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Here is the Games Workshop Gandalf the Grey and his cart.

This guy originally had a cat familiar on his base, but I removed that to set aside for a future project. I really like how the highlighting came out, as well as the decoupaged book pages. His color scheme is based off of the Knickerbocker LOTR Gandalf figure from the 70's (a toy I admire, but will never be able to afford as long as I've got this pesky mortgage).

I realize it's not the weekend, but the week was quite busy and I'm happy to have got any of this done at all. BATTLE REPORT! This little wizard's focus for me was going to be brighter colors and trying to do skin and hair better. I think it came out pretty well. Wins: * The base color of red tone and highlighting upward to flesh tone seems to be a good mix. * Keeping to adjacent colors on the color wheel made for a pleasing, eye-catching combo. I have to say using the reds, oranges, and browns was pretty fun. * I did as much highlighting and avoiding washes as I could. This has been my practice over the last number of models I've done. I don't get how the videos show people just splashing it on for amazing results. I don't get it, can't seem to do it the same, so I resort to taking more time on starting dark and going light. Much like Dr. Faust's painting videos. I've learned much from watching him. * Mixing paints is getting better. I used like colors to lighten and highlight and I'm getting a better balance and understanding of how they may look really different wet, but getting to know how they dry and differs greatly. * The eyes worked better going in order of black first, white second, black third. I was doing a white, black, white and it made the eyes look weird. @Inarah pushed me to try something different and it's been working better. * The brown hair with little highlights came out good and I'm trying to be very light in my touch to get subtle look versus stark. Win! Misses: * The staff is okay. I tried to give it like some kind of weathered look or cool effect at the end, but it just didn't sing like I had hoped. * On the back of his cape, there's a part that I tried shading inf that just didn't look believable to the eye. I tried to hit it a few times to catch the light and how to lighten the edgest, but it was lost on me. Fail. *The skin on his hand held out has a funny look to it up close. I tried to bring out some of pads of his fingers and palm, but it doesn't look as good as I had hoped. Overall it's another win, and I'm happy with the results.

#11: Gandalf the Grey You will notice that Gandalf is originally both ginger and a heavy drinker. Pallando, Radagast, Saruman, Gandalf, Alatar. The five Istari, or Maiar spirits, that were sent to Middle Earth in human form to counter the works of Sauron. #11 Bones 4 Core set, 2019, #11 plus the Wizards subset Reaper Miniatures Sculpted by Bobby Jackson (?) Made in Bonesium PVC 30mm bases should be available from reapermini.com some time in the future in Bones.

I decided today is a good day for showing you the truth Originally my plan was to post my wips up from the very beginning for one reason and that is for you to see that there is no need to fear the paint. This is the most important lesson I`ve learnt through all this years of painting: Don`t fear the paint!!! You can mess around with acrylics same way like you can do with oil paints. You can put them wet in wet in on the figure and just mess around with them how you like. You just have to take care that your layers of paint are not as thick that the paint obscure some fine details, but apart from that you can simply push and pull it around in a (semitransparent rather opaque consistency) on the miniature in a quite chaotic way and I tell you this is massive fun. This is the most joyful part in painting, because you don`t need to be carefully at all. This is also a very good way for practising and learning highlighting, because you can try out different light scenarios, before you make your final decision. This is what I call: Making first a very rough sketch. This is the stage where you can simply try things. If you don`t like it....no problem, just paint it over and try a different sketch of the highlighting. The problem with starting very clean up from the very beginning is: You are not flexible anymore. You fear to damage what you have already painted and you stick to something which is might not the best solution, but you stick to it, because you have already spent a couple of hours with painting it up to this stage and this blocks your creativity. Unleashed creativity starts always with chaos. The chaos gives you the chance to change your direction again and to try out a couple of things before you make your final decision. Most of my actual wips are far beyond the chaos stage already, but Gandalf is right now in the absolutely chaos stage and so I have got the chance to post at least one of the wips which are at the very, very beginning. I just spent a very short time with him until now and what you see here is only a very first and rough sketch of the osl. As you see, I ignore all other details and I just mess around with my paints for to find out which way the osl might look good in the end. So this is all in heavy progress/movement. Can be that the next wips look completely different, but the overall direction became gradually clear for me in the meantime. OSL: Well this is a complicated OSL because: - There is coming white light from above from his staff - There is coming orange light from the Balrog in front of him - And for making it finaly complicated there is also coming light from below (he is standing on such a stone bridge) because in the abyss there are a lot of torches at the walls below. So I have to paint 3 lightsources here. 1 in white and 2 in orange and red (fire colours). Everything here is just done very rudimentary. This is why all looks very unclean and messy, but this is actually exactly the way my paintjobs all look in the very beginning. Technique: For the moment I just mix the light colours (white, orange, red) with the grey of his robe and with dark grey at the shadows and I apply it very quickly and combine wet in wet with some very rough and quick layering with more opaque paints for making fast progress. I do absolutely not care about cleanliness. I`m not sure yet about the reflections at the sword and try different things here right now. At the moment the osl looks more like rust than like light, but it is just because it is not workout yet. Later the highlights will be more orange and brighter and then it will work. What you see here are rather the midtones of the osl. Concept: Simply the movie scene which means that the base will be a piece of this stone bridge he is standing on in the movie. Not a big deal. The challenge here is not the base, but this complicated OSL, his face will also be challenging. Well here it is, don`t get a shock

