Ruling Gondor

A while back, a friend of mine gave me a big box of Middle Earth miniatures and paints. The paints really supplemented my collection, because there were lots of earthy tones and moody blues and greens, that I didn't already have, and I was very grateful to be able to expand my selection of paints that way.

However, the stars of that box were the miniatures, and there was some really cool stuff. A few of the characters were painted, but most of the models were built and not painted. After sorting through, I realised there was probably enough for both a good and an evil army, and perhaps one day I could play some Middle Earth games with a friend. I've never dabbled in the GW Middle Earth games or miniatures, so this was a new venture. These are quite different to the Warhammer miniatures. They're in a more realistic scale, without the oversized weapons and hands that you find on Space Marines or Imperial Guard. 

When it comes to painting them, the colour choices tend to be different to Warhammer too, as the aim is to recreate the way they look in the films rather than make them bold and high contrast, as most people tend to do with Warhammer. Certainly I would be using fewer bright reds, pinks and blues, and instead using more of those earthy and subdued colours my friend gave me! Thus here stand Aragorn and Denethor, doing their best to look like the film representations of themselves! Something I enjoyed was all the folds of cloth and the simplicity of the models. There aren't as many details as I'm used to, so I could spend more time on the fabric and not have to worry about too much else. 

I'm very pleased with my first Middle Earth miniatures. I have a lot to paint, so I will do a few more characters to increase my enjoyment, then move on to some of the troops, such as soldiers of Minas Tirith and Uruk Hai, before coming back to some more characters. What's nice is that there are a lot of characters in the collection, including four different Aragorns and two Gimlis, so I have a lot of fun to look forward to!