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Miniatures Adventure => Fantasy Adventures => Topic started by: Hobgoblin on April 12, 2015, 09:11:58 AM

Title: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Hobgoblin on April 12, 2015, 09:11:58 AM
I'm thinking about amassing and painting up a set of LotR orc warbands: Misty Mountains, Mordor, Isengard, etc.

But there's a particular problem with the Isengard Uruk-hai. As far as I can see, almost no one has ever made miniatures that match (even roughly) the descriptions from the book of these "goblin-soldiers of greater stature [than the Misty Mountain orcs]". The exception are the Asgard Soldier Orcs that Jes Goodwin did. They seem to me a pretty good match, but there are only four of them:

http://www.miniatures-workshop.com/lostminiswiki/index.php?title=Orcs_(Asgard) (http://www.miniatures-workshop.com/lostminiswiki/index.php?title=Orcs_(Asgard))


To fit Tolkien's descriptions of the Isengard Uruk-hai, the models have to be as follows (or readily convertible to such):


Aside from the Asgard/Viking Forge soldier orcs, other possible candidates I can think of are the troopers from Throgg's Hobgoblin Despoilers of the Dark Land, with some straightening of the sword, although they're probably too tall, and D'glish Sharpcut (the moustachioed one with the short, straight sword) from the old Citadel Goblin Raiding Party (he'd need a change of shield and a badge on the helmet, but has the appropriate sword and stature):

Throgg's despoilers:
http://www.solegends.com/citrr/rr15throghobgoblins.htm (http://www.solegends.com/citrr/rr15throghobgoblins.htm)

D'glish Sharpcut:
http://www.solegends.com/citboxes/c2s4gob.htm (http://www.solegends.com/citboxes/c2s4gob.htm)

Ideally, I'd want to have a SBH warband of 10-20 figures, all of which are different. Another consideration is getting some Isengarders on wolves.

And then there's the problem of half-orcs. The ones described in "The Battle of the Fords of the Isen" are mail-clad and armed with axes. They'd have to be Man-height and Man-like apart from their "horrible" goblin faces. It might be a case of facial conversions or head transplants for vikings, as I can't think of any miniatures that fit the description.

Any suggestions much appreciated!
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: dadlamassu on April 12, 2015, 12:26:02 PM
Minifigs old Middle Earth series an Orcs might do if you can get them

(https://boardanddorkery.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/msuj5xnr4qswf1cquq0xoba.jpg?w=584)
(https://boardanddorkery.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/m9bi5jmvrwrkuh5nsuys_3w.jpg?w=584)

(https://boardanddorkery.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/cropped-screen-shot-2013-04-16-at-4-09-10-pm2.png)

there are more here if you scroll down

https://boardanddorkery.wordpress.com/ (https://boardanddorkery.wordpress.com/)
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Gangleri on April 12, 2015, 01:44:28 PM

They'd have to be Man-height and Man-like apart from their "horrible" goblin faces. It might be a case of facial conversions or head transplants for vikings, as I can't think of any miniatures that fit the description.

The Hobbit warg-riders set (and I presume the hunter orcs set as well) comes with quite a few loose orc-heads that would be easy to mount onto other bodies.  I've been using them with Perry WotR bodies to make goblin-men.  The scales fit quite well; they need only a little bit of trimming and GS to make them look quite natural.  Perhaps you could try them on the Gripping Beast vikings?
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Hobgoblin on April 12, 2015, 04:11:11 PM
Ganglerl,

Ha - we've been thinking alike! See attached blurry photos for one of my half-orcs with a warg-rider head and Perry body. I'll have a look for some earlier-period mailed bodies (though I think I may have used up all of my heads on these plate-armoured chaps ...).

