My next completed models of April are from Fantasy Flight’s Journeys in Middle-Earth board game are this trio of Wights. These are very “flat/2D” sculpts, and in a pretty uninspiring pose to boot. I mean, they’d have been fine – good in fact – as a Skeleton Command model from GW in about 1991, but even as someone with deep roots in the whole “Oldhammer” thing, getting three of this sculpt in a modern board game isn’t especially inspiring.
I did put a little effort into making their clothing slightly distinct from one another while maintaining a dark and dull palette. I did hit them with a matte varnish, but I may have to bring them back in for a shot of the old AK Interactive paint-on Matte to tone the sheen of those cloaks down. I decided against adding glowy bits to them, as I wanted to keep more to the dusty, decayed look – the Oathbreakers I’ll get to painting later will provide enough glowiness for this game’s models. Not much more to add really – another three done and we’re now that much closer to trying out the game on the tabletop!
Great work mate, can see what you mean, about getting 3 of these in a box, but you’ve done a great job on distinguishing them, and elevating the model with your painting
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Thanks Dave – not a bad model by most means, but for wights I feel more like these should be individual sculpts rather than a trio of dupes.
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Well, my oldhammer roots are deep, and yep, I really like these! 😂
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Hahah cheers, Alex!
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Great work as always on the figures.
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Thank you, David! 🙂
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Those look good to me.
Cheers,
Pete.
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Thanks Pete! 😀
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Dude, your LotR set must look amazing. I need a post of the full thing immediately cause I love what you’re doing.
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Haha thanks mate. I’m still pretty much in the earlier stages of my Journeys in Middle Earth set, but if you’d like to see some much larger LotR forces, click on the Moria or the Gondor categories on the sidebar. My Mordor stuff is also able ot be seen in the Lord of the Rings category. 🙂
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Great paint job on the models and giving them each a separate look. They give off a bit of a Huey Dewey and Louie vibe (I mean that in a good way)
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Thanks, Unca Donald!
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Ha!
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I love they way they look – particular with the colours to help them stand out. The pose doesn’t bother me as they look like a nice fairly detailed sculpt. Well done 🙂
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Thanks Tarmor. I’d like this model more I think if it were an individual. As one of three it just reads as a little more awkward. 🙂
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These wights are clearly sculpted as walking skeletons – which we believe takes away some of their mystery.
We understand the little enthusiasm for having three monopose miniatures, and we appreciate how you wanted to differentiate their skin … er bones and their clothes. The level of the sculpture seems ok to us, apart from the left hand extended forward, which from the photos appears very approximate, doesn’t it?
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Yeah, I’d have liked to see a more impressive sculpt for a wight (or Barrow-wight) from Middle-Earth. As skeletons they’re fine, but yeah, that pointing hand is pretty oversized. 🙂
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They look great, nice job! It’s funny to me that they put three of the same model with such a dramatic pose. It really highlights the fact they’re the same cast. If they’re going to reuse models maybe make them a little bit less conspicuous, think how the old metal warhammer sculpts kept line troops very simple so big units of the same model still looked like more than the 3 poses they were composed of.
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Complete agreement on the points on the pose and it being repeated. Thankfully there are plenty of other standard mobs in the Journeys sets (mostly not painted yet) that work just fine with more neutral duplicated sculpts.
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Look fine to me! 🙂 The subtle difference in clothing colour works well, enough to differentiate them nicely.
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Thanks John – that’ll be the proof of the pudding in the end as long as we can tell them apart on the tiles and table.
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These minis could be worse but they are a bit generic for Lord of the Rings, I feel. Your comparison to Warhammer is a good one as I would agree that sculpts have a few areas in which they’re lacking. You did a nice job painting these up and I appreciate the extra little variations in color to keep them looking distinct. Its always nice to see some LOTR in your paint queue and I look forward to seeing more when you get around to it 🙂
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Yeah I felt that as well about them being generic. Like I said, they feel like old-school warhammer sculpts to me. Plenty more LotR on the way, though – I’m hoping to get a couple more of the Adventurers done this month, and I’ve just finished cleaning up, basing and priming (almost?) all of the Orcs from the Journeys sets…
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I’m excited to see what you’ve got up your sleeve 🙂
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While you may not be super keen on everything, I do intend to get all of the models from Journeys (core+ all expansions) painted this year. When I get to the Journeys Ruffians I’ll probably use it as an excuse to also paint my SBG Ruffians/Sharkey’s gang models that have been based and primed for a year or so. Not the most inspiring models, so any excuse to get motivated will be a good one!
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Good work even if the minis themselves didn’t do it for you. I quite like the sculpts actually but perhaps I’m favourably inclined because you have made them look so nice.
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Thanks AB. As an individual sculpt, it’s fine – just as a trio of wights they don’t really work for me – I kinda feel like wights should be more individual sculpts, and probably a little more elevated from the “clothed skeleton” that this one is…
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