As title, I'm considering investing in a Wraith on Fellbeast, and one major worry is that I wont know how to paint it, mess it up, then never want to use it again, thus wasting £36...

I've never painted (nor built) a model this big for LOTR SBG, although I do have some experience with the dragons from the WHFB range

So I turn to you! The boffins of TOR, to guide me through the best ways of assembling, and then painting the mighty Winged Nazgul!

Any painting guides or modelling guides would be greatly appreciated!, and if possible, I wish to have the thing at least built BEFORE Saturday (when it should hopefully see its first action...)

-oh, and could someone please give me proper links to the old tutorials? I've looked through them but the links are dead.

Thanks a bunch!

It will be hard. Look at pictures carefully. After glueing, fill the edges, with GS. Use black spary for basecoat. Its important. Paint it, wash it, paint it, wash it, until you like how it looks. Make the base with sand and static grass, or whatever you want. At the end use matt varnish spray.

Begin it, and sometimes post some pics, and we will help you to move on.

Here's a link to the three fell beast articles we have at the moment.
Hope they help!
http://www.one-ring.co.uk/kb.php?t=fell%20beast

Good luck and keep us up-to-date with your project

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CMON-gallery

Thanks for the help guys I've ordered it tonight, and will probably begin work on it next weekend (after my exams are done)

I was planning on spraying & painting the largest parts, such as the wings, seperately from the main model, as well as the Wraiths too, so that I can lavish either more attention, or have a better grip on them than when they're attached to the fell beast.

- I'm pretty confident that I can build the thing - I've done many a plastic model in my Games Workshop life, I was just a little more nervous about painting because it just seems so...different from what I've done before!

I'm not really sure about basing either to be honest... I've never really done any basing, and whenever I've tried to base the stuff just comes off... wouldn't that be true if I sprayed (then painted) the sand? - again I have very little experience in this area (basing), so any tutorials would be appreciated.


Thanks for the tutorials Buckland Brewer, I'm sure they'll be invaluable! I think I may do your technique in fact since Drybrushing is relatively easy to do on such a big model - I assume very little will change recipie wise from the old Fell Beast to the new?

- Oh, on your tutorial (Buckland Brewer), you do Scorched Brown, then Graveyard Earth, then Khaki, then Bone, how do you leave the other layers showing through? Also, does that recipie also cover the top of the Fell Beast? It looks considerably darker than the underbelly you see, and greyer too...is that a different colour?

Thanks!

I dont suggest to paint the parts seperatly, casue there will be a line on the edges, where you put them together. I suggest to paint the wraiths seperatly.

Basing is easy. Use PVA glue. Its a water-base glue. Put it on the surface, then put on some sand, wait a few hours, and its done. Then you can paint it, or glue grass or rocks on it.

For painting I suggest to use many shades, paint it patiently, use home made washes too. For example, if you paint the wings, you know, that is a huge surface, with a lot of shades. Paint the colours you want, and then wash it with a used darker diluted color. The wash must have approx. 20-30% paint, and 70% water. Then all shades will be congregate.

I used this method on my mordor troll. There was a lot of details and different shades.

G'day,
With regard to keeping sand on the base I use a 'sealant' over the sand made up of white glue and water to a milky consistency. This will seal the sand making any inking or painting much easier and not quite as deadly to the paint brush.

hth
Greg

The top of the fellbeast only has the Scorched Brown and Graveyard Earth drybrush-stages. This leaves the beasty a little darker on the up-side of the body... The belly's flesh is a little more pale...

Just don't forget to also wash this top with the mix of Scorched Brown / Chaos Black / Codex Grey + lots of water. (this wash smooths down the drybrush-traces and gives darker results in the lower parts of the body, like creating shadows etc...).
Just don't make the beast really wet when doing this, do it layer by layer and give it time to get dry. The wash shouldn't drip of your brush at all, just add enough watered down paint in your brush to make it dry in only a few seconds; remove the "wetness" of the brush by stroking the brush over a tissue.
It all takes time, but the result is always better. You won't see much difference after the first layer, but before applying the second one, make sure the first one is totally dry, since the first one is the most important I think (if not totally dry, you will rather wipe off your first "base-wash" -layer into a concentrated area...). ALways use the tip of the brush pointed to the darkest area, you should be able to actually "push" the darkness using the brush-tip...


To make the other layers show through, just start with the heaviest drybrush, and make every additional drybrush less heavy (softer) and leave more and more of the edges in it's previous drybrush-stage.
Always wipe as much paint as possible out of your brush on a dry tissue before starting the drybrush-technique...

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CMON-gallery

Also with basing you can glue on the sand with PVA before you spray the model black, then the base will get the paint once you undercoat it, so it seals the sand nicely without losing the gravelly feel of the sand.

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Backlog reduction Oath Participant

Thanks for all the help guys!

As an update, the Beastie has arrived today! Yay!

I'll probably just assemble the Riders either today or tommorow, as it's a 5 minute job, and it's just to get the Shiny new stuff syndrome out of me... the Beast will wait untill after I've finished my last A level exam on Friday morning (Chemistry), then I can get to work.

EDIT: Oh, as a matter of interest, so the other riders don't get wasted, would it be possible to either 1) attach the reigns to the beast, but not the rider, so that the rider can be swapped out & reigns inserted dry fit into the little notch each time. and 2) Use the unused rider on a horse?

Thanks

In regards to the base, will it really be nessecary to add flock? I mean, looking at the base, it looks like it's just rocks, and that a couple o' grey drybrushes would suffice to be honest...

Lastly, in regard to painting, again, looking at the model more closely... I may have a go at painting it in a different way than Buckland Brewers' method (thanks for all the help on that by the way!) As it looks a bit too smooth in areas to me to look like Drybrushing would work :-/ I'll do some digging on the 'net for any other ways to do it, but I was thinking of doing an (albeit long) way of simply building up layers of greys... I'll have another look at the tutorials posted & see if there is a method which fills that spot.

Anyway, toodles! I'll be off to an open day at Manchester Metropolitan University soon

Ok, another update

My exams have finished, so, back on topic, I've begun building my Fell Beast... I've hit a bit of a snag though...

I've built the heads, necks & reigns, and I've discovered that only one of the wraiths can sit atop the beast (due to the fact there's only one neck that will fit, obviously, and that the necks are designed to only accomodate a particular rider, the armoured one carries the Witch King, the unarmoured, the regular Wraith)... I want to change this so that I can use both when I want by doing either

a) Magnetising the neck to the body... I was thinking of putting a magnet in or just behind the notch where the head fits (by cutting a bit of sprue to size & sticking it in the torso), and then putting another magnet on the necks of the beasts

B) Simply sticking the unarmoured neck in, by luck I've managed to build the reigns on that neck so that they will accomodate either the Witch King or the regular Wraith, plus I'm more of a fan of the unarmoured Beast.

Which would you do? And how difficult would magnetising the neck be?

Thanks

Perhaps you could start a WIP thread.....
This is a useful video on magnetizing if you havent already seen it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8Tkw7ttTIo

I hope its not too late, but I got some pics of the plastic Fellbeast in my WIP thread if you want to see how I painted him.

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Where now are the Dúnedain, Elessar, Elessar?
Why do thy kinsfolk wander afar?