Ebay to OK - Aragorn and Faramir
A couple of weeks ago I bought these Aragorn the King and Faramir the Knight miniatures off Ebay for not much money due to the fact they looked like this.... Poor old Eomer - who is there under several milimeters of paint - had no actual face visible and the other two had paint similarly blobbed on and lots of the little metal flash 'tails' still attached and painted. This is a really common feature of Ebay LOTR stuff as many people bought it as kids, banged on whatever paint as quickly as possible and away you went to play.
All done it.
Some people then find it and sell it as grownups!!!
Luckily for us fixing these bad boys is easy and I've sorted these out for my own use - this means painting them up as quick as possible just like my inner 12 year old says! Step one is stripping them. Below you can see them after 3 days in Dettol and cleaning. I have an old jam jar which is filled with Dettol, minis go in and are left for a couple of days. I then take them out and surrounded by a cardboard splash screen and wearing my painting clothes i give them a rub with a toothbrush. You should probably wear gloves as both raw dettol and the sticky mess that comes off is gross but Im an idiot who believes safety is for girls so i dont...
This first stage does not do the job. It is just to help it along. Back in the dettol for another day. Second clean up is much better. AT NO POINT RINSE UNDER TAP. I have no idea why - I'm an idiot not a scientist remember but it makes the job much worse. Once most of the paint is off use a toothpick to get to the hard to reach areas then with an old brush clean up with white spirits. I then leave it to dry for a day. Result as above.
Undercoated Stynlrez black primer as always then start to paint using the airbrush for speed.
Horse painted variety of whatever horsey colours you want, dark to light. Then on the black clothes highlights of VMA engine oil grey and then same with tiny bit of Ivory. The Red was VMC burnt red, then red and finally vermillion now brush painted. Satin varnish sprayed to protect. Airbrushed paint is so thin any mishandling or clean up without varnish is a bad thing...
From this point I'm just banging on the colours so whatever I use on faramir i can switch to Aragorn. Eomer was dropped from painting because he doesn't wear black. I'll do him with 'Theodead' and Hama so I can share the same colours.
Armour was painted as I always do - as in my blog https://www.firstcommissionpainting.co.uk/single-post/armour-plated
white highlights painted using ivory and my winsor & newton series 7 size 1
Even more metal in the same way on Faramir below
Both bad boys more or less finished off.
Basing the usual cheapo method as per https://www.firstcommissionpainting.co.uk/single-post/basic-basing
The finished articles. Clearly could be better if i put more time into them but I only get a few hours at the weekend to paint my own stuff as all week is painting other peoples' models and I want plenty of good models rather than just a few really great!
Below in action with the first half of my metal Gondorian panzer divison lead by Faramir then Aragorn.
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