Challenge IX Begins -The start of the Fellowship - Frodo and Sam

Welcome to the 9th edition of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge! 

In keeping with tradition, I'm opening the show with our first entry. You see, it allows me to both play the gracious, bumbling host, and, even for just a few hours, place myself on the top of the heap in the points standings. :)

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This past summer I began reading through the Tolkien canon following the chronological order of the stories. As I've not read the core books since my childhood the process has largely been a study in nostalgia. 

In working through the books what really impressed me was the tremendous importance Tolkien placed on value of allies, friends and companionship. This made me reflect that I'm very thankful for all the great friends I've made over the past eight years of the Challenge, and I resolved to make 'Fellowship' serve as the overarching theme for this edition. I think we all deserve some good camaraderie after what has been a rather bruising year, and I hope we can all add a few more over the coming months.

Right, enough faffing - onto my first entry. 

Here we have the starting pair of the 'Fellowship of the Ring', Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee. 

These are from the original metal range offered by Games Workshop at the start of the Peter Jackson trilogy. I have some of the more recent plastics, and while the animation and quality is quite good I find they still lack the crispness and definition of the early metal sculpts. 

Of course source material for the painting was easy to come by, with loads of books and movie stills available both in the home library and on the net.

The big base is a limited edition resin cast of Balin's Tomb which was offered by GW after the release of the first film. I actually forgot I had it, being it was buried in the shadowy depths of the Lead Shed. I only discovered when I was looking for some LotR figures after  being inspired re-reading the books.  

It's a nicely crafted piece, with loads of detail and nifty labeled base-slots for each of the nine companions of The Fellowship. I did a quick series of layered coats with the airbrush, a few washes and then picked out the details with a fine brush. I wasn't wild about the GW branding so I just left it black, but I did a bit of ink blending with 'The Fellowship' raised label and the character names to give them a graduated red-gold effect.

My plan is to add the remaining members to the Fellowship over the duration of the Challenge, hopefully completing it before we wrap-up in March.

So, that makes it 10 points for Frodo and Sam and let's say another 10 for the base, as its roughly half of a 6 x 6 cube of terrain. So 20 points to begin my climb to my target of 1200. Woo. 

Well, to paraphrase Bilbo, every great adventure begins with a first step. :)

Again, welcome to the Painting Challenge everyone! 

I'm going to grab a bit of sleep and then I'll start posting entries in earnest. 

Confirm. Confirm. We have wheels up and brushes free!