Ilfirin_Art

Hi, I'm ilfirin_art – I create miniature worlds, terrains, painted minis and sketches. My focus is Tolkien & MESBG, but I also explore D&D, Arcane, StarCraft and other fantasy realms. Expect maps, 2D art, and more miniatures adventures coming soon! You can find (and support) me here: https://linktr.ee/ilfirinart

[ilfirinart]

Final Watchtower 360° reveal!

Today I’ll keep things short — no edited backgrounds or mountain scenery this time. Just a quick 360° spin of the finished Watchtower on a neutral background, showing the whole structure from every angle.

And with that, this project officially comes to an end 😉

Time to get back to painting my Army of the Dead!

[ilfirinart]

Watchtower - details & close-ups!

Today, a few more pictures of the recently finished Watchtower, this time focused more on the details 👌

stone arches,

windows,

wooden platforms,

ladders,

moss and rubble.

I really enjoyed making these small additions - they brought much more life into the ruined structure. On one of the upper platforms, you can even spot some carvings in the stone, almost like an archer marking his hits 😉 I’m also quite happy with how the wood texture turned out on the platforms. I was honestly a bit nervous at first about whether it would work.

To sum up: I’m very satisfied with the final result, although I can already see things that could be improved or expanded in future projects:

more rubble, and more variety in it - different sizes, textures, and colours. I think that would make the whole piece feel even more realistic. Still, keeping the terrain relatively flat and playable was a deliberate decision;

perhaps even more moss higher up on the walls, especially in deeper corners and shaded areas where moisture would naturally collect;

and finally, dirtier and more varied washes on the stone walls.

This last point is something I still struggle with a bit. From what I’ve seen so far, oil washes would probably work best for that kind of weathering. Unfortunately, I work in a room with poor ventilation and, because of my asthma, I really dislike working with strong-smelling paints and chemically irritating products.

For this project, I ended up making my own homemade black wash using heavily thinned acrylic paints and a bit of dish soap. It was used across almost all of the stone surfaces of the Watchtower.

So for now - I’m calling it finished 😉

A small teaser: next post will be a quick 360° video spin of the whole build.

[ilfirinart]

Watchtower finally finished!

First of all, I must admit — this took me much longer than expected, but:

it was actually my first full XPS building,

many elements were made for the first time,

and there was a lot of thinking, testing, and searching for “how to do stuff” along the way.

In many ways, I think this was a bad choice for a first XPS build. Usually, you should probably start with the basics, right? Something like stone tiles or simple wall segments — easier to carve, easier to paint, easier to experiment with techniques. But well… I am what I am 😉 and I wanted something more ambitious.

The main reason I chose this structure was actually very simple — I already had some scatter terrain and wanted a larger centerpiece for my gaming table. I don’t think modular walls alone would have given me that feeling.

When I left off in the previous WIP posts, most of the painting was already done, but I still had a strong feeling that something was missing. Pretty quickly, I realized it needed shrubs, moss, and rubble. I wanted to keep most of the flat surfaces playable, so I tried not to overdo the rubble, but adding greenery was definitely the right call.

At the moment, I don’t really have professional greenery materials on my workbench, so I worked with what I had available. I used reindeer lichen in some areas, but my favourite effect is definitely the moss near the bottom of the stone walls. It was made by mixing PVA glue with fine turf and applying it using an old, worn brush. Once dry, it created uneven coverage and different shades of green — and honestly, that effect might be my favourite part of the whole build.

Another challenge — and something completely new to learn — was editing the photos to blend the model into real-life scenery. For the backgrounds, I used my own photos from a short trip to the Tatra Mountains last year. The weather that day was cloudy and misty, and I thought it matched the atmosphere of a ruined watchtower perfectly.

I hope you like the results 😉

Next post: close-ups, details, and a few thoughts on what could already be improved next time.

[ilfirinart]

Since the very beginning of my miniature collection journey, I’ve always had a soft spot for metal minis. They felt like elite models — and to be fair, 20 years ago, they actually were 😉

In the case of LOTR armies, regular troops were usually made of plastic (with the quality available at the time), while metal was reserved for heroes or elite units. And for quite a while, the sharpness of detail in metal miniatures was often noticeably better than in plastic ones.

