I was able to finish up the Eomer display project and I’m very happy to be sharing the results. I think it is one of my best minis yet and it came together in less than a month’s time which is pretty darn good for a display piece. I have more to say about the process of making the base but let’s look at some pictures and I can talk more about that.
The first thing to mention is the photography. If you remember back a ways, I had a lot of trouble getting good pictures of the Blood Elf display piece and unfortunately, that happened again with Eomer. I took probably 50 pictures across 4-5 sittings to try and get some good photos of this mini. While these pictures are not bad, they’re a little washed out and for some reason, my camera just does not want to focus on the miniature which keeps the pictures from being as sharp as I think they could be. These pictures are the very best that I could get but I feel that they don’t quite do this display piece the justice that it deserves. Truthfully, I’m not very knowledgeable about photography or cameras and the camera I own is getting close to ten years old now and I think that is why I’m having so much trouble. I need to find a way to upgrade and get a camera that can take higher quality photos of my work. I think my current camera is preventing the quality of the piece from fully being seen. So that is a problem I’m going to have to try and rectify in the future even if it isn’t clear to me exactly what I need to get to see improvement. Its something I’ll have to try and research a bit more.
On a more positive note, the base came out really nicely and I tried some new techniques that I wanted to mention for those interested in the craft. The first thing is that the base came out looking so much more realistic than I expected. I used some AK Interactive earth colored washes and while you can’t really see them all that well now, mixing a few different colors across the ground really gave the base a realistic look. Typically, I do the fairly normal base coat the dirt in brown, give it a wash, and then dry brush with two or three colors to get the look you see on a lot of my gaming bases. However, these washes helped me elevate the look of the dirt quite a bit and I don’t think there’s any looking back now.
I also attempted to use foliage in a more realistic and interesting way which has always been something I’m trying to do. I applied moss using some simple Woodland Scenics flock and I think it came out looking really nice. The tufts are fairly typical where I try to mix a few different ones of different heights together to give it a realistic look. I tried to nail the look of Rohan (or New Zealand, if we’re being honest) and I didn’t quite get there but it looks good enough and I’m reasonably happy with how it all looks. I tried to make my own tufts as well and that was a mixed bag. I had to pull one off the base because the glue turned very white at the base and it was too visible. The other one looks fine but could just as easily be a commercially purchased tuft so that is something else to work on in the future.
If it sounds like I’m not that keen on this one or that I’m nitpicking it, I’m not. I’m very happy with it and it was a pleasure to work on. So much so that I’m already looking for another display project like this that I can tackle next. I’m feeling more confident in the diorama/display painting space than ever before and I’m eager to improve further and achieve my long-time goal of making some of the best Lord of the Rings minis and dioramas possible. With this in mind, I went ahead and purchased the first mini that I need for my next diorama so I’ll slowly work on piecing that together in the coming weeks which should be nice as I try to work on my backlog of gaming stuff.
While we’re on the subject, Games Workshop is teasing a big Middle Earth focused preview event on Sunday which I don’t think they’ve ever done before. I’m very curious and excited to see what they release. While they don’t create a lot of Middle Earth minis each year, I’ve liked a lot of what they have released, especially the plastic ones and so I’m hoping they will spark some ideas for future projects with this announcement.
Kuribo's Painting 
He’s looking great, and clearly when I get back to painting miniatures (soon!), I need to pay more attention to the photography side. I usually take 2-3 pics and figure one of them will be ‘good enough’.
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Thanks, Dave and I’m that way with most minis I paint. I just pick the best from 2-3 pictures and go with that but I had hoped for the perfect image here and unfortunately didn’t quite nail it. Hopefully we’ll both get there eventually 🙂
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Excellent all round mate. The figure looks great and so does the base work. Gaming pieces have limited ground work potential but you can’t beat a display figure using a quality sculpt and and a fine plinth. I guess that’s why I do what I do and it’s great to see you enjoying it too. 🙂
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Thanks for the kind words and that is very well said. I find the opportunity to “fill the picture in” a bit more on display pieces to be really challenging and rewarding. Its cool to see a bit more into the world that the mini resides in, I guess you could say. We certainly have that part of the hobby in common 🙂
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Fantastic work on all of the display piece Jeff, turned out really well. Sorry to hear about your woes with the photographs, I feel your pain on that one, as I still struggle with it myself. A fellow tuft maker, it can be very satisfying when they work perfectly, and soul destroying when they don’t, but does mean you can get the tuft exactly as you want them.
