Here's where I've got to so far. Nothing is actually finished, but I've got a fair bit of painting done. I'm waiting for suitable weather/a varnish restock/better light to complete the current batch.
I've also joined two more challenges, one of which shouldn't interfere with progress, the other has caused me to change the order in which I do things, more on this later.
I started with a sprues' worth of Frostgrave gnolls; five minis. In this case I built two fighters, two archers and one sergeant. They should all be quite easily identified by their equipment.
I used a combination of Speedpaints and Xpress paints on these. I'm sure I could achieve a better result with base coat, wash, highlights etc, but nowhere near as quickly.
The gnoll's flesh was a 1:1 mix of Army Painter Speedpaint Sand Golem and Pallid Bone. Once thoroughly dry I added Vallejo Xpress Paint Copper Brown for the shaggier hair, principally the 'mane' and head. I added a few spots of this on the less hairy skin areas too, after all, they are supposed to be hyena type humanoids.
The various bits of cloth bandage and wraps were a 1:1 mix of APS Pallid Bone and White. I wanted this to stand out from the skin colour, which just Pallid Bone wouldn't have done. I'm considering going over this with a grey colour, for even better contrast.
The various cloth colours came from my APS collection, often mixed with Pallid Bone for a more realistic look.
As of this post, I've still to finish these gnolls, but it's mostly the little details. You know, the ones that take the longest.
As I was painting the gnolls, I added three Reaper Bones to the batch; another Shadow Knight (in case we use the Challenge setting), a Vulture for the first scenario, and an elf, simply because I seem to be short of male Rangers; in that cloak, his fey features aren't obvious.
The vulture is just about finished; Speed/Xpress paints again, with a few Vallejo Game Color paints for a few little details. The wing tips are red as, apparently, the forces of the Shadow Deep do this as part of a ritual to control the birds.
I've also done a bit of scenery. The first scenario calls for a gnoll camp; I had planned on making up some crude tents and perhaps a campfire. Then I found a couple of resin tents and a log with adventuring gear. These are from Scotia Grendel Productions, and were given to me by Grim many years ago. I'm missing the campfire, but hopefully that will turn up eventually.
They were given a quick wash in hot soapy water, then I tried a slightly different prep for the Slapchop.
I gave them a prime with Vallejo German Green Primer, then a wash of Army Painter Strongtone, and finally a heavy drybrush of Vallejo Model Color Sand.
Then it was a case of various Speedpaints and Xpress paints as required.
The change to the priming and washing was to try and improve the colour in deep shade areas and to give a warmer look; appropriate, I think, for the canvas and the tree.
I like the results, and I'll experiment further.
The little details, such as shields, bottles etc were painted in using my normal minis paints.
These are nice models, though perhaps not quite how I imagine gnolls to go camping. The shields are either Crusader shields (I have tried to make this less obvious with my colour choice) or a Celtic design, an odd combination.
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| Ten assorted zombies |
Finally, I'm continuing with these ten zombies for my Warlords of Erehwon undead. I started them before Christmas and they are a mixed bunch of manufacturers.
Like the zombies themselves, progress continues slowly.
More Challenges?
I found out about Anne's 2026 Miniature Assembly Challenge from Dave Stone's blog. Essentially, it's to assemble minis, something that I planned to do anyway. The challenge runs until the end of January, so I'm weighting my mini building this month with the hope that I can do the bulk of the painting in February.
To this end I'm building all the gnolls for The Bridge Guards scenario, and I might do the Dunedain for the first couple of The Fellowship of the Ring scenarios as well. I'll convert some of the plastic Rangers of Gondor, so hopefully they'll count as assembled too.
I've also got an individual mini or two that I'd like to get done, but these are very much extras.
So my pledge is to assemble ten more gnolls (might as well get three sprues worth done).
Plus 4 to 9 Dunedain, depending on how many I can find.
And as a bonus I'd like to kitbash a Dark Emissary for Bodvoc's Dark Shadows campaign.
Assembled Gnolls
Here's five more gnolls, assembled and ready for painting. There's nothing special about them, though I've swapped bodies for the archers and warriors for a bit of variety. I'm keeping the body with bits of armour for the sergeants, and this time I've given him one of the hooded heads as a badge of rank.
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| Five assembled gnolls |
Bonus Ranger
Whilst looking through my sprues I found a cloaked Frostgrave Barbarian. I like my rangers to wear cloaks, so with a bit of shaving off of various teeth and other trophies, plus a head and arms from the Oathmark Human infantry sprue, here's another Ranger of Alladore.
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| A new ranger |
What's next?
More assembling, obviously, but I still plan to get some painting done this month; I might as well get the stuff I've started finished, and I've a game pencilled in with Bodvoc for the end of the month for which I need to finish off a unit (and paint from scratch a new mini, but I haven't 'got' it yet, so it doesn't count for PWYG).
Oh, and one more challenge
Rantings From under the Wargames Table has challenged hobby bloggers, follow the link for details.
Here's his suggested list of blogs to at least glance at. There's a lot, but I've found them to be interesting and entertaining, I'm even following some of them long term now.
Please note there are some new updated blogs added as of 10/1/26!
War Through The Ages & Other Dark horrors
To these I'll add
Realm of Chaos 80s, ideal for Oldhammer stuff
The War Crow, run by my long time friend/opponent Bodvoc
And good friend T'Other One's Vault of the Undead
