beautiful work there, and I will never not love that miniature. I found one of mine a couple of days ago where I knocked it behind some things and forgot, must get to work on him.
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Thanks Sceleris, hope I can do the rest of him justice as well! Really liking that model so hope it turns out good when finished … there s just something cool about that regular guy/mage standing in front of a huge army of skellies and monsters 
As for Morgoth … oh well … Let’s call him Dr. Jarvis and Mr. Morgoth? can always use him as a standin for Morgot if need be! 
(But the main idea is to get a buddy into KoW and be able to play on the same side with Elves and “Noble Undead” someday … maybe at a “doubles event” or a larger 3v3 / 4v4 battle.)
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Face Paining: I spent most of yesterday evening painting and repainting the face of my little bard,along with some similar work on the other half dozen individual models I’m currently working on. Some are Dungeons and Dragon NPC’s, others are part of my growing Northern Alliance army. My main focus was on the bard. (A freebie miniature from Mantic Games using their accumulated Mantic points tokens). I tried the bard without a beard, and with one, and with different hair colours, before finally settling down with my default red /ginger look. I tweaked it so many times that I’m at risk of overdoing the miniature and having to strip the paint off and starting again, before accepting that this is as good as it gets, at least for his face. I’ve still work to do on his ‘ensemble’ as they would say in Paris, and his base. Normally, I’d throw a bit of grass rocks and maybe snow on the base, but these would be out of place for a bard, so I might need to rob the halfling Barbarian’s flagstone base or Blaine"s base. He’s a bit of a weird dude anyway so I might replace his head too.
(Guess who forgot to bring home his other phone. The one that can actually take decent photos that don’t go all blurry!)
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Thanks to @Mikes Mikes and @Sceleris for the inspiration i needed to try and improve my previous effotrts at painting faces.
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You’re welcome and nicely done! And I completely relate to your experience: I can’t remember how often I had a mini with a face that looked “quite good” … but there was this teeny little flaw in one of the eyes or the beard or maybe I could highlight the skin a bit more to make it look cooler aaaaaand … bam, egawds … that mini looked better before i tried to “fix it”
The first time I tried to get a face on a character model (Mantic Elf mage) just right … and was determined not to settle for anything less (dam* perfectionism! ) I got the same mini 5 times, basecoated and ready and painted just the face 5 times in a row then picked the best one out of the 5 … then almost ruined it again by just trying to fix this tiiiiiny flaw that was in one of the eyes 
That one:
What really helps are (even the cheapest) headmounted magnifying glasses … wish I had tried that 5 years ago …
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Thanks @Mikes, and i totally agree. I recently purchased a hands free headset with blue light and various lenses, although i wasn’t using them this last week…
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I got a little sidetracked yesterday, and instead of finishing off my current miniature painting queue, I started to work on improving one specific terrain piece. It was a Village Inn and adjacent blacksmith’s forge. As I’d been using it in Kings of War, I had stuck it all together without considering access to the inside at all. However, the Kings of War rules have changed somewhat, and I also wanted it to be usable in either Ambush scenarios or even Dungeons & Dragons. Therefore, I would need to break it up and add furniture etc. I am already working on a Dwarf Tavern owner and his pitbull, plus my bard, and a few customers/NPC’s. I still need to paint and repair a few scrapes from the renovation, but I now have two sections of the Blacksmith’s Forge, an open on three side building to stable horses in need of shoeing, carts in need of repair, and then the forge itself with a workbench. The Village Tavern can now be either a two storey building or two one storey rooms (with a loft space for the owner and guests to bed down. That’s today’s mission.) This meant adding a new door to get better access to the bigger of the two rooms, which would sit attop the smaller brick ground floor. The Tavern itself needing the larger floorspace. This also meant making an easy access way to get to the first floor, rather than by a
ladder
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I got a very very simple one , just with a broad (cheap plastic) magnyfying piece in front of my eyes that can be swiveled out of the way … but it helps a lot!
Also, from my experience it depends a lot on the mini’s sculpt and material as well. I find the faces on the newer Mantic Resin models much much easier to paint, than the faces on older restic or especially metal minis.
P.S.: Those houses/terrain pieces look epic!
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yes, some sculpts are a plaesure to work with (most of Victrix models for instance, or the Mantic giants). the sculpts have nice deep recesses and you hardly need to try, whereas the
northern Alliance Human clansmen i found rather shallow and only the thinnest of paint would be needed to stop them looking like blobs
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That base filller is dead sweet, @Findol, almost sickly sweet given the models. 
Such pretty Skellywags @MechaSturgeon .
’
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I painted up a witch to be a unique tournament hero.
Round base is part of the cast, so I’ll have to use a sabot base of some kind.
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I’m loving that witch @DarkBlack Is that a cat blending into the shadows of her clothing, black on black?
Likewise loving @Mikes Jarvis, those colours are looking good, even as a WIP. One thought to mention… you may find having to lighten or darken either the face or the headdress to avoid them bluring into one. I had a similar issue with my bard and his beard. I had to lighten up the facial skin slightly to get better clarity.
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It is a cat. Stands out better in person.
Satin black on mat dark brown.
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Thanks for the input @Nav! And yep, I ll take a look at the headdress after washes and highlights. I expect it to be quite a bit darker than the plain “bonewhite” right now, but let s see
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Still work in progress, but almost done, just needs varnish and basing 
Cellphone camera is giving me a hard time getting close enough without losing focus …
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I have the same problem with my latest Samsung phone, The camera quality in comparison to my old Huawei is really bad, but i keep forgetting to bring the other homeso i can take pictures at the weekend, when /if we have good light.
Having said that, your pics are dang good and the shadeing/highlighting has solved the tone issue i mentioned previously around the face and headdress.
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Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No… it’s a Frostclaw Champion/Thegn or Lord on Frostfang with Wings of Honeymaze
Its still a work in progress, with only an initial green blue wash on the wings and waiting for the nomorenails to fully dry but im happy with the outcome so far. It gave me a good use for at least one of the spare Dwarf and the raven wings
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