Botwt's Hobby Blog

I have been wanting to put a Gûlavhar, the Terror of Arnor in my Angmar ranks forever, but have always hated the official model. So after searching for something reasonably priced, cool looking and will fit the bill, I decided on the Varghulf model, but after getting it I didn’t really like the head so much. Creepy, but kinda inbred looking. So I went back to looking for something suitable. Then while falling asleep one night I had an epiphany…use one of my leftover plastic Minotaur heads, but modify it to look less bull like. So I trimmed out the middle part of the snout and glued the two parts of the head together bringing the mouth and nostrils closer to the eyes much like a bat and similar to the Varghulf model. Next I puttied over all the torn skin details on the model to add a complete fur coat to the beast and after the head was attached I added fur to the face as well much like the original model. Here is the finished conversion.

If the Monster category for the One Ring September Painting Challenge wins I’ll give this model go, if not I’ll pick at him here and there until I get him finished off.

I got the then exclusive Gothmog, Lieutenant of Morgul (foot) when I purchased the Hosts of the Dark Lord boxed set a few years ago. Not entirely happy with it I converted him to give him his crippled arm (kinda ballsy seeing how he was exclusive to that pricy set of models at that point in time), and was really pleased with result until the new version came out. Now, the head sculpt on the original is far superior to the new model (too small and not gnarled looking enough), however I really like the upright pose of the new figure…so I combined the two of them together to make the definitive Gothmog for my Mordor army.

Gothmog, Lieutenant of Morgul

Went on a painting bender today…put in about 7.5 hours on the model adding detail and pretty much finishing the project. Had several different ideas as to where the orc and Merry should end up, but I think I finally found a convincing scene for the two of them, and Merry looks like he is glancing up at at the beast as it flies by. Now, when I give the model to Mark for his birthday I sure hope he knows where his Nazgûl pilot went to.

Fell Beast

Well, been fooling around in between the layers of paint drying on the birthday project and started on two of my 11 Woses (minus Ghân-buri-Ghân which will bring the total to an even 12 when completed). I kept with the look of the uncontacted tribe for the red marked fellow and went with the stone look of the Púkel-men w/red glowing eyes for the other. I think I’ll end up with 2 stone looking Woses, 2 black war painted Woses, 3 red war painted Woses and 4 plain skin colored Woses, with Ghân having a unique look all his own but still flowing with the rest of his tribe.

Drúedain

Today, a tad more on the wings and I also worked on the beast’s claws. Gave the entire model a wash of Badab Black to bring up the detail of the sculpt, and also painted the base of the saddle and the straps around it and the bridle and bit.

Well, I got the model painted in a base coat of a black and purple mix for it’s main areas, then painted the skin on the wings black and then added brown to them. I’ll gradually add lighter and lighter shades of brown until I get a nice effect going on the wings. The body of the fell beast I am toying with adding some purple highlights to give the animal some ‘pop’ and not look like the typical black creatures everyone else paints. The purple will be subtle (assuming I can pull it off) but still give the model a dark foreboding look and not have it looking too comical like traditional fantasy dragons. As you can see I added a bit of green stuff to the claw on the front of the wing to give it a look as if it were broken off in a battle or fight…obviously it still needs painting, but looks better than the flat edge that was left after the model was broken in the fall.

Well, I got the wing reattached and puttied up both of those wing joints properly, then I primed him and also painted up a customized Mordor Orc and Meriadoc Brandybuck, Esquire of Rohan (from the “No man can kill me” – The fate of the Witch-king diorama) to add some flavor to the base.

Slow going, but I got plenty of time to get this project finished.

I’ve had a bunch of these Wildmen of Drúadan models in my backlog for what seems like forever, and after seeing a news article about an uncontacted Amazonian tribe I think I finally found an inspiration for a color palette. Tolkien doesn’t really describe them with as much detail as he does other beings in his story but from what he does say about them gives one a good picture of their stature (which Games Workshop did a decent job of recreating).

The appearance of the Drúedain is entirely different from the appearance of the other races of the Middle-earth legendarium. They are a bit like Dwarves in stature and endurance, stumpy, clumsy-limbed (with short, thick legs, and fat, “gnarled” arms), had broad chests, fat bellies, and heavy buttocks. According to the Elves and other Men, they had “unlovely faces”: wide, flat, and expressionless with deep-set black eyes that glowed red when angered. They had “horny” brows, flat noses, wide mouths, and sparse, lank hair. They had no hair lower than the eyebrows, except for a few men who had a tail of black hair on the chin.

So with the above description of the Drúedain (or Woses) I’ve decided that they are all getting black hair and eyes (barring a few that will get glowing red eyes), but as for the skin pigmentation I think I will go with a black skin tone and also add others with head-to-toe body paint like the aerial photos of the Amazonian tribe. I may also paint a few to look as if they are stone Púkel-men, as some of the statues were supposed to, according to legend, come to life…so maybe two of my Drúedain will get this treatment.

http://www.uncontactedtribes.org/

So as I slowly work on Mark’s fell beast I’ll tackle some Woses in between layers of paint drying or as my hobby ADD kicks in and pushes me toward another model.

More to come soon!  😀