Lord of the Rings - Moria Goblins

I have quite a few models from GW's Lord of the Rings line.  I have been thinking these will make a good force for Kings of War and Dragon Rampant games.

I've decided to paint up some Moria Goblins.  These were included in the original LotR strategy battle game box so you can get them for a pretty reasonable price.  I've had a decent sized collection of these guys for some time, but never got around to actually painting them.  It is always nice to see the pile of unpainted models shrink a little.

I normally only do a very basic paint job., but I decided to try my hand at a little higher standard for this unit.  Instead of stopping at the wash, I thought I would actually do a little shading and see how it looks.

To start with these were all primed black.  Next, I drybrushed the armor with chainmail and then picked out the flesh with a medium green.  I painted all the cloth with red and the leather with brown.  The weapons were painted with a dark brown.  I inked the whole model with Nuln Oil.  As I said, this is where I normally stop and it gives a pretty decent looking model on the table.  I'm not going to win any painting competitions, but they look decent and are nothing to be ashamed of.

However, I wanted to see what a little extra work could do for the appearance.

So I applied a shade on several areas.  I started by adding a little highlighting on the red cloth.  Just a bit of color on the most raised areas.  Next, I added a few highlights to the leather areas.  After that, I went to work on the wood.  Finally, I added some highlights to the flesh.  This looks pretty good on the hands, arms and legs, but fails a little on the faces.

I almost never paint eyes and these models are no exception.  I'm not sure if that is a good thing or bad thing, but you just can't see them on the table and if you pick them up, I think the bad job on eyes can ruin the look of the rest of the model.

With the models completed, I added some ballast to the bases and painted them burnt umber and drybrushed them tab.  I added a bit of brown static grass (dry grass) and they look pretty good.

I am pleased with the look and didn't spend a ton of extra time on the highlighting.  I'm not sure the extra time spent makes them look that much better, but they do look nice, IMHO.

I'm undecided if the next batch of these models will get the same treatment, or if I will just go back to stopping at the wash.