Interested to see what the next project will be, and following along with your creation.
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Thank you, Dave! I’ll try to keep getting better with photos and get some better equipment and see what that can do for me. I need to practice making more tufts as well. I used 6 mm static grass and I think I should have gone for 10 or 12 mm and tried to cut that down once it is glued together, if that makes any sense. The next display piece isn’t ambitious from a painting perspective (the sculpts aren’t especially intricate or detailed) but it will create a scene and tell a story so hopefully my skills are up to the challenge of it!
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He looks fantastic – you’ve done a really bang-up job there mate. The base looks superb and really sets him off nicely. Miniature photography can be a bit of a challenge can’t it, it really is a hobby in and of itself. It’s always frustrating to get to the end of a project like this and then struggle to get decent pictures that really show it off in its best light. Good to see GW are doing a full Middle Earth preview, the game and setting really deserve that kind of attention from them. Whatever new models they show off I’ll look forward to seeing you work your magic on a few months from now! 🙂
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Thank you, Wudu! 🙂 Photography is harder than it looks and hard to master both. There is a lot of info out there on Youtube, for example, but some of it is conflicting and your camera matters a lot too. As far as the preview goes, there are some big things they could announce that will have no impact on me. A new starter set or edition of rules have been rumored and neither of those will get me painting, but I’m still hopefully for some cool stuff all the same. I have plenty of cool projects lined up as it is too, so I won’t be suffering regardless 🙂
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Great work here sir, the base has really just finished the model off lovely, and extremely realistic. The photos look good to me, but if you are trying to improve I have heard people say that phone cameras are now better than some normal cameras I must say I’m not a camera expert but that’s what I have heard.
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Thank you for the kind words, mate! I’m glad to hear you like the base and think it is realistic looking as well. I have heard a similar sentiment on phone cameras and I tested my iPhone camera on this mini and I couldn’t get as good of photos as ten year old point and shoot camera. Go figure!
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Great job on the plinth, nice blending of vegetation.
Does your camera have a flower setting? Works well with closeups.
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Thank you, Bret! I do have a macro setting (which uses a flower icon, funnily enough) and I often use it when shooting mini photos. I think the problem with my camera is that its older and not very programmable so you get what you get with it. I think if I get a newer one, I may have more options and control over various things but we’ll see what I can find out as I look to upgrade what I have.
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Brilliant work as always mate! I have to admit I am curious to see what GW has in mind for Middle Earth… but odds are it will cost more than I want to pay.
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I may do a post about what got announced but I’d love to hear your thoughts on what was shared. I’ll spoil my opinion a bit and say there was more there that I liked than expected.
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Mrs. GG and I like what we saw but again they will likely cost more than we want to pay…. so it may be awhile before I find some of those at a discounted price.
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I think a good chunk of the releases are coming out via Forge World so that will make the characters hard to get at a low price or so I would think. The rest should be easy to get either piecemeal or at a discount since a lot of minis come in the big box sets and people always buy stuff like that and then don’t finish it or never start on it.
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True mate, true!
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Absolutely wonderful painting and basing, Jeff, it truly is a piece you should be proud of and rightfully so. The colours you’ve used on Eomer complement each other beautifully and the base is the sort of rugged look I’d expect for Rohan. The washes really added some lovely subtle differences in tone and the various tufts also break it up and prevent it being too monotone. Fantastic stuff, sir!
As for the photography, I too have a similar problem. Bear in mind that your camera may be 10 years old but it’ll still take good photos; my DSLR is pushing nine years and there’s nothing wrong with the quality of the pics it takes, I just think that for minis it’s more down to lighting, composition, focal length and a steady hand.
Do you have access to any image editing software? If not, try using Pixlr, it’s an online editor that’s pretty good for correcting photos. If you have a macro mode try using it and you should definitely use a tripod but if you don’t own one try putting the camera on a couple of books or something.
