scheme.

A few points about this model – the hammer was a massive hurting in the arse. Trying to cleanly pigment those itty fragmentary piddling red panels with a golden trim and centre point that was stark enough to await consequent merely thin enough so as not to show up the red was extremely difficult, and I'd exist really happy to never practise that ever again.

I tried to put a little effort into the fur cloak and – using thin glazes and careful drybrushing – push the contrast by concealment the slumped areas while bringing up the raised bits. I call up it worked out pretty good in person, just I don't know how well it comes across in photography.

Finally, I thought the scenic base of operations was a little drab, so I tried to cutting abroad a section of information technology to apply my usual brilliant blue h2o upshot, simply to get a piffling more colour onto the miniature – I recollect that actually improved the overall look.

With infantry Dáin completed, it was time to motility onto the cavalry version – starting with his war sus scrofa, Daisy.

A nice bonus of this projection coming together slower than usual is that I've had a lot of time to read and re-read the rules before even putting half of this stuff together. One fateful Monday morn commute to work, it occurred to me to cheque and run across if Dáin'due south war pig mount had a courage value – as this meant that information technology might stick around should Dáin be slain or dismounted. It did, equally a matter of fact, and so when I was putting the model together I made certain to magnetise the mount and it's rider. As it turns out, this was quite handy – every bit it meant I could paint them both in sub assemblies where necessary. This helped a lot for keeping the pig complimentary from metallic overspill and getting a proper paint job on the saddle.

I was considerably more divergent on the color scheme of the hog; the big brown leather barding was a little bland for my tastes, so I applied my quartered orange and cream scheme here and saved the chocolate-brown leather for the saddle and straps. Every bit far as the pigs fur went, I opted for black fur with a calorie-free drybrush of black with a piddling fair mixed in – I wanted him to look darker than the ForgeWorld version to help rest out the bright orange of my own scheme.

Much the same as with Dáin on foot, I cut away some of the rubble under the stone of the scenic base of operations and filled that space with a picayune water feature every bit a terminal touch.

Non a lot to say about the mounted Dáin model himself – the paint job was largely the same equally the foot version, admitting a fiddling faster at present that I knew what I was doing. I can't say I actually enjoyed painting the damn hammer a second time though, and this time the hammer was at a more awkward angle, to boot!

With Dáin and the first 12 Iron Hills Spearmen finished, it was time to move onto phase 2. Not wanting to burn myself out on the project, I took some time out and worked on 'finishing off' my Atomic number 26 Warriors and Space Wolves legions for the Horus Heresy – all the while figuring out what I had planned to bring in my 500 points list.

When all was said and done, my primary motivation for this regular army was how absurd the minis looked, so information technology followed that I admittedly had to get me some Caprine animal Riders. Equally an expensive unit of measurement in an expensive army (both financially and in points), a niggling restraint was in order, so I opted for a single pack of 3. They'd too need some dismounts, and so I picked up a 3-pack of Fe Hills Spearmen – as these are the only Warriors with war spear sculpts that had the choice of assembly without a shield. I likewise knew I was going to take to get a Ballista (THE OL' TURLY WHURLIES) and probably a Banner for the ground forces as well, so threw a Command pack into my cart.

This left me with exactly 10 points to fill – the just thing cheap enough in the listing being an extra Crewman for the Iron Hills Ballista. I certain equally heck wasn't going to buy some other ballista for the sake of a single crew model, and so I went hunting for a suitable alternative. My eventual solution was found in a pack of Dwarves with Mattocks. These Dwarves ticked a few boxes – no special adornments, and no shields, either – just a 2-handed axe.. hammer.. thing. My plan here was to take the least obviously fighting looking one and supervene upon the caput of the axe with some sort of repair tool like a spanner or something. Much cheaper than a second Ballista, and leaves me with a couple of spare Mattocks should I ever air current upwards needing to shave a couple of points somewhere.

Soon plenty, my models arrived and I got cracking on the home stretch. For the aforementioned reasons as Dáin before them, offset up on the painting table were my Goat Rider dismounts.

