Who shall call them from the grey twilight, the forgotten people? (spoiler, it's me)

Covid-19 is a massive nob. It has changed the world in near record time, and mostly shown us how embarrassing people can be. Anyway, I decided that I'd do something different to amuse myself with all this alone time which we're all going to have to get used to. For the first time in many years, I decided to have a crack at the Middle Earth model range. They're a very different style of model to what I usually do, and thus a bit of a different challenge. I decided to start with the Army of the Dead.

These are interesting models because... well... they're ghosts. You want them to look ethereal and otherworldly, which means a much narrower colour palate. That being said, you don't just want to have a block of white. Trust me, I've seen it and it... wasn't pleasant.

There's always a temptation in these cases to just apply a white undercoat and then slap a wash over the top. Everyone has at some point thought that this is an easy way to produce etheral effects. If you haven't tried, don't. It's not quite that simple.

The first step was in fact a white undercoat. After that, I basecoated the models in Grey Seer. Any cold bluish off-white would do the trick. Next, I mixed Nuln Oil with acrylic medium about 50/50 (to stop pooling). The trick here is that you want the shadows and textures to show up. You'll do better with a black wash that going straight to a coloured tint.

Once the black wash was dry, I thinned down some Nighthaunt Gloom. This is a paint which I was totally befuddled by when I first tried it, but I don't think I really grasped it properly. You really have to dilute it for it to work this way. I'm talking maybe 20/80 with medium. After that, I applied it all over the models. The key here is that it has to be very thin, thin enough that none of the details will be lost. Nighthaunt Gloom isn't a wash even though it looks like one. It's more akin to a contrast paint.

Anyway, when that was dry, I gave the models a good hearty drybrush with Grey Seer to pick up the highlights and add some extra contrast.

For the base, I decided I needed a sharp contrast, but one that made sense in the Middle Earth setting (my daemon world bases wouldn't make a lot of sense). I did the standard basing technique: PVA glue some sand to the base and then paint dark brown. There I followed with a light brown drybrush, and finally a cream drybrush. I used some withered yellowish static grass from War World Scenics. Last of all, I decided that there should be some snow. Now, I know that in LOTR we never see the Dead of Dunharrow in snow, but I figure that when not helping Aragorn to ruin Sauron's day they probably haunt desolate and harsh places. I used Citadel's 'Valhallan Blizzard' to create the snow effects. Trust me, this stuff is so much better than any snow flock you've ever used. The frozen pools you can see were achieved with crackle paint, layered over with white and then with  thin coat of Nihilakh Oxide.

So there we have it! Twenty models done in a few hours. Next up and much more difficult... some Rohirrim.