This guy was a wild ride, at one point the shading and blending was way off. Blending and shading are two thins I’m working on most so in the end it was good to have to dial him back. Still not fully pleased with the back of him, but he did teach me a lot.

"One of my favourite range of figures ever was Citadel's 1980's licensed "Lord Of The Rings" minis. I have finally decided to get all the miniatures I own painted up (over time) & try to acquire the ones which are missing from my collection (& paint them up too!)". Here is my next completed mini - Gandalf. It's actually part of a blister of 3 minis (ME1 - Fellowship Heroes) which also includes Strider & Frodo. He was quite nice to paint overall - not too complicated either. Thanks for looking!

Hi All! I've just been rearranging my display shelves & have noticed that I actually have a few minis that I have never shown on these boards. They are the first ones that I painted a few years ago when I returned to the hobby after many, many years. I will show the others soon but to begin with, here's GW's Gandalf The White & Shadowfax. The actual paint job is essentialy me getting back in the swing of things by copying the image on the miniatures' packaging, I made the base terrain(s) using air drying clay, gravel & sand & added some grass clumps to finish. Gandalf on foot Gandalf mounted on Shadowfax Back soon with something "big, ferocious & wingy" - thanks for looking!

Next up, my first non-monstrous Bones attempt: Jason Wiebe's Khael Stonekindle. He was part of my fantabulous Secret Sophie haul from LittleBluberry. Thanks, LB! I was so-so level of happy with him, in the end. I attached him to a resin base I got from a local dude who puts out bases and the like under the name "Models and Minis." It wasn't completely perfect, but I thought it made a cool and very fitting base for him. Imagine it'd've been a lot easier, actually, with a mini without a robe hanging down, huh. Thanks for looking!

Another in my set of show-off posts while I am on break (the mister reminded me it was until I go back, not Xmas, so you guys are stuck with these for another couple weeks yet). Painted this guy way earlier this year, in what feels like forever ago, so the paint job isn't as good as I can do now, though it's nice to see that I am maybe making some progress. I just liked it for the idea, granted a lot of folks have done it a lot better. Anyways, enjoy and thanks!

What kind of head is that on the staff anyhow? Lioness?

When I'm able to focus, and manage to remember, I like to participate in the monthly painting challenges over at The One Ring webpage, which is a great community of Tolkien/Miniatures gaming enthusiasts. Sometimes I check their page too late, sometimes I forget for months at a time, sometimes I select a figure but just don't finish (or start!), and sometimes I actually manage to finish the model on time. This month, I managed the latter. This Gandalf is from one of the very early boxed sets, circa around 2000. I bought it back in the day, and haven't exactly been quick when it comes to painting it. In fact, I don't think I've completed any of them. Well, excepting Gandalf now. I never got around to really playing the game in any meaningful way, so most of my interaction with the LotR line has consisted of collecting them. Gandalf is a pretty simple figure, so I went with a bluish-grey rather than the almost brownish, dirty grey from the film in an attempt to add a bit of (muted) colour and interest to the figure – also so his beard would contrast with the clothing once it was all highlighted. I'm quite happy with the outcome, especially since the model was also a speedpaint, and something a bit left field - since I wasn't planning to paint any Fellowship-type models at the moment. I only started the figure yesterday afternoon, and he's done in just a bit over 24 hours. I rarely manage to do it, but there's something especially rewarding about finishing a figure in a day. Or in this case, 2 days. Regardless, a lot nicer than my usual, which is months or even years to finish figures. My previous attempt to paint a Gandalf model petered out and the model hasn't been touched since 2010..