Midgard : LotR (Orcs with 2H Weapons 1)

Well, as per my last missive, I managed to get three orcs completed that are wielding two-handed weapons over the last few days. I am still attempting to get 20-30 minutes per day painting time, but I do not always manage this and end up doubling-up on occasion to get the time in that I set myself.

The two-handed weapon designation for these three orc miniatures is kind of a grey area as a lot of the orc figures I have are wielding something deadly in a two-handed fashion - spears, axes, picks, two-pronged trident-like things etc. I have decided, for now, to differentiate them by the actions used to wield them:- two-handed weapons are choppy/clubby type weapons, and polearms include actual spears, polearms, glaives or anything else pointy/stabby on a stick.

Anyway, after a few days of applying paint to some two-handed weapon wielding figures, here are three more orcs to add to the warband...

Orcs with two handed weapons

Again, the blue has come out a lot brighter than it actually is. I have tried a different lighting set up with this particular batch of fourteen figures, so maybe that is causing the issue? Or that plus my usual green background not allowing enough contrast with the figures for my phone camera to pick it up properly? I will continue with this set up for now, but when I move onto the second batch of fourteen I will maybe try a different set up if those ones also come out too bright.

I am trying to increase the amount of figures that I paint in each batch until I complete this particular set of fourteen warriors, so the next couple of sets will hopefully be four warriors with hand weapons and shields, and then five warriors with polearms.

In between times, I am also going to try to construct some of those new Warlord Games' orcs to add to the ones currently being painted so that I can make up full Midgard bases. Which means I will also need to glue-up and make ready enough movement trays for them. I will get the rules out soon and work out a generic orc army's stats based on the one in the book and create enough movement trays for it - 300 or 400 points? Hmm...

Midgard : LotR (Orc Archers 1)

I managed to get some paint onto a couple of my orc minis over the last couple of days. As per my Midgard : Britannia painting project over the summer, I am aiming to try to get in 20-30 minutes of painting per day. This means that I will sometimes have some quick successes, but then there may be longer delays if the batches I paint are larger. A unit per week was a good target for the summer when I had plenty of daylight, but as things are turning gloomier with the onset of autumn, my eyesight is rapidly deteriorating and I can no longer make out detail clearly - I think my output will reduce significantly.

Last Orctober I showed one of the sets of 14 minis in an undercoated state alongside the glued up Medbury Miniatures' orcs. After that post, I managed to get a small amount of work done on the orcs before bad light stopped play. The Medbury orcs had some base material added and were undercoated using my usual black spray. The GW orcs managed to get a bit of paint onto them during the month, but not as much as I would have liked.

Orcs with a bit of paint from last year

I am most likely going to change them up a little bit, but not completely repaint what I have done. I decided to add a little colour to them but I am saving the "traditional" reds for maybe my second or third batch of these or maybe the Morannon orcs? In addition to the above, some base material was also added as can be seen from the first post in this current Orctober/Midgard thread.

I have gone with a greenish tinge for the orc flesh; I had ummed and aahed and changed my mind several times but couldn't get away from orcs being green to differentiate them from humans. I initially painted them in a human flesh colour, but then wanted them to be distinct from humans, so I went with grey. Unfortunately that didn't work for me either, so in the end I stuck with green but not the standard trope GW goblin green.

Anyway, here are the results of the first few days' painting - a couple of orc archers. Not the greatest of sculpts, but they will do. Unfortunately they are not that easy to convert as they are almost a solid block of plastic with very shallow detail. However, as can be seen in the previous post, I was able to convert a couple to have a historical bow instead of their original ones. These will feature in a later post alongside the other converted orcs once the original fourteen are completed.

A couple of orc archers

I decided to go with a blue theme for this batch of orcs - lots of browns was too drab - but the colour saturation in the photos makes them out a lot brighter than they actually are. I chose blue for no reason other than I liked the colour and, although orcs are supposed to be rough and ready, Tolkien also describes them as industrious, so they are not just scavengers and may actually make clothing as well as weapons and armour. I am aiming for a little bit of uniformity for my soldier orcs, especially when I eventually get around to the uruk hai.

Next up will hopefully be three orcs with two-handed weapons (two with axes and one with a war-pick).