I don't really accept a lot to say about painting these guys – the procedure was exactly the same as the standard Spearmen, except without having to paint any shields. This was a welcome reprieve, every bit building upwards all those layers of orange and cream was certainly upward in that location with the nigh time consuming elements of my Spearmen.

One matter I will say for these models though is that the models themselves are noticeably higher quality than the standard 12-man Spearmen unit – whether this was the sculpt or just the cast though, I can't say for certain. Maybe this was only a bonus for paying almost half the cost of the 12 for simply 3 of them, simply in any case I really was blown away how crisp the detail looked. Beyond the depth of particular, the poses of these Warriors were exciting and dynamic – in my opinion, some of the best in the range. It'due south almost a shame that they're "only" dismounts for the Goat Riders.

Next up were the Goat Riders themselves. With the dismounts done and dusted, I was actually looking forrard to bang-up on with this unit of measurement. On newspaper they were a hobbyists dream – the models are beautifully sculpted and finely detailed, just not numerous plenty become tiresome⁵.

Honestly, I should take known better.

On paper, the Atomic number 26 Hills ground forces seems similar it would exist a pretty easy project. The ground forces is not especially numerous, the models small without too much surface area to encompass – and much of it could be covered past a quick blast with a tin can of Leadbelcher. Easy, right?

.. Right?

Unfortunately, the reality is that smaller really isn't easier, or fifty-fifty faster. This would mayhap take been the example with some of the older Centre-earth sculpts – in particular the fairly flat and shallow plastics – just these are finely detailed ForgeWorld resin casts with some crazy tiny details. Whether it's the ultra-delicate etchings on the gold bits of the plate post or the teeny tiny little buckles on the leather straps that connect their plate mail together, you've got to be paying close attention or y'all'll mess something up. And that'due south merely the base coats! Going further, the tiny surface area really limits the infinite you have to build contrast with your highlights – I personally establish it incredibly difficult to brand the tiny details popular without the transitions looking way likewise jarring up close.

These Caprine animal Riders were like the infantry models dialled up to 11.

There were some obvious challenges to painting these guys – the Dwarves were ultimately more of the same, only posed in such a way that some of their details would be harder to accomplish with a brush. That, I had predictable. Cipher could take prepared me for the cervix-armour though.

Of course, I probably could have gotten away with painting the cervix armour a solid brass; a quick shade and a highlight with silver, no-i would've have ever idea twice. That would have been piece of cake – but it didn't sit right with me. Beingness that the Caprine animal Riders didn't come with a shield similar the Iron Hills Spearmen did, the merely element of colour (beyond the mush of metallics and browns) would have been the blanket under the saddle, which felt a petty understated to me for such an impressive miniature. Instead, I decided to paint my alternate foam and orange scheme on the barding, which turned out to be a massive headache – getting opaque coverage without the pigment getting too thick, besides as appropriately shading the recesses was immensely fiddly with two bright colours. Just I managed, and I think the miniatures look all the better for it, which is what really matters.

Given that my colour scheme incorporated creams and oranges, I didn't want to use the creamy colour scheme that ForgeWorld did, opting for a warm but bright brown with grey/brown horns and hooves. I based coated the fur with Vallejo Heavy Brownish, drybrushing upwards several layers of Leather Brown mixed with increasingly more Elfic Flesh. Finally, I made a few lite and deliberate strokes across the flat/untextured areas to give the impression of fur, before finishing off with a large all over wash of Seraphim Sepia. When the wash was dry, I went over the goats with a drybrush again to help pick out the extremities and tidied things up a chip with a pocket-size detail brush. The horns were pretty simple – Mechanicus Standard Greyness, with an Agrax Earthshade wash, and a Mechanicus Standard Grayness/Elfic Flesh blend drybrush – not a one thousand thousand miles off how I do the slate on the bases, come to think of it.

Everything else about the riders was pretty past the book – I even fabricated certain to match the pilus colours of the Riders to their dismounts, matching the hair/beards and types of sword scabbard as best equally I could for pairing them, which I idea was a overnice piffling touch on.

