I’ve wanted to make and paint some 'True-to-Tolkien' orcs for ages.
Having had a sudden, inexplicable urge to kitbash some plastic over the past day or two, I finally got around to starting on some
The Oathmark goblins provide a good base - although I’m not convinced they’re really as Tolkien describes. (They do look a little like they’ve been influenced by that weird 1978 animated The Lord of the Rings movie though. Perhaps it's all the horned helmets).
As far as the descriptions and references in the books go (and there aren’t that many), Tolkien’s orcs are simply armed and equipped. It’s a mail shirt, a simple conical helm, large round shield, spear, bow, sword. Scimitars are specifically mentioned in a couple of places. That’s about it.
There are several learned threads here on LAF discussing all this, so I won’t go over it all again. Suffice to say orcs have been so hideously bastardised in gaming and pop culture, that most people’s idea of an orc is nothing like Tolkien’s original invention. His orcs certainly bear zero relation to the silly, semi-comic, bright green and gurning little baldies that have evolved from 40-odd years of ‘orks’ peddled by Games Workshop and its multitude of imitators.
Nor are the Peter Jackson / John Howe / Alan Lee versions much like what’s described in Tolkien. That gothic and extravagant hodgepodge of baroque plate armour pieces – distressed of course - synthesises a melting pot of historical arms and armour styles: From Byzantium to the Wars of the Roses via Samurai Japan, various S&M dungeons, and the Iron Masters of the Industrial Revolution. When it comes to orcs, the designs of professional Tolkien illustrators have much more to do with their own imaginations than anything described in Tolkien’s books.
Okay - rant over
Hybridising the Oathmark Goblins with the new Victrix Saxons allows me to put simple nasal helms onto goblin heads - and to use Saxon bodies for some of the bigger, more upright, ‘man-orcs’, or ‘half-orcs’.
Those two sets form the basis of these assemblies, but there are also bits from around 15 other plastic sets - Fireforge, North Star, Perry and Gripping Beast. Plus a bit of Green Stuff here and there. I’ve mixed in a few of the Frostgrave cultist heads too - in Tolkien, there are a variety of orc types, some more manlike, some less. Some almost completely human - or human with a dash of orc.
(They certainly sound human. When you read the few segments in Tolkien where he puts actual dialogue into the mouths of orcs, they sound like people. Tolkien saw his orcs as debased, degenerate people, not wild animals. You only have to read the Shagrat and Gorbag episode to hear the voices of the all-too-human criminal underclass. Tolkien’s orcs are East End gangsters. They sound like the Krays. Harsh, vicious, violent scumbags - but cunning, clever, calculating, and with very human-like motivations. Not little green men. And not unthinking beasts).
Anyway, I digress… Again
Here are the first dozen. I hope to get them painted fairly quickly. I was going to paint some with the red eye of Mordor, and some with the white hand of Isengard. But I recall Mordor actually has orcs of all shapes, sizes and varieties within its ranks, so will probably do all these as servants of Sauron. And then maybe a second unit for Saruman.
I haven't been completely doctrinaire about it, by the way - I have allowed a few horns and a couple of bits of plate to slip through...
I've tried to stick mainly to more proportionate / realistic-sized weapons though.
The figure on the left in the first group is a homage to the unit of (identical) Minifigs orcs that I possessed around 1977 - that was several weeks' pocket money, but proved the envy of the school wargames club
The figure looked something like this anyway - armed to the teeth (although I seem to recall he was also wearing some kind of chainmail dungarees – very 70’s
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