Frodo's Quest: Ranger of Ithilien, Rebased and Touched Up

I painted this guy quite a few years ago, and he had suffered some battle damage and also needed a new base.

I did some paint repairs, mainly on the cloak and leather doublet, repainted the bracers and his skin, and also gave him his first set of eyes, ever.

I think he will now do for the table.

As previously mentioned, I have dug out all my Ranger minis, and I am prepping some of them 'on the side' as I want to get more ready for some gaming, also Warlords of Erehwon for which I need at least five (which I actually already have, including the two old Ithilien Rangers and Aragorn).

I have his standing and nearly identical twin on the pain(t) station right now, for the same treatment - if everything goes to plan, I shall have him finished by tomorrow evening.

2018-07-12, Vacation 2018 - Day 3, Part 2: Finally Reaching Brügge (Bruges)

As stated in the previous Vacation 2018 post, more random piccies from our journey towards Brügge are due.

The Ghentpoort (Ghent Gate) of Brügge.

Better pic.

And this pic must be this tower.

Before we reached the camping site below, we had tried our luck at another one - and I have never experienced such a behaviour from a camp warden as we were met with there. Luckily for her, I do not remember the name of the site, otherwise ...

We arrived from a direction where the sign at the gate was not visible, entered the driveway and got out to see if they could accomodate us. We found that they had some kind of electronic booking and check-in system, and we did not get very far with that. After a while a woman (I am deliberately not using 'lady') came out from some back office and demanded that we moved our car and trailer from the driveway. As both the driveway and the road were very narrow, flanked with high hedges, I asked her to open the gates so that we could drive around the office building and out at the other side, as I did not want to risk reversing out with next to no view of the road, but she refused - an generally treatred us as some kind of potential violent delinquents.

The I got stubborn and refused to move our vehicles, and after a while she gave in and opened the gates, and instead we found Camping Klein Strand, where we were met with a more normal behaviour.

The evening sky.

The camp with the trusty small awning bought for the old Eccles. As it turned out, it was a good thing that we put it up, as while I was cooking on the small table under it, some kids threw some dried dog poo over the trailer, and it might have hit the stove, were it not for the shelter of the awning.

As you may have guessed, this first day in Belgium did not leave me in the best of moods; I was treated badly by a camp warden, and I had shit thorown at me. Not a good first impression of a country.

Frodo's Quest: Mines of Moria Merry

My weekend was crazy, so the final brush stokes on this stout fellow had to be postponed until today.

I still do not dare try painting the eyes on these tiny faces, but I may go back and do them at a later point, when I feel more confident.

Nevertheless, I now have all four Fellowship Hobbits painted up, two from the Fellowship of the Ring set, and two from the Mines of Moria set (and I shall, of course, do both versions of the entire Fellowship in due time, but for now I have to focus on the minis needed for the first installment of Frodo's Quest).

As mentioned earlier, these minis are REALLY tiny, and I find it hard to paint their faces (and it shows in the not-so-accented facial features). Maybe I shall try redoing the faces some day, but for now they will have to do as is.

I am not quite sure about Merry's hair; I think it turned out a bit too orange, but it was the closest I could get to the colour shown on the Fellowship box (which is not quite the 'live' colour from the movies, either, though).

The waistcoat buttons also are a bit different than I think they should be; I used a painted mini as reference, and it had silver buttons, whereas the movie stills show cloth-covered buttons the same colour as the waistcoat itself. So, I dotted in the pale yellow (Warzone Vega Sand) I used for the waistcoat before covering it with Iyanden Yellow, leaving the Chainmail edges visible.

There will be no family portrait this time, not until I have to put painted models in the storage box, as it is stoved away in a larger crate at the moment (I need to keep the storage boxes from spreading all over the ground floor of our home).

I am quite pleased with his cloak and jacket - the trousers are not quite as dark when seen with the naked eye, but I have a little trouble getting the light settings of my camera just right (which is also why the pics are a tiny bit blurred; I have to turn up the Gamma output in GIMP to keep the photos from having too bright unnatural colours).

I am happy to report that I have found all my Middle-Earth Ranger figures (bar one Ranger of Ithillien from the set with Faramir and the Hobbits), including the Grey Company and the Guardians of the Shire, so that is one task to check off!

2018-07-12, Vacation 2018 - Day 3, Part 1: Driving Through The Netherlands and Belgium

I think Anna took the most of the pictures in this post. Sitting in the back she did not have any responsibilities regarding driving and the occational map-reading (when Gurli, our Garmin, did not understand the data correctly). so I gave her control over my camera.

We were driving from near Enschede (I think) past Arnhem, Nijmegen, Tilburg, and Antwerpen to get to Brügge, so most of the pics - if not all - in this first part of the trip are probably from the Netherlands.

A nice lunch in a rest area along the motorway.

A differently designed noise protection fence.

Anoter interesting take on a noise protection wall.

Part 2 will show some more random shota, and the camping site we reached.