Scotia Grendel Ruined Keep & Ruined Gothic Archway

No figures to show off today. The painting’s been going well, but I’ve got to get out and take some more photos soon. In lieu of anything new, here’s some scenery that I painted a long, long time ago and photographed last year.

Scotia Grendel Ruined Gothic Archway

I bought both of the sets mentioned up top around the same time, but I vastly preferred this entranceway “Ruined Gothic Archway” to the “proper” one that came with the set, so this is the one that I ended up painting up to go with the walls. Much more “Gothic” and since the main game this stuff was used for over the years was 40k…

Rear View of Ruined Gothic Cathedral

Imagine my surprise and pleasure at seeing that the rear of the arch piece was void of all detail whatsoever – just a smooth resin piece from a one-piece pour mold. The base was fine, but I decided that I had to do something about the lack of detail on the upper. I scraped out the stonework with a hobby knife, and did my best to weather and stress the stonework using the tools I had at my disposal in the mid-1990’s. So probably the end of a file and a hammer, by the look of things.

Scotia Grendel Ruined Keep wall sections

As can be expected, these walls from the Ruined Keep have seen a lot of action over the years in no end of configurations. Another of the unpleasant surprises from the Grendel Kit once I opened it was the fact that all of those windows were sealed. As in cast-solid. It took my pin vice, a hobby knife and no small amount of time to cut them all out.

Scotia Grendel Ruined Keep ruined towers

As you can imagine, these “ruined towers” have seen a lot less action. Mostly due to being shorter than a Space Marine in height, so not exactly much of a ruined tower in any of their cases. Three or four steps hardly makes a tower, after all…

Scotia Grendel Ruined Keep with Gothic Archway – “Closed” layout.

Here’s the typical “closed” layout I’ve used in games for the entire set. It really could use some more wall sections to look a bit more reasonable.

Scotia Grendel Ruined Keep with Gothic Archway – “Open” layout.

And here’s the “Open” layout that gets used much more often, as it allows models to move through the ruins while taking cover from their enemies. Now that I’ve been gathering and painting a lot more scenery in the last couple of years, I could do a lot more interesting things with these. For example combining them with the WHFB Gothic Graveyard kit, as well as other things I’ve picked up and painted, like those Confrontation brick walls. I need to get some Hirst Arts molds as well, the Graveyard scenery kit looks promising.

From the Painting Desk #9 – A Week’s End/Weekend LotR Challenge

My week’s end/weekend project – See if I can finish off these figures by Sunday night:

A bunch of half-painted LotR stuff. Hopes are I can get it all finished!

I’ve also posted these in a LotR forum’s monthly army painting challenge pledge thing, because they’re all LotR models, but in reality it’s much more of a continuation of my “get these half-finished suckers completed and off my table” project combined with “painful stuff to paint at work during lunchtimes” (ie: Gondor guys). They just all happen to be LotR models that I’m wanting to get done and out of the way in the next few days. There’s 16 Moria Goblin Archers – 8 of the Goblin Archers are about 70-80% done, with the other 8 needing significantly more work still. 3 Metal Goblin captains almost done, and 3 Goblin Prowlers almost done…

The 7 Gondor war machine crew were started on Sunday so I could work on the most painful parts (blend highlighting the black clothing) at work. They’re now about 80% done, with all the pain in the arse highlighting of black cloth finished today. Just flesh, hilts, hair and belts to go.

Also, an “Oldhammer” Orc/Dwarf Bolt Thrower with only the bow arms to go. The lower half is done, and then it’ll need a base.

Hopefully I’ll get all 30 of these finished by the end of the weekend. Here’s to hoping!

Yes, it’s kind of a “nothing” post in that there’s no new cool finished figures here to show off. It’s here to help motivate me to get these suckers done and dusted.

Update 1: 8 Archers and 3 Prowlers completed so far…

Update 2: The other 8 Archers done…

Update 3: The other 8 Archers, the Gondor Warmachine crew and the Goblin captains done – that’s the lot finished! Job’s a good’un!