I still enjoy the weight of a metal miniature in hand — there’s something satisfying about it. But with each passing year, I find myself liking them a little less.

First of all, the quality of modern plastic miniatures has improved massively, while metal casting doesn’t seem to have progressed nearly as much. Working with metal models can be challenging — plastic is simply more forgiving and easier to work with.

And then there are the gaps… Just look at the photos — those are not small imperfections. You rarely see anything like that in modern plastic kits.

Another important factor is magnetising. I recently decided to magnetise my bases, and metal miniatures require stronger magnets — and often more of them — to stay in place. With larger and heavier models, this can become a real limitation. With lightweight plastic miniatures, this problem barely exists.

To sum it up: the “elite” feel of metal minis will probably stay with me forever, but I no longer see them as a priority in my collection. For future projects, I definitely prefer working with plastic models.

What’s your take on this? Metal vs plastic — which do you prefer, and why?

[corvidous]

Ok I actually have a Take on this one: so plastic is great, sure, yes, I cannot dispute. Easier to work with, capable of vastly more detail, cheaper which is also important (I recently did a price comparison rundown and in $USD Games Workshop's plastic minis specifically are actually more expensive than most other company's metal models but I digress)

But I maintain that metal miniatures tend to be better minis.

A miniature is, fundamentally, a game piece. It is designed to be played with, to play a tabletop game. It is a toy. The most important quality of a good tabletop game piece, number one, is being able to tell what it is on the table, when it is actually being used to play a game. You need visual readability at 3ft/1m. We're already pushing it on that front with 28mm scale, these are small game pieces, they are difficult to see already. The enemy of visual readibility is complexity. The more complex a miniature is, the more design elements you stuff onto that little 28mm silhouette, the more difficult it's going to be to quickly and easily tell what that little man is on the table.

Now back in ye olden days that was less of a problem. Metal casting can only take you so far. The medium itself places limits on the design, there's just only so much you can do with cast metal. And that doesn't mean people didn't push the limits! They did! OP's mini is multi part, quite complex...and it suffers for it. I vividly recall some of the old Warmachine metals from around 2013, Father Lucant from Convergence of Cyriss stands out as an absolutely hellish miniature to work with on every front, and it was because they were pushing the envelope in design with metal. That mini was a disaster. Not too long ago I built and painted some Hammerfall Highshield Gun Corps warmachine dwarves and those minis were 4 pieces (including their big riot shields) for NO reason. No reason whatsoever to make their shield arms separate pieces from the torsos.

But what metal does, in placing those design limitations on a sculptor (if they're not trying to push the envelope) is it forces them to drill down on what is actually important. What are the pieces of this design that HAVE to be there, because you can't do all the detail you might want, so you have to pick, you have to be choosy, you have to be deliberate. And the end result is usually visually simpler miniatures. Then too most metal miniatures are still sculpted by hand which also lends itself to better miniatures because you're actually. Y'know. Holding them when you're sculpting, and it gives you a better idea of what is visible vs what isn't. I would argue that this leads to better minis, minis that are better at being visually readable on the table, better game pieces.

Now in current year this presents a problem. Because most people spend vastly more time doing the parts of the hobby that are not actually gaming. They're building minis, painting minis, and posting and looking at minis online. And when you are doing all that you are looking at minis not as the human eye sees them on the tabletop where they're being used, but as the camera sees them: up close, zoomed in, under carefully managed lighting conditions, typically by studio painters. And that's how they sell them! Forty years ago you bought minis because you went to the game store and saw them in their blister packs on the shelf or saw someone else playing with them and thought "oh those look cool." Now you buy minis because they look cool on the screen. But looking good on the screen often means adding MORE detail, while looking good on the table often requires LESS. Add to this the fact that new kits are sculpted digitally, in an environment where you can zoom in and put as much detail as you want on a mini that you don't actually have any visceral immediate way to compare to the size of your actual hands. You end up with minis that are massively overdetailed. And it's not just Games Workshop, where visual clutter is itself kind of a foundational element of the design language, it's also notably an issue with Victrix, I love Victrix but y'all need to calm the hell down with your fabric folds. You see it everywhere on stl sites as well, 80% of stl designed minis are just an absolute mess because the designers went hog wild zooming in and adding details.