Using the timer setting also helps a lot. You can press the button and there’ll be a couple of seconds’ pause before the camera takes the picture, which means there’s no danger of you moving it when you press the shutter release. Just google the manual for your model of camera. All the best!
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Thank you for the kind words, Matt! I’m glad the little details didn’t go unnoticed 🙂
I appreciate you sharing your thoughts on photography as well. My camera is a point and shoot with a good zoom lens for that type of camera so it might be a little different than expected. I completely agree with you on what matters for taking photos. I believe that my camera could do even better if I had a bit more control over the various settings but it offers limited customization unfortunately. Macro mode is what I generally shoot in but that is a mode that I can’t edit or play around with anything if I use it which is disappointing.
I do use Corel Paintshop for some very light photo improvements on all of my pictures and I have a desk tripod (its a strange hand me down from my Dad who is a photographer) that I used for taking pictures of Eomer to get some added stability too. Alas, the usual tricks didn’t really change the photo quality a whole lot which leads me to believe that its time to upgrade/improve my camera. I may have to go in the direction of a DSLR finally even though I love the portability of my point and shoot camera.
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I’ve got a Canon SL1 which as I said is almost nine years old, but it’s 18 megapixels and does the job. I know I’m biased but Canon does some great DSLRs and you can buy third-party lenses (Sigmas are good) that’ll fit them.
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It looks like I’m at 16.3 megapixels with this camera so I’d say 18 should cover it! My camera is a Samsung and I don’t think they make cameras any longer (except on their phones, of course). I’m inclined to go with a Canon or Nikon just because they’re name brands and have been made with photographers in mind for many years. My serious, hobbyist photographer father also likes those brands as well!
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I see you elected not to finish painting the back half of Eomer at all! 😉
Jokes aside, it looks amazing, Jeff!
Your hard work on all the small details has really paid off, and models of this size really do need a bit of a boost to colour and contrast else they’d just look maddy and dark if they were to truly look “realistic”.
As for the base, I’ve spent a few months wandering around NZ in the past, and I can certainly tell you that it doesn’t NOT like EnZed to me! There’s plenty of places all around the world that look basically the same, especially when you’re focused in so far, and pretty much everywhere in the world has a lot of environmental variety – so I wouldn’t worry about that in the slightest.
I can see the focus is a little imperfect – some of the pics seem more focused on the terrain than the face or other details, and I unfortunately don’t have any advice there – my photography has never satisfied me either, and I’ve used a variety of cameras and phones at this point. I tend to chalk it down to another skill that I’m just dealing with being “good enough” as I don’t have the time/patience/mental availability to spend to become a much better photographer – free time is a zero-sum situation after all!
Regardless – a very impressive model and one your shelf will certainly be bettered by!
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Very funny, mate 😛 Thanks for the kind words as well! I didn’t show off the back because the plinth was a bit rough looking despite a lot of effort on my part to smooth it out. Certainly not Golden Demon standard but that’s okay, this one was for me.
Eomer’s armor is really bland in the movies in terms of color so I completely agree with you. Both myself and ‘Eavy Metal really pumped up the color and saturation to make him look more interesting and appealing. I’m glad to hear that the base looks like NZ enough to your eyes too. One of these days I’ll get over there and drag my wife to as many LOTR locations as possible 🙂
Generally, I think my photos are good enough to show the quality of the paint job but there’s no doubt when you work on a display piece that you want to show off every bit of quality that you can. I think the shape of the base is what is causing my camera issues. It is almost pyramid like which means Eomer sits back behind the cliff edges and so my camera wants to keep focusing on the rocks and not the star of the show. Perhaps a different camera can handle this all a bit better. Its certainly time to start thinking about getting a new camera anyway. I can certainly always go back and reshoot it later on too. Regardless, thanks for your support and kind words on this project. There’s plenty more LOTR in my future so hopefully you’ll stick around for more like this 😀
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Definitely been worth the wait to see the finished article! 🙂 Very nice indeed, Jeff!
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Thank you, John! I’m glad it was worth the wait 🙂
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Fantastic mate. I love your attention to detail and the shading on his face is perfect. I also love what you did with the realistic base. For the photography, and this is more of a preference than a fact, try a black background. I find it makes the colours contrast more and seem a little crisper or something. There are pros and cons to light or dark backgrounds though but, honestly, I think these pix are really bloody good. Well done on getting him done mate. You should be proud.
