Wee little dwarves and orcs (10mm)

[lowlylowlycook]

Recently, I had a mad idea to make a travel set for the mass fantasy battle game  Kings of War.  I could take it to my brother's so I can play it with my nephews and nieces, bring it to cons without needing to rent a U-haul, even take it to the beach.

 

The general idea is to use 10mm figures instead of 28mm and scale everything accordingly.  Since Kings of War uses unit bases with no figure removal I can fix these guys onto their bases and add some scenery, etc.  

 

After looking into what was available in 10mm I decided to start with two Lord of the Rings inspired armies, dwarves and orcs,  based on the 10mm figures from Copplestone Castings with some figures from other companies to fill in any gaps.   

 

Anyway, I ordered a bunch of stuff (it's hard to say no when people are selling packs of 28 minis for just few dollars) and since they have a branch or at least distribution here in the US, the first to arrive were some dwarves from Eureka.  They came before I was expecting them and  I got all excited and gave them a quick bath, forgetting to clean up flash, etc. first.

 

 

Yep, these guys are pretty small.  The white bit of polystyrene is a 80mm wide horde base that should nominally hold 40 dwarves but my plan is to have the non-orcs with quite a bit less than that and if possible have more than 40 orcs on such a base.  That's to give more of the feel of Tolkien's battles where the good guy are normally vastly outnumbered.  

 

More later.

 

 

Edited December 3, 2016 by lowlylowlycook

[lowlylowlycook]

The start of some experiments 

 

 

From left to right Primed (which will be washed after basecoating), Pure Black drybrushed with Misty Grey,  Russet Brown drybrushed with Chestnut Gold and Yellowed Bone, Pure Black, Primed (will be brushed with "dipp" after basecoating). 

[Glitterwolf]

Cool idea!

 

Good luck painting the mini minis!

[malefactus]

Despite now having sympathetic eye strain, I think the teeny Fellows have a lot of potential. Stock up on Ibuprofen & have FUN!

[lowlylowlycook]

Now with tiny base coats.

 

 

The anvils should probably have a color that  stands out more.  

 

And yeah, I wouldn't want a job painting 10mm figs.  I wonder if reading glasses would help with the strain.  

[lowlylowlycook]

Applied Agrax to all the beards, Nuln to the left dwarf's armor and tutor polyshade to the rightmost's armor.

 

[lowlylowlycook]

One question is how to do the bases for these little guys.  I definitely don't want to be trying to push filler and paint in between them after they are attached to the bases.  On Pendraken's forums  I found an example of someone using GW's textured paint for a very similar project.  Seemed to work but also seemed to be a pretty expensive way to go.  A little looking around found a youtube video where someone used textured medium and paint for a similar effect.    I was thinking that for 10mm I'd need a fine texture but all Hobby Lobby had was some Liquitex coarse texture gel so I decided to give that a try.  Mixed it up with some brown craft paint, spread it onto a magnetic base then just pushed the dwarves into the mix.  

 

 

I'm hoping that they'll stick in there but I'm giving it another day to fully cure before I try the bond.   The round base was prepped for 28mm Bolt Action with some grout and paint. 

 

 

As a further experiment I tried both my very strong homemade wash and some GW Agrax shade.   I'd say he Agrax side looks pretty nice.

 

 

 

[edit] Oh I'm also thinking about using this mat   The terrain on top would be cut out.  Even after I make some terrain the felt bits could be under my actually terrain to keep it marked for when you have to move a unit through.

 

Edited November 19, 2016 by lowlylowlycook

[lowlylowlycook]

Got in a shipment from Copplestone and started work on my first unit of dwarves. 

 

Almost done basecoating these.  Cant decide what color their scabbards and shoes should be.  Also, right after starting I decided that I can't quite work out what kind of "command" figs the units should have vs. what should be reserved for generals and standard bearers until the package from Pendraken arrives.

 

 

[robinh]

that's an amazing amount of detail painted on such tiny little warriors!

[Lorathorn]

Holy moly that's awesome.

[lowlylowlycook]

Got some advice on Pendraken's forums (a lot of 10mm discussion going on there) and kept things pretty simple.

 

 

I was thinking of adding some gold trim to the shields and helmets but maybe I'll keep that for the command models.   Anyway, now to experiment on some orcs.

[lowlylowlycook]

Just experimenting on some strips of orcs.  Not sure why I did all three at once.  Not very scientific.  Luckily everything seemed to work out OK including the skin color which doesn't seem either to humanish or too GW.

 

Sadly, just when the orcs were halfway done with their Thanksgiving shield decorations they were interrupted by a band of dwarves.

 

 

[lowlylowlycook]

Got my final shipment of 10mm stuff, this time from Pendraken.  I ordered their goblins since they didn't look too out of place with the Copplestone stuff.  It turns out that a lot of them are a bit taller and considerably chunkier.  I've put some of the smaller ones in with the orcs and I think I'll put the larger ones into a unit and call them half-trolls or something.

 

Orcs (Copplestone on strips, Pendtraken on in bewteen and on the edges.  A couple of them have been converted to standard bearers with bits of paperclip)

 

Half Orcs

 

The Pendraken Wolf riders aren't huge but their wolves are pretty small compared to the Copplestone wargs.  Luckily I had ordered some extra wargs for no particular reason and the CS riders are separate and fit nicely on the wargs.

On the right you can see alternating riders (PD,CS,PD,CS)

 

 

As for the dwarves, These "armored dwarves have huge, huge, helmets.  Before I saw them, I was thinking of using one as the dwarven general but I think I'll keep these guys in their own unit.  IMO they look like they could be geared up to take on a dragon.

 

Here is a wedge of dwarf cav mounted on rather small ponies:

 

I wasn't so impressed with the crossbows the Pendraken dwarves came with.  Here are a few conversions using a file and small strips of metal sheet to covert blunderbus dwarves.

 

 

 

 

I've got a lot of painting to do.  

[lowlylowlycook]

A test of some Half-Troll warriors, aka Pendraken Goblins of the larger sort.  Also pictured is the GW LOTR Troll drummer that I used for inspiration as far as color scheme.

 

 

They still need a dip, I think.

[lowlylowlycook]

Haven't been posting as much as a should.

 

Orcs that are mostly done.  Probably need to give leather bits a wash and do the weapon edges in gold.

 

 

Half-Trolls.   Need a wash for leather and then dipped, I think.