Dadlamassu - thanks! There's a real charm about those Minifigs miniatures. I really like your site. The only bit I'd (pedantically!) disagree with is the statement that the Uruk-hai were 'bigger and stronger than “goblins”'. They're actually described as 'goblins' more than once in the text. Tolkien uses the term 'goblin' quite a bit in LotR - more than people tend to remember. And in both books, both big and small orcs are 'goblins'. Anyway, I'm intrigued by the photo of the Grenadier Orcs of the Severed Hand on your site. The running orc (last in the set) looks a really good fit: round shield, straight short sword and all. The oversized head is a very Tolkien-esque feature too: cf. the descriptions of Azog and the Great Goblin. I'll keep an eye out for those - and have a double-check of some ancient and long-undisturbed piles of lead in the attic that (I'm pretty sure) did contain Grenadier orcs at some point ...

Many thanks, both!
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: The Gray Ghost on April 12, 2015, 08:09:51 PM
I was always told that Mithril Miniatures were closest to the book
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: emosbur on April 12, 2015, 08:19:52 PM
I was always told that Mithril Miniatures were closest to the book

I agree. Their first series orcs are great.


Emilio.
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Arthadan on April 12, 2015, 09:44:53 PM
I did some research on the topic, we agree they're taller than normal orcs but are you sure they are shorter than Men?

My personal favourites are these, but they are about man-height (I can take a scale comparisson pic if you want). Currently they're carried by Scotia Grendel.

(http://www.scotiagrendel.com/Products/images/Grendel%20Fantasy/GFR0002_01.jpg)
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Hobgoblin on April 13, 2015, 12:15:32 AM
Hi Arthadan,

Yes, they're definitely shorter than Men. There's ample evidence for this, but it's scattered throughout the books. Also, it's obscured by people like David Day (of the marvellously illustrated yet atrociously researched Tolkien Bestiary); his encyclopaedia entries have all sorts of stuff that doesn't have any foundation in Tolkien's texts. And because the Bestiary (in its various forms) has been around for 30-odd years, a lot of its descriptions have seeped into the general consciousness. Anyway, here's some of the evidence:

1) When Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli meet up with Pippin and Merry at Isengard in "Flotsam and Jetsam", they discuss their respective recent adventures (capture by the Isengard Uruk-hai/pursuit of the Isengarders, Helm's Deep, etc.). In this conversation, they refer to Ugluk, etc. as "Orcs'": Merry says "Things began to go all wrong for him [Saruman] from the moment his Orcs set foot in Rohan"; this is in reference to Grishnakh reporting Ugluk's non-cooperation back to Mordor. So, the Isengard Uruk-hai are "Orcs" - as they are throughout the narrative; it's only the Orcs themselves that commonly use "Uruk-hai" (as in the "Helm's Deep" chapter, for example).

Not long after this, in the same conversation, Merry describes Saruman's army marching out:

"He emptied Isengard. I saw the enemy go: endless lines of marching Orcs; and troops of them mounted on great wolves. And there were battalions of Men, too. Many of them carried torches, and in the flare I could see their faces. Most of them were ordinary men, rather tall and dark-haired, and grim but not particularly evil-looking. But there were some others that were horrible: man-high, but with goblin-faces, sallow, leering, squint-eyed. Do you know, they reminded me at once of that Southerner at Bree; only he was not so obviously orc-like as most of these were."

Aragorn confirms that "We had many of these half-orcs to deal with at Helm's Deep".

Now, these creatures are clearly distinct from the Uruk-hai, with whom Merry and Aragorn are entirely familiar and which they've just been discussing (as "Orcs"). And what distinguishes these horrible "Men" from "Orcs" is their height - they are "man-high" but have "goblin-faces". As the Isengard Uruk-hai are "goblin-soldiers" ("The Departure of Boromir") with "great goblin head{s}"  (The Riders of Rohan), they obviously have "goblin-faces" too. So they can't be "man-high", or they would be indistinguishable from the half-orcs.

Also, when Merry discusses the Ent attack on Isengard, he says that he doesn't think many "orc-folk, of whatever size, escaped". Given that the only discussion of orc-like creatures of differing sizes has been in the context of the half-orcs, this is clearly a reference to the "true" Orcs (Saruman's uruks) and the "half-orcs" (the goblin-faced Men): i.e. the Ents let the Dunlendings go, but not any of the Orcish creatures.