I could go on but I've ranted long enough and obviously this is all subjective opinion, but I do feel that while plastic kits can be very good and metal kits can be very bad, the design constraints of working in metal tend to push towards a final result that is just a better miniature.

[ilfirinart]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts — it was genuinely refreshing to read something that goes a bit against the usual admiration for ever-increasing detail in modern plastic kits 😉 And to be fair, I’m also very much part of that camp — I do love all that detail. But I definitely see the value in the points you’ve raised.

I’d also risk taking it a step further (purely based on my own observations): the overall increase in painting quality across the hobby can sometimes work against tabletop readability as well. I see more and more beautifully painted models with NMM/TMM, subtle transitions, detailed faces — all of which look fantastic in photos or when viewed individually. But when an entire unit stands next to each other on the table, sometimes there’s just so much going on that it becomes harder to actually read and appreciate what you’re looking at. It’s still impressive — but occasionally a bit overwhelming.

Another aspect is lighting. Many painters now work with very well-optimised setups — controlled light temperature, high intensity, multiple light sources — and then photograph their models under similarly ideal conditions. And again, it looks amazing in photos.

Back when I was a teenager, I had a basic desk lamp and that was it — I did everything under that one light. No one really thought about colour temperature, lumens or anything like that.

On the tabletop, though, where lighting is often weaker, warmer, or just inconsistent, some of that carefully built contrast simply disappears. I notice this especially with darker colour schemes, where under good lighting everything reads clearly, but from a distance and in typical gaming conditions it can turn into a bit of a brownish blur.

And finally — even though I still very much enjoy the richness of modern plastic kits — I’ve noticed that this level of detail can sometimes feel… intimidating. It can actually slow me down or make me hesitate before starting a project, because I’m not sure how to approach all that complexity. And just like that, the pile of shame keeps growing 😉

[ilfirinart]

My first time magnetizing miniatures! :D

And I jumped straight into making a simple tutorial. Not something I usually do, but I wanted to show how it went on my first attempt.

It was something new — and for the most part, actually quite fun 😉 That said, I still don’t enjoy working with superglue… especially when it ends up all over my fingers.

Thankfully, the metal used for these miniatures isn’t too hard, so removing the pins was fairly quick and easy. Still, it seems I can’t work with metal minis without at least a couple of cuts on my fingers. Maybe one day I’ll learn 😉

A few notes from the process:

Always double-check magnet polarity before gluing (seriously). I got it wrong on my first model, and removing glued magnets is not fun.

If the drill slips at the start, use a sharp tool to make a small dent — it helps guide the drill bit.

Check the depth while drilling — don’t go too deep. Too much distance between magnets = weak hold.

Always dry-fit before gluing.

Why even bother with this?

I know for many people it’s overkill. You can always just declare what your models are equipped with — but I prefer playing WYSIWYG.

And with the current edition of MESBG introducing some limitations for throwing weapons, having the option to quickly swap them can actually be useful.

PS: Keep your fingers away from sharp blades and fresh CA glue 😅

[ilfirinart]

After sitting on my shelf for months, I finally got around to working on The War of the Rohirrim starter set (well… at least part of it 😉).

I really like these newer miniatures — the poses are more dynamic, the details sharper, and the overall quality is noticeably better than what we had 20+ years ago. Back then, most warriors were single-piece models, sometimes two parts at most (usually with a separate shield in the case of Rohan).

This time, it was a full weekend of cutting, cleaning, and gluing — over 200 individual plastic parts in total. All in all, a pretty productive session: 28 miniatures assembled and ready for priming.

Next up: the second half of the starter — Hill Tribes are waiting on the desk 😉

What was the last model you assembled?

[ilfirinart]

CAVALRY SQUAD PAINTED!

Today I’m continuing my Army of the Dead project with the cavalry.

I was quite happy with the final colour scheme on my warriors (see previous posts 😉), but since the cavalry feels more like an elite unit — and the miniatures themselves are cast in metal — I wanted to give them a slightly different character. Keeping the cold, ghostly vibe, I decided to introduce subtle purple tones on the horsecloth. The paint was heavily diluted to a glaze consistency (this was actually my first attempt at working with this technique). Afterwards, I reapplied highlights and a light drybrush, so the violet remains only barely visible — as if the colour had faded over centuries of this cursed existence.

