Continuing with my Hobbit countdown here is Saruman the White. The robes are Dheneb Stone shaded with Vallejo German Camo Pale Brown and highlighted by adding increasing amounts of White Scar to Dheneb Stone all the way up to pure white.
For Lord of the Rings and Hobbit miniatures I favour a more natural, realistic finish to the models to capture the look and feel of the films. Because of this I used very soft blending for the highlights rather than the starker, more stylised highlights found on my Dark Angels, for example. I think it’s really important to adapt your painting style to fit the model at hand in order to bring out the qualities and character of the model.
One of the interesting things about revisiting Middle Earth after so long (nearly ten years since the last film) is that it really shows how much my painting style and ability has changed over the years. To illustrate this, below is on older model of Saruman that I painted eleven years ago back when The Fellowship of the Ring was released.
And the two side by side for comparison.