Onto the home stretch now – just a Ballista and a Command Pack to go!

Ah, the infamous Fe Hills Ballista. This was a fun model to put together, but not particularly fun to pigment⁶. I had idea initially that a simple drybrush would likely suffice for the wood, but the depth of the grain wasn't especially conducive to this. Despite my best efforts to drybrush it, it just wasn't for happening. In the end, I merely gave up and painted the entire thing past hand. And yes, that was as as boring as it sounds. Just when yous think you're making good progress, you lot'll discover another panel you haven't gotten onto notwithstanding – or some other panel that's really awkward to get a brush into. Of course, you can't but pigment one layer over a base coat either, or information technology looks a bit as well much like you've hand painted some squiggly lines – no, you need a base, a wash and at least two layers of increasingly vivid highlights to arrive look anywhere budgeted natural.

I do rather enjoy painting rivets though, then I took the opportunity to pigment a little rust issue behind the nails/rivets in the metallic trim, making certain to use a blue veridris on the copper and orange rust on the iron. I was a petty wearied by the model at this bespeak, so I was a niggling sloppier than I'd have liked, just I think it worked out okay in the end.

The rope was pretty like shooting fish in a barrel though. That was just Elfic Flesh and Seraphim Sepia. Expert old rope. I also enjoyed doing the base, which I textured and painted separately from the model in order to properly highlight the underside of the Ballista itself. The base itself is an 80mm, and it doesn't actually come with the kit – but is sort of essential for the whole 'magnets nether bases' storage/transportation solution that I use. That, and information technology helps necktie the engine in with the rest of the army.

As for the Ballista crew.. yeeaaah, that was more of the same really. If annihilation, they were marginally easier to pigment than the standard Spearmen in the army – not only were they missing the large shield with a wide expanse of two bright colours to labour over, merely their open hand poses fifty-fifty fabricated getting at their belts and fingers that much easier. I'd even say I actually enjoyed painting these guys, if I weren't sick of painting Iron Hills Dwarves by this point.

At very to the lowest degree they went quickly. I managed to smash these v out about as quickly as my start pair of prototype Spearmen, so that was pretty good.

I will say, I actually laboured over the whether to base each of the crewmen individually or gum a pair of them into the engine itself – particularly given that the scenic base of operations that I gave the Ballista itself already makes information technology take up a bit more space than information technology ought to. In the end, I settled on the more playable option and based them individually, equally this meant I could have models off as casualties without needing any wound markers. I'grand nevertheless not 100% sure I made the right decision hither, simply I figure that it's trivial to pull a resin model off of a slate base, file the feet down and reglue them to the Balllista than information technology would exist to remove them from the Ballista itself; that it saved me messing around with subassemblies was just the cream cheese^seven frosting on the cake.

Hither we go. The last⁸ of my Fe Hills – the Command Pack.

Well, I say 'last'. Technically, I finished the banner somewhere between the Caprine animal Riders, Ballista and the Ballista'south coiffure. And the Captain was already basecoated before I started the Ballista. A little technique I utilize to proceed myself motivated is that when I absolutely cannot face doing whatever information technology is that I'm working on, I'll start working on something else that's perchance a niggling more menial. Changing gears like this, I'm at least continuing to make progress instead of outright procrastinating. Sooner or afterwards, I'll pick up my momentum over again and I'll get back to cease off any information technology was I took a pause from. In this particular case, it was laying and edge highlighting my Goats – I but couldn't face up it one evening, so I instead threw some base coats on my Captain and Banner minis and gave them a wash before returning to the Goat Riders.

Come to remember of it, I likewise went on to build, basecoat and wash both the Ballista and 3/five of the coiffure earlier I finished off the Goat Riders. Accept I mentioned how much I hated painting those Goat Riders?

Having already completed the basing, base of operations coat and wash stages on my Banner and Captain, they took an evening a slice to completely finish off.

