Dwarves At Arms by Macrocosm Miniatures

I just wanted to give you all a little heads up about a Kickstarter that is currently running by Macrocosm Miniatures:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2076383099/dwarves-at-arms

The Kickstarter itself is for several ranges of multi-part Dwarves each based upon a real historical time period and all having a certain classic Citadel feel to them.  However the real gems for me personally are down in the add ons section:

Now these fine well fed fellows are going to being the basis of a Hobbit army which will see use in Dragon Rampant and King Of The Rings.  Again they've got a great old school vibe to them and so much character, I saw these up close at the Derby Worlds show and knew I had to have some (and at that price how could you not!).

Now it isn't only the shorter in stature miniatures which are getting the attention as there are now a range of Ogres dressed as peasantry available along with the Jotnar and I cannot emphasise how awesome these look:

They have that Scandinavian Troll feel but I don't think they'd be out of place in the Hobbit, perhaps harassing farmers after venturing out the the Trollshaws?

Eldar Exodite Dragon Knights

As a break from working on the Terminator range I have been working on my Tevari Tala Riders from Macrocosm Miniatures which I pledged for on their first Kickstarter campaign, who I will be using as Exodite Dragon Knights for my 2nd Ed Eldar army.

I wanted to paint these up differently than to my usual way as they need to match into the Eldar army that I purchased a couple years ago (pictures of which you can find in an earlier blog post).  This entailed some different techniques I'd not tried before such as pre-shading and not using any washes but building up layers with over brushing/dry brushing.  Also as my usual painting style tends to be quite dark I wanted to go with a more vibrant scheme which would fit the time frame of gaming I'm aiming to use these in, this includes green base rims (a rather conflicted choice for me)!

The miniatures required very little cleaning up and were good clean metal casts, the dinosaurs having been part of the Hasslefree range at one point I believe and the riders being Macrocosm's own sculpts.  They went together relatively easy with just a little green stuff work need on the joints for the dinosaurs, the thing I thought would be the biggest issue would be how the riders sit atop the dinos however they all had a natural place where they balanced and all the was need was to pinch the legs in to get a good tight fit.  The right arms then fitted very nicely into the correct position on the saddle.

Once I'd base coated them black it was time for a white dry brush as a pre-shade layer.  I'm not sure what sort of impact this actually had on the end result but it did make picking out the details while painting much easier.

Now was time for the colour scheme, I knew I want purple/blue 'Dragons' because space dinosaurs right but I wasn't sure which way to go with the riders armour (something natural like leather or bleached bone or perhaps metallic) but in the end after a quick check on a handy colour wheel I decided to keep the vibrant theme going and went with and orangey/yellow scheme.  Finally I painted up the weapons to match in with the ones from my existing army and painted up the bases.
I'm still not sure on the base rims as I always paint mine black so I'd love some feedback on them, do they look right?

Here are some further images of the finished Dragon Knights:

Overall I'm quite happy with these considering I wasn't painted in safe zone so to speak but would love to hear your feedback on them.

Next up on the table are the five remaining soldiers for the Terminator Resistance force so hopefully these won't take too long to finish off before I move onto a couple of characters and the another project.

Phil