Bases To be honest, I wasn’t entirely satisfied with the bases I made for my foot warriors. They were fine, but nothing particularly interesting. (Also, 25 mm bases are often just too small to add anything meaningful.) With the 40 mm cavalry bases, I finally felt I had enough space to introduce more detail. I went with violet flowers to tie in with the new colour accents, along with a few green grass tufts — and overall, the bases feel much more visually engaging. There’s definitely progress here, and that’s probably the most important thing.

From a gameplay perspective, I think adding three more cavalry models would make for a solid warband — but that’s a project (and expense) for another time. Next in line: the Heralds and the King of the Dead himself. With the King, I’d like to push the faded violet / crimson tones a bit further — it feels like a good fit for something more… regal.

[ilfirinart]

Since the very beginning of my miniature collection journey, I’ve always had a soft spot for metal minis. They felt like elite models — and to be fair, 20 years ago, they actually were 😉

In the case of LOTR armies, regular troops were usually made of plastic (with the quality available at the time), while metal was reserved for heroes or elite units. And for quite a while, the sharpness of detail in metal miniatures was often noticeably better than in plastic ones.

I still enjoy the weight of a metal miniature in hand — there’s something satisfying about it. But with each passing year, I find myself liking them a little less.

First of all, the quality of modern plastic miniatures has improved massively, while metal casting doesn’t seem to have progressed nearly as much. Working with metal models can be challenging — plastic is simply more forgiving and easier to work with.

And then there are the gaps… Just look at the photos — those are not small imperfections. You rarely see anything like that in modern plastic kits.

Another important factor is magnetising. I recently decided to magnetise my bases, and metal miniatures require stronger magnets — and often more of them — to stay in place. With larger and heavier models, this can become a real limitation. With lightweight plastic miniatures, this problem barely exists.

To sum it up: the “elite” feel of metal minis will probably stay with me forever, but I no longer see them as a priority in my collection. For future projects, I definitely prefer working with plastic models.

What’s your take on this? Metal vs plastic — which do you prefer, and why?

[ilfirinart]

After my last inventory check, I realised how many unassembled models had quietly piled up — mostly metal, with a few resin pieces mixed in.

Last weekend I finally sat down and started working through that backlog. Cutting, cleaning, removing mold lines, sanding everything smooth — all the less glamorous parts of the hobby that still make a huge difference in the final result (and of course I can use them already for gaming purposes, even if they're still unpainted).

There’s something satisfying about seeing all those loose parts turn into actual miniatures. Now everything is assembled (with a bit of CA glue and some first attempts at magnetising - a story for another video) and ready for paint — which, of course, is another growing queue...

I’ve always liked metal minis for their weight and crisp details, even if they fight back (yes, a lots of finger cuts!) a bit more than plastic ones.

Which one do you prefer - metal or plastic minis?

More to come soon.

[ilfirinart]

Watchtower – WIP, phase 2

Although my favorite part is cutting and assembling elements into a 3D model, I know that for many people the next step is the pure joy and magic of terrain building.

At this stage, the model really starts to come alive: adding textures (which I enjoy) and color (which I enjoy less ;) ). Stones were carved with knives and pencils, then textured by pressing rocks and aluminum foil. Wooden planks were detailed with a wire brush and pencil in selected spots. Ruined edges were emphasized with acrylic paint, drybrushing, and dark washes. With every step, the miniature watchtower feels closer to its final appearance.

It’s always fascinating to watch a plain foam block slowly become something that seems historic – as if it had stood for centuries before collapsing into ruin (or, in this case, most likely smashed by a trebuchet projectile).

[ilfirinart]

Watchtower - WIP, phase 1

The building process begins with drawing and cutting out templates, then transferring them onto foam using a hobby knife or hot wire. Windows, doors, the general shape of the stonework – everything is slowly carved and assembled. At first I use pins for temporary adjustments, and only when everything fits together does the glue come in.

The square tower was a bit tricky. I wanted the walls to join as seamlessly as possible, which meant cutting the final segment at 45° by hand – not easy for such a long piece - so yes, there were gaps. At first I tried using gypsum as filler, but it was too rigid and cracked off. On the next attempt, I mixed gypsum with PVA glue, which gave it the right elasticity. Probably an acrylic filler would have done the trick, but since I didn’t have one, I had to improvise ;)

This stage requires patience, but for me it’s one of the most rewarding. You finally see the structure grow beyond paper and screen, into something you can hold and even place on a table for a test game. At this point, the tower is still raw and fragile, but the foundations are set – it will be strengthened in the next phase.