2) At Helm's Deep, when Eomer and Aragorn sally through the postern-gate to attack the rammers of the Hornburg gate, they are fighting at the point where "the hugest Orcs were mustered, and the wild men of the Dunland fells". It's the Men who are ramming the gate. After Aragorn and Eomer have routed the rammers, they are attacked by Orcs who have been playing dead. They are rescued by Gimli who has followed them unseen. They ask him how he came to be out there. And he says "I looked on the hillmen and they seemed over large for me, so I sat beside a stone to see your sword-play."

So, Men are uncomfortably large opponents for a dwarf, but even the "hugest" of Saruman's notably large orcs are not. The only reasonable conclusion is that Men are much bigger than the biggest of Saruman's Uruk-hai. And indeed, just two pages before, Tolkien describes the shapes of Saruman's soldiers:

"[The Dike] was boiling and crawling with shapes, some squat and broad, some tall and grim, with high helms and sable shields."

In light of the other evidence, it seems reasonable to assume that the Orcs are "squat and broad" and the Men (including the later-described "horrible" goblin-faced ones) are tall and grim.

3) The biggest single Orc described in the book is the "huge" chieftain in Moria, who is "almost Man-high". He seems to be an unusually mighty fighter - he knocks Boromir over, gets past Aragorn and would have killed Frodo if not for his Mithril shirt: "That spear-thrust would have skewered a wild boar". He's clearly an uruk - indeed, he bursts in just after Gandalf says that "black Uruks of Mordor" are outside, and he's just as clearly a remarkably big one and bigger than Ugluk (who is described simply as "a large black orc" on his first appearance"). So it's safe to assume that the great bulk of the Isengard Uruk-hai aren't as big as the Moria chieftain. And even he isn't as tall as a Man.

4) It's unclear whether the Isengard Uruk-hai are a different species from the black uruks of Mordor. The appendices say that "great uruks" in the service of Saruman came down from the Misty Mountains, "though it was long before this was suspected", which suggests that they were much like other uruks; they had first emerged from Mordor to sack Osgiliath some time before Sauron peopled the Misty Moutains with his creatures. The appendices also make the uruks of both Saruman and Sauron sound similar, in the passage describing how the term uruk was applied to "the great soldier-orcs" that issued from Isengard and Mordor. When we see big Isengard and Mordor orcs together in "The Uruk-hai", we can infer that the "large" Ugluk is taller than the "short, crook-legged" Grishnakh, but the latter is also "very broad". Both are larger than the Northern orcs; indeed the text implicitly pairs them as larger goblins in contrast to the "many smaller goblins" from the North.

What's the point of all this? Well, Gollum is familiar with Mordor uruks, from having been imprisoned in Mordor, from having interacted with Shagrat's uruks while serving as Shelob's "sneak", and from having lived in the Misty Mountains (where Saruman's uruks originally came from). Yet when he sees the Men of Harad marching to Sauron's command in "The Black Gate is Closed", he says they are "Almost as bad as Orcs, and much bigger". So again, we get Men distinguished from Orcs by size - and it's a significant difference: Men are much bigger.

5) In the description of the Battle of the Fords of the Isen in Unfinished Tales, Saruman's "Men or Men-orcs" are clearly distinguished from his orcs. Again, size is the key factor - enough to make a tactical difference. The orcs are withdrawn from fighting against the Rohirric shield-wall and the axe-armed Men-orcs are sent in because the former's smaller stature makes them less effective. And these Men-orcs are not Saruman's uruks, who are described in detail elsewhere in the same passage. As a side note, it's not clear whether all of Saruman's Orcs are Uruk-hai; a reading of LotR suggests that they are (or mostly are); the UT passage is more ambiguous yet inconclusive. In the Isengard context, the Uruk-hai are generally described as simply "Orcs" for the most part.

That's all I can think of for now! Sorry for the long post, but you did