Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Fantasy Adventures => Topic started by: guitarheroandy on April 19, 2018, 08:58:35 AM
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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...
(https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-65_WXnuKpds/WtfDTy3EqpI/AAAAAAAAEH8/Lm_DL8IwH1oA_2AWnnTaNA0Q-82uIKpugCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0011.JPG)
(https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-o06w_byoeZo/WtfDT7Y8RmI/AAAAAAAAEIA/sMJMkI9OzYQydkPjzs656UkV3v8fUhpxgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0012.JPG)
(https://2.bp.blogspot.com/--Jg2PQFWfwA/WtfDSece2TI/AAAAAAAAEH4/0ZlD0T3ZiVwWmXYzQ3kYVw5jCksC8b4DgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0013.JPG)
(https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7JffQ2KjHp4/WtfDYwwyi6I/AAAAAAAAEIE/eaIzADGqhlozf5i2qSZODasW8VuswtbQwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0014.JPG)
(https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-v_ndzzRb-sU/WtfDZh-kaXI/AAAAAAAAEII/W0v7LC_KhFovzpfw4oiTeYOxhYjhVaFqwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0015.JPG)
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He does the job 8)
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Great work all round and I'm looking forward to seeing the force expand.
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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.
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Great stuff. Love him 8)
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very nice indeed
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Beautiful. You are on the right track there!
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Very nice, and I immediately joined the Facebook group too :D
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Very nice. I would think Romano-British and Byzantines would do the job nicely.
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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!
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Great work, I will be following this thread with a great deal of interest. :)
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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.
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Excellent job. That's a great idea.
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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!
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Great start. Graham's articles are inspirational. Look forward to seeing more of these.
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Andy, love the elf. I will also be following this closely.
Balrogs without wings are hard. My Reaper Bugbear as a Balrog is possibly a little small.
I had wondered about these:
Reaper Fire Demon. He does come with wings...
(https://image.ibb.co/ecxNOc/Balrog_a.jpg)
But the box shows that they are not attached and maybe some greenstuff magic would be finr to cover where the wings go.
(https://image.ibb.co/fXvWGx/Balrog_box.jpg)
This guy doesn't look evil enough, but perhaps with some green stuff and a different paint job could do the job.
(https://image.ibb.co/bECYUH/efreet.jpg)
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Sweet conversion and paint job here, the cloak looks good too.
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Beautiful work Andy! The cloak looks great and so does the rest of him!
Also, for dwarves you have both the new Oathmark ones and the ones from Conqueror Miniatures. The latter being sculpted by Colin Patten, so they would match up well with any Gripping Beast, Warlord/Saxon, or Footsore stuff you get.
I'm thinking of starting my own Tolkien inspired Middle Earth figures using my leftover stuff from Dux Brit. I'm going to end up having a bunch of Goths (Men of the North/Rohirrim), Romans (Gondor/Elves), and Saxons (Evil men/Dunlendings). It seems like a great way to use up spare figures!
Gunnar
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My take on the First Age Balrogs isn't that they would be less bad-ass than the one in Lord of the Rings. They were much more bad-ass, and he was the puny, cowardly runt that slunk off to hide under a mountain when things got rough.
The way I see the First Age is that everything was more bad-ass: the bad guys, the good guys, the heroes, the monsters - everything. And the Third Age is a pale shadow of it (or maybe it's just that the events of the First Age have grown in the telling).
But that's just me. :)
Loving the thread, by the way.
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I've been sitting on the side-lines watching with interest,and enjoying your progress.
One option could be to use the earlier Citadel Balrog.As its wing joints are easily filled in.This one's a battered old casting but it should give you the idea.
( besides it seems quite fitting to represent an earlier age with an earlier interpretation.)
Mark.
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Thanks for all the positive responses. I've been busy converting some more Elves. Most of these are based on West Wind Arthurian models with West Wind Saxon helmet heads or GW Galadhrim heads. Most already have cloaks so I've sculpted some long tunics, added hair and tidied joins, etc with Greenstuff. The helmet plumes are GW Warhammer High Elf archer plumes or Oathmark Elf plumes.
I'm really looking forward to getting some paint on them...
(https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-v9c4rui8HNM/WuMu7305rcI/AAAAAAAAEJU/97WdfQCSFmwer0EVEfuJl4BBgBC-0QXcwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0018.JPG)
(https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-e6DL8jSRAf8/WuMu8vZ3F1I/AAAAAAAAEJc/t04vFHB3-4Eulxudg6M49n-SJDi1g0sIACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0019.JPG)
(https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0SAJKWlSbbg/WuMu8v-kOhI/AAAAAAAAEJY/_gnoVCgTw6MNSDfAEHAhHVUHMF8a5WWwQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0020.JPG)
(https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uRJIYV7hPnc/WuMvJzHHhgI/AAAAAAAAEJg/yHymIfqcaq47OBL29FrtXIOZiJ6BoynuwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0021.JPG)
(https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Wn95hQkWYdo/WuMvNWxAmyI/AAAAAAAAEJs/j8L68wxOpw4wOQhMxxst7_8cUkCRg7sMgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0022.JPG)
(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q18apapAess/WuMvNUjN8gI/AAAAAAAAEJw/3CbfpF79qRovlnJwwaDtMbIYUYu_CpO3ACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0023.JPG)
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Nicely done! Using Roman-Britons for Noldorin elves is a cracking idea.
Looking forward to seeing these painted.
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Nicely done! Using Roman-Britons for Noldorin elves is a cracking idea.
Looking forward to seeing these painted.
Noldoro-Britons or Romano-Noldor?
Again, nice work.
These just might be my favourite elves.
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Very interested to see how these turn out.
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Lovely conversions. Simple yet extremely effective 8)
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That's working rather well. Excellent idea.
-Michael
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Those look soooo good!
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A few more conversions. This time, Artizan Miniatures Romano-British. I'm SO glad I didn't EBAY my GW Galadhrim Guards, as their heads fit these guys perfectly!
(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-905BDVheZeY/WvC0SRiYgFI/AAAAAAAAEKM/3j-_zb9cYzYPhGPtnEVc1ZIRGlm8tSGJwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0003.JPG)
(https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1CgjF_Q-t1o/WvC0SCXzreI/AAAAAAAAEKI/IrMWIL_V69Yl9s5stpJARVtGJKInFG2lgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0004.JPG)
That's 2 x reduced model unit elite foot units and one full heavy foot unit now ready for painting! I intend to get started on those this week, so watch this space!
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Wow that is amazing work! :-* Excited to see more!
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I just joined the fan club!
Great idea and fantastic work!
Cheers
GS
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Brill :)