*
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
March 29, 2024, 05:53:14 AM

Login with username, password and session length

Donate

We Appreciate Your Support

Members
Stats
  • Total Posts: 1686609
  • Total Topics: 118113
  • Online Today: 678
  • Online Ever: 2235
  • (October 29, 2023, 12:32:45 AM)
Users Online

Recent

Author Topic: Converting Historical Dark Ages Figures to Silmarillion Elves UPDATE 7.5.18  (Read 6089 times)

Offline guitarheroandy

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 985
    • Andy's Wargaming Blog
I recently joined a new group on Facebook called 'Wargaming In Middle Earth.' It's a group dedicated to all aspects of Middle Earth gaming with all sorts of figure scales and rules. What drew me to it is the excellent conversion work of Graham Green, who converts historical Dark Age figures into Tolkien-esque Elves to try to create Elves that actually look like the 'Dark Ages/Early Medieval look that Tolkien himself would have envisaged (and describes in his all to brief descriptions of the warriors in the Silmarillion), rather than the Peter Jackson or Warhammer things out there that everyone seems to do. Graham has also written some articles for Miniature War-games magazine recently about these conversions, creating the army of Gondolin based on Tolkien's descriptions in 'The Fall of Gondolin' (which is in one of the Lost Tales or Unfinished Tales books - can't recall which one!) Anyway, this really floated my boat as I've always had my own vision of Tolkien's Elves, based on Victor Ambrus' brilliant illustrations in the old Tolkien Bestiary by David Day. I'd post one here to give you a frame of reference, but I suspect that might cause a copyright issue. However, you can find them online easily enough.

So I decided to have a go! Thus, after a couple of weeks of chopping, glueing, greenstuffing, agonising over colour scheme and panicking over what on earth I was going to do with the shield, here is my first ever Dark Age historical to 1st Age Tolkien Elf conversion!

The base figure is a Gripping Beast Arthurian Pict Noble, with a GB sword. The shield is also GB, from the Normans range but it has had the boss filed away. The head comes from a GW LOTR Guard of the Galadhrim Court. The cloak is my very first attempt at large scale sculpting of flat cloth and I'm dead chuffed with it, although it took a bloody age to do! The cloak clasp is also greenstuff and turned out well despite being a rather happy accident after some experimenting with different ways to make said clasp!! He is painted in my usual style. The shield design is based on one I saw on a LBM shield transfer set for Mantic Miniatures Elves. It was hell's own nightmare to paint, to be honest! But I like it now it's done. 

I don't have any particular Elven kingdom in mind for this fella, although the blue colour scheme suggests Fingolfin or Fingon's houses. Apparently the star suggests a link to Feanor. I'll just leave it pretty open. He's gonna be joined by a  war band of similar conversions. I have a bunch of West Wind Arthurian awaiting some conversion work and I have ordered a box of the new and rather lovely Oathmark plastic Elves, so expect more 1st Age Elf goodness over the next few weeks. I'm also painting the evil army, completing several WIP Orc units that I started ages ago and a large wingless fire-drake (Glaurung). Expect pics of these bad guys shortly. These will be used in games of Silmarillion-based Dragon Rampant (I'm calling it 'Simarils Rampant') so that gives you an idea of the force sizes to be expecting.

Anyway, here's that Elf. Hope you like him! Photos aren't great due to poor conditions for photography but it'll give you an idea.
Also, the pics seem very large. They are linked from my blog so I'm not quite sure what to do about that. Sorry if that bothers anyone...









« Last Edit: May 07, 2018, 08:38:20 PM by guitarheroandy »

Offline OSHIROmodels

  • Supporting Adventurer
  • Elder God
  • *
  • Posts: 27708
  • Custom terrain a speciality.
    • Oshiro modelterrain
Re: Converting Historical Dark Ages Figures to Tolkien Silmarillion Elves
« Reply #1 on: April 19, 2018, 08:16:24 AM »
He does the job  8)
cheers

James

https://www.oshiromodels.co.uk/

Twitter account -     @OSHIROmodels
Instagram account - oshiromodels

http://redplanetminiatures.blogspot.co.uk/
http://jimbibblyblog.blogspot.com/

Offline Giger

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 900
    • Crucium Giger's Blog
Re: Converting Historical Dark Ages Figures to Tolkien Silmarillion Elves
« Reply #2 on: April 19, 2018, 08:32:27 AM »
Great work all round and I'm looking forward to seeing the force expand.

Offline jon_1066

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 909
Re: Converting Historical Dark Ages Figures to Tolkien Silmarillion Elves
« Reply #3 on: April 19, 2018, 12:32:20 PM »
Beautiful.  Looks just the part.  Looking forward to seeing more- especially your take on Orcs.  The great thing with Dragon Rampant is if these are Noldor heroes you only need a few figures as they can be single model units.

