The Eagles are coming!

 Back in 2017 I got started on rebuilding the Grudge of Drong scenario for a new age. Part of my then attempt was painting up enough High-Elves to have a fully painted army that matched the one in the campaign pack. That meant I needed three Great Eagles. I got them and then never applied a proper paint job. That changed this weekend. So I can finally join Bilbo and Pippin and state: "The Eagles are coming!"

No clue why, but I think a High Elf army cannot call itself complete without adding at least a few Great Eagles.

The Grudge of Drong scenario gives the High Elf player three Great Eagles. As I had a grand total of zero models I decided I needed to get some birds. This turned into quite a fun search. Games Workshop makes two awesome eagles for the Lord of the Rings game, but needing three meant buying four. That made the price almost steep enough to match eBay at its worst.  I went through a plethora of IX Age alternative models listings (most of those beyond my desired budget as well) until I found Battlezone Miniatures the sells two eagle variants. I had a wonderful chat over the mail with them and in ended up with three metal Eagles for less than 10 quid (a little more if you add postage). 

 

Should I consider retiring Maisontaal as a backdrop for pictures? I may have been overusing it for the past few years.

Somewhere at that point - inevitably - project fatigue set in and I moved on to some (abandoned) 40K projects and then a massive Greenskin restoration project. Good times....but not for the eagles that languished in a forgotten box. With my Lumineth in full swing and proxy mode activated, I decided to take them out of storage, strip my previous attempt at a color scheme and give them a bald eagle look (if only so I can remember the last pages of The Illuminatus! Trilogy and smile). These models where mostly drybrushed and selectively washed which I think works well enough. I did pick out the eyes in yellow but it fails to show at all in the pictures. When I started drybrushing the hardest part was stopping. I soon rediscovered the joy of going wild with lighter and lighter colors that shouldn't make work but still do. It does make the 'back feathers' on the wings stand out (and my apologies to all ornithologist who slapped their foreheads on reading the previous sentence (and to all those that can't stop slapping as my eagles are for some reason obviously not bald ones)). 

Don't get too envious, this guy took the advanced 'dramatic pose' class twice. He's an expert now. 

I like the size of these big birds and I think they work well on their 50mm bases. For the one in the back I found a larger flying pin. I'm rather glad I propped him up extra high it gives the whole flight an intimidating presence on the tabletop. Now all that's needed is to think up what they will be proxying for (if I put them on the table)...In unrelated news I recently picked up the Soulbound Age of Sigmar role playing game from Cubicle7. I read through it and am working on a small(ish) campaign. Lots of interesting ideas in that book. I'll try to give Soulbound an advance write-up in anticipation of actually getting together and playin it when the lockdown ends. In the meantime. Happy painting or as the late and great Bob Ross put it: "I believe every day is a good day when you paint.”