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Thanks for all the kind words, mate! I haven’t done much with black backgrounds but I’d like to experiment with it a bit more in the future. My current camera struggles in dark places but I reckon when I get a new one, I should be able to do more with darker backgrounds. It will take me some time to sort all this out but hopefully we’ll see progress in good time.
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I hope that is displayed somewhere prominent in the living quarters; bc it’s beyond cool. 😀😀
Really like what you did with the basing; looks like he’s standing on a mountain straight out of the movies.
Can’t help ya in the camera. I just use my iPhone.
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I don’t have a good place for anything I’ve painted yet but I hope to get something soonish before they get too dusty. I really wanted it to look like Eomer was on the edge of a cliff surveying the Rohirrim’s territory since that is what he’s doing early in The Two Towers so I’m glad to hear you got that feeling from it! 🙂
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Great display, and the added terrain really makes him a beautiful piece. I always struggle with photos. It’s taken me years to get to a point where I’m ‘just okay’ with the pics from my phone. So, I can’t say I have any better advice than what people have already given.
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Thank you for the kind words! I generally don’t sweat photos too much other than these display projects which you want as sharp and crisp of photos as possible. A lot of times a quick picture from a phone is all you need!
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That base looks very nice indeed! I think you’ve nailed the aesthetic of the overgrown rocky bits you see in the movies.
For your photos, I’m not an expert by any stretch but I’ve dabbled a bit over the years so here’s a couple of suggestions (I have no idea how much you know about this so sorry if I tell you stuff you already know!) I’m not sure if you use a tripod, but definitely recommend going that route if you don’t. From what I can see in your photos the entirety of the plinth isn’t in focus which means the depth of field is too narrow. To increase it you need to narrow down the aperture on the lens (increase the f-stop) which is something your camera might let you do if it has some manual controls (look for A mode or M mode). Stopping down the aperture like that reduces the amount of light the sensor receives so generally you then have to increase the exposure time hence the need for a tripod and good lighting (which you seem to have already, your models are always nicely lit up)
That was a bit long winded but hopefully somewhat helpful at least!
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Thanks, Nic! I think my Dad recommended the aperture adjustments you’re suggesting and I’m positive that they would help, if I were able to make them. Unfortunately, my camera has very restricted options in regards to this area. I think what is probably holding me back is my preference towards point and shoot cameras instead of the heavier and bulkier options which will be way more customizable/programmable. I may end up giving up the convenience and portability for the opportunity to take better photos in the end, we will see. Either way, I appreciate your sharing these thoughts. It is a good reminder of what I need to address with any new camera purchase!
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There are a few point and shoots that have manual controls, worth keeping an eye out for if you want to stick to the smaller size.
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Cheers! I will definitely see what I can find on the market in the near future.
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That is utterly fantastic – if the photography is not doing Eomer justice that it must be a truly special painting indeed.
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Thank you, mate! Your kind words are very much appreciated 🙂
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This did come out very well, I agree. I particularly liked the base, which I (again) agree looks pretty realistic, and the highlights on the shield stand out to me–it looks like wood that has been painted green rather than simply a green shield.
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Thank you, Ann! I wanted the shield to look as realistic as possible so I’m glad the painting techniques helped bring that about 🙂
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Bloody brilliant Jeff!! I personally like the way the photos have turned out, kind of misty like the UK!
The plinth is sooo good! and your tufts set the whole thing of ! A big pat on the back for this figure and plinth.
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Thanks, Pat! I tried to pull out all of the stops for this one so I’m glad to hear you like it. Not unlike you, I’m already starting on a bigger diorama so it won’t be long until I’m on to the next one, I reckon 🙂
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You certainly did mate and you have given me some ideas about different plinths👍🏻. Looking forward to seeing the next one mate🤓.
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Really glad to hear I’ve inspired you and I look forward to seeing what you end up doing with your inspiration as well 🙂
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Ah thanks for the reminder, I will try to pick up some things in town that I might use on the plinth idea 💡🤓👍🏻
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