FOTM Painting Challenge 2014: Painting Gandalf The Grey on cart

Our Fellowship Of The Miniature 2014 Paint Challenge has ended! The first in what will hopefully become a lovely tradition for years to come. All the entries will be gathered in another post in a couple of days or so. Also have to give our judges the time to judge ;). What I wanted to talk about in this post is my personal experience with participating and painting my entry: Gandalf The Grey on cart.



As mentioned in a previous post where I was showing of my WIP on this model, I knew I would want to own this model as soon as I saw the scene in The Fellowship Of The Ring. Having bought it almost straight away as it came out, it then started collecting dust on a shelf. Or atleast the box did. It was just one of those models that I wanted to have, but was afraid to start painting. Always seeing this model in a larger project and always fearing my skills weren't up to the task of doing it justice. Knowing my skills have improved over the years, but still not to the point where I want them to be, I still had a lot of doubts when picking Gandalf as an entry.

My doubts proofed to be exaggerated once I got in the flow. I really enjoyed spending the hours and hours of painting I did with this one. I'm really proud of the results that I managed to get. I know there is a lot of room for improvement and the model is far from perfect, but for now, I am proud. I still have the first Gandalf I ever painted in a small Mines Of Moria diorama and the difference is day and night. Only reason I still have that particular diorama on display is nostalgia, because it represents my first babysteps in this hobby.

I also learned a lot while on this project and I thought I'd share my thoughts.

• Time management. Although I did start a few weeks before the deadline as opposed to my usual approach of the night before and burning the midnight oil (silly me). I must really try and do a better job at managing my personal hobby time and start projects like this way ahead.
• Don't assemble too much. I kept the model in three parts, as shown on my WIP pictures, but that proofed to still be too few. I shouldn't have glued the  fireworks in the cart. So better thinking ahead next time.
• I really need superglue activator/accelarator. Assembling the cart could have never happened without it. It was hell
• I should paint more unarmoured horses to improve my skills. The part I'm most dissatisfied about is the horse. I found these two nice tutorials, but I really need to paint more horses to improve my skill. Tutorial one and two
• And last, but definitly not least, paint more. Try out different approaches, new techniques. Learn from mistakes and know that it is all trial and error.

Woow, quite a lengthy post. Sorry about that :). Anyway if you made it upto here, thank you for sticking with me. Let me end with a finished picture, more can be found on my Flickr page. Untill next time.