The Banner I got washed somewhere between the Ballista and the Crew. The main body of the miniature was business every bit usual, just the flag was.. something else. Richly textured, with plenty of chunky detail ripe for drybrushing, I sort of assumed that the standard itself would exist a piece of cake. Once once more, how wrong was I.

I tin can't really fault the miniature itself this fourth dimension. The fault here lies squarely with my choice of color scheme. Ivory and orange are just.. not the easiest colours to paint, at least in my feel. This is exacerbated by when you decide to paint them together in a quartered design, and worse even so when y'all accept used them equally flat colours on your shields; finding the right corporeality of shading such that the flag does non look apartment, even so non then much that information technology ceases to await orangish and ivory is difficult. Very hard. And so hard, in fact, that I probably spent every bit long painting the damn standard as I did painting every other part of the miniature. I'1000 reasonably pleased with the terminal outcome, just I wouldn't say I'one thousand delighted – the cream, especially, looks a little too dark and a lilliputian as well brown for my tastes. You live, you learn.

The Helm was a little flake easier, maybe due to the experience of painting the flag or mayhap simply because his cloak was a slightly less challenging surface to paint. Nevertheless, once once again, I spent nigh as long painting the damn blends on his quartered cloak equally I did painting the armour, fur and face put together. I'm considerably happier with the concluding event though – and I'k absolutely thrilled to say that marks the very final⁸ of my Fe Hills.

And what improve style to cease up here than with a nice group shot?

Well, that's well-nigh it for now. What's side by side? Well, for starters I'd like to return to making preparations for my Fellowship of the Ring Narrative Campaign – I've got some Watcher in the Water tentacles to become painting for the Doors of Durin, equally well equally some used-but-serviceable Uruk Hai Scouts that I picked upward for inexpensive on eBay that I'd similar to do some renovations on. Alternatively, I might prepare for October and add a couple of Beasts of Nurgle to my Maggotkin Army (which rumour has information technology may be getting a second life as the foundations for an new Death Guard/Daemons of the Ruinstorm Heresy army – watch this space).

Until so, thank you for reading, and happy wargaming!

¹ In particular, I'd been thinking for some time that I'd similar an ground forces for each Men, Elves and Dwarves. It's been something of a toss-up between the Regular army of Thror and Fe Hills for the Dwarves.

² That is to say, suppressing my inner rabid collector geek that always wants More than, MORE, MOOOOOORE…

ⁱⁱⁱ This was something of a slog. Edge highlighting all that metal is extremely deadening, and there's a lot of really fine detail that you have to be especially conscientious not to completely blot out with your pigment. Getting highlights on the individual fingers, and those tiny buckles on the leather straps is something of a challenge. I did them in four batches of three, and frankly, was pretty ill of the sight of them past the time I finished.

⁴ Of form the real reason is that I always prefer to paint the dismounts for any given Eye-earth miniature beginning is that you can field a dismounted miniature on the tabletop. With a mounted one, if your mount gets shot or y'all want to dismount for any reason, y'all're totally scuppered – but a hero on foot is a nice, standalone 'finished' model. It doesn't matter that there's absolutely no mode that I'd be fielding this model without it's mount any time shortly; logic similar that does not apply hither. I think I but prefer to feel like I've 'finished' a hero and and then I've 'finished' an event amend hero rather than 'finishing' the mounted hero then feeling obliged to pigment the dismount. Does that make sense? No? Oh, okay.

⁵ COUGH, RIVENDELL KNIGHTS, Cough

⁶ Sensing a pattern here…

^vii Icing sucks, and you know information technology.

⁸ I mean 'last' in this sense as the 'terminal' of the miniatures I needed for my 500 points army. I began this projection on the agreement that information technology would be a small, no force per unit area projection without ballooning out of control – as these things and so often do. I practice take tentative plans to expand this out to 800 points in the futurity by adding 6 Crossbowmen and an Iron Hills Chariot, merely honestly, I tin't bare painting whatever more than of these in the short term. I don't fifty-fifty want to think about it.