Offline Captain Blood

  • Global Moderator
  • Elder God
  • Posts: 19308
Re: Converting Historical Dark Ages Figures to Tolkien Silmarillion Elves
« Reply #4 on: April 19, 2018, 12:53:33 PM »
Great stuff. Love him  8)

Offline tomrommel1

  • Supporting Adventurer
  • Galactic Brain
  • *
  • Posts: 4608
    • Wargamesgazette
Re: Converting Historical Dark Ages Figures to Tolkien Silmarillion Elves
« Reply #5 on: April 19, 2018, 01:03:54 PM »
very nice indeed
In hoc signo vinces

Have a look at www.wargamesgazette.com

Offline Hammers

  • Amateur papiermachiéer
  • Supporting Adventurer
  • Elder God
  • *
  • Posts: 16070
  • Workbench and Pulp Moderator
Re: Converting Historical Dark Ages Figures to Tolkien Silmarillion Elves
« Reply #6 on: April 19, 2018, 01:12:06 PM »
Beautiful. You are on the right track there!

Offline Ogrob

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1841
Re: Converting Historical Dark Ages Figures to Tolkien Silmarillion Elves
« Reply #7 on: April 19, 2018, 01:40:53 PM »
Very nice, and I immediately joined the Facebook group too :D

Offline axabrax

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1293
Re: Converting Historical Dark Ages Figures to Tolkien Silmarillion Elves
« Reply #8 on: April 19, 2018, 02:28:47 PM »
Very nice. I would think Romano-British  and Byzantines would do the job nicely.

Offline Severian

  • Scientist
  • Posts: 440
Re: Converting Historical Dark Ages Figures to Tolkien Silmarillion Elves
« Reply #9 on: April 19, 2018, 04:08:34 PM »
Excellent work - and a great interpretation of a proper First Age Noldor look. The freehand work on the shield and tunic and cloak is marvellous.

Keen to see more!

Offline jambo1

  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • Posts: 2137
Re: Converting Historical Dark Ages Figures to Tolkien Silmarillion Elves
« Reply #10 on: April 19, 2018, 04:42:31 PM »
Great work, I will be following this thread with a great deal of interest. :)

Offline Spooktalker

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 739
    • Warlock of Lead Mountain
Re: Converting Historical Dark Ages Figures to Tolkien Silmarillion Elves
« Reply #11 on: April 19, 2018, 04:44:47 PM »
Great project and great choice for an elf! I hope to follow your thread here. I have a similar project I have collected for but not started. I have reference folders of figures marked for various purposes from various ranges.  One group I have so far is some Footsore goth cavalry to be Rohan. Another LAFfer painted some as such and I was pretty impressed, and picked some up when I saw them come up on a marketplace board.

Offline Sunjester

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1510
Re: Converting Historical Dark Ages Figures to Tolkien Silmarillion Elves
« Reply #12 on: April 19, 2018, 04:50:56 PM »
Excellent job. That's a great idea.

Offline guitarheroandy

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 985
    • Andy's Wargaming Blog
Re: Converting Historical Dark Ages Figures to Tolkien Silmarillion Elves
« Reply #13 on: April 19, 2018, 06:14:11 PM »
Thank you all for your kind comments.  :D

Currently the Orc army is mostly GW LOTR Orcs as I have loads and I actually quite like the look - especially the Morannon Orcs with their heavier armour of iron plates. It matches the view expressed in the Silmarillion of heavily armoured Orcs 'shod with iron and shielded with iron'. I have some plastic GW Uruk Hai as my Great Orcs (i.e, Angband captain's guard.) Having said that, the Oathmark Goblins are lovely, so depending on how this all goes, I may get some of those. I'm currently painting a wingless firedrake 9kinda an adolescent Glaurung from Mithril Miniatures) and a unit of 'Hounds of Angband' (a converted werewolf and 3 giant wolves, made from parts from GW Warhammer ranges.) I am struggling to find the right miniature for a Balrog though, as I don't want wings nor do I want it too massive given the overall feel of them from The Silmarillion (as opposed to the one in LOTR). Anyway, I hope to have the first 3 units of Orcs finished by the end of the week, so I'll start a 'Host of Angband' thread for them...

More Elves coming in the not too distant future, I hope!

Offline Alan Mercer

  • Scientist
  • Posts: 238
    • Alan's Wargaming Miniatures
Re: Converting Historical Dark Ages Figures to Tolkien Silmarillion Elves
« Reply #14 on: April 21, 2018, 07:28:25 PM »
Great start. Graham's articles are inspirational. Look forward to seeing more of these.