[ilfirinart]

En Taro Adun, Commanders!

While waiting for the rules and the start of the beta tests, I’ve been putting together some temporary proxy bases for testing. Hopefully, these will soon turn into proper 3D models on my tabletop — but for now, this will do the trick 😉

I’ve been a fan of StarCraft for… well, it feels like forever. So I’m really excited to see it coming to the tabletop — especially knowing it’s made by a Polish studio.

@archonstudio I’m ready for battle. Time to launch those tests 💪🔥

Proxy graphics used for private testing only. All artwork belongs to its respective creators.

[ilfirinart]

Forty Warriors of the Dead — finished at last.

The full unit is finally painted and ready to march into some proper MESBG battles. It took a while, but seeing all 40 models together was absolutely worth it.

Originally, I planned to keep them strictly monochromatic, using only blue tones. But early on I felt they looked a bit flat, so I started adding browns, silvers, and darker accents to the leather armor and weapons. It’s another step away from a fully screen-accurate look — but one I’m genuinely happy with.

This isn’t the end of the army 😉 Cavalry and heroes will join soon — but for now, I’m switching gears and heading back to terrain building 💪

[ilfirinart]

The Dead of Dunharrow are slowly answering the call.

Small but steady progress on my Army of the Dead 🥳 10 out of 40 warriors are now painted and ready for some skirmish battles. With each model, my hand feels a bit more confident — and the whole process is getting faster.

As for the colors: I’ve never been a big fan of the strong translucent green used in the movies. This time, instead of going fully screen-accurate, I deliberately pushed the palette towards colder, blue-saturated tones — and I’m really enjoying the overall mood.

What do you think? Blue spirits or classic green?

[ilfirinart]

First painted miniatures after a LONG break.

Why wait for the New Year? The best moment to tackle your pile of opportunity is now 💪

To start this return, I chose the Army of the Dead. Here are the first three warriors (out of 40 waiting in my collection).

It’s probably been over a decade since I last painted a LOTR miniature, so there was some shaky hand action involved — which makes ethereal spirits a surprisingly forgiving choice 😁

More ghosts are coming soon.

Any practical tips for keeping your hand steady while painting?

[ilfirinart]

MESBG – Army collection inventory

This video was recorded a few months ago, during one of those rare moments when I decided to pull everything out of storage and take a proper look at my Middle-earth collection. What you see here is my full MESBG miniature inventory at that point — around 1500 models, gathered over many years.

My journey with Games Workshop miniatures started somewhere around 2003–2004. Like many hobbyists, I had a long break from painting and collecting, but I eventually returned at the end of 2018 — and since then, the pile of grey plastic has been steadily growing again. Quite a lot of these miniatures were bought second-hand, which means many of them still need painting, repainting, or some serious cleanup work.

This short clip isn’t about finished display pieces — it’s more of an honest snapshot of where I am with the hobby right now. A mix of painted models, half-finished projects, and a lot of future plans waiting for their turn on the painting desk.

With the new year approaching, I’m seriously considering shifting part of my focus from terrain-building back toward miniatures and finally giving more of these armies the attention they deserve.

Since recording this video, the collection has already grown even bigger — much faster than my painting speed, unfortunately. Is this still a hobby… or is it already an addiction? 😉

If you’re curious about individual armies, terrain projects, or the painting process itself, feel free to browse the rest of the blog — more posts are definitely coming.

[ilfirinart]

Watchtower – Technical step of the process!

This is where things get technical. After testing the concept in 3D, I create detailed layouts – floor plans, wall elevations, and basic measurements. This step makes the building process smoother and helps prevent wasting materials later.

For this project, I also prepared a ready-to-print PDF layout that you can use for your own builds. If you want a copy, you can find the download link here:

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Miniatures, terrain crafting, sketches & drawings inspired by Tolkien, LOTR, Arcane, StarCraft, D&D and other fantasy worlds. Follow my cre

Not everyone enjoys this technical stage, but for me it’s where the project starts to feel “real” – like phase zero of the actual build. And I’m grateful that in this miniature world, I don’t need a building permit :D