A tale of 18 paints

Hi,

Well, it has been a while hasn't it? That is not to say that I haven't been busy painting; in December 2014 I went back home to the UK and, when packing to return to Japan, I put eleven Lord of the Rings models within my suitcase. With my Warmaster Ancient Japanese project closed (due to having no momentum to actually finish the army), I have found myself painting these eleven Lord of the Rings models and, actually, I have quite enjoyed it.

The models in question have been the Fellowship (bar Legolas and Gandalf as I had already finished these two models when I was back in the UK .... bases now need redoing to match the ones I have painted here in Japan), Bilbo, Gollum and two Nazgul. All of these models are, basically, individual characters and therefore have had to be painted up as such. This led to a problem as here, in Japan, I only have eighteen different paints...

What I thought would be an absolute nightmare turned out to be a lot of fun. Given the choice, I would still prefer to have hundreds of different coloured paints however, having such a limited choice gave me the opportunity to play around with what paints to use as possible highlights. Usually, I just mix a bit of white with the original colour and hey-presto, a highlight colour. Now, in order to achieve as many different shades of the same colour as possible, I have highlighted with Bleached Bone and even Elf Flesh; which has given some really interesting results though, don't take my word for it ... please see below:

'So what is next?' I hear you say. Well GW does have stores in Japan and so I can place an order online (as my closest store is 500km away). I might order another seven Nazgul to finish them off however, they won't take long to paint (it is just black). After that ... I actually have no idea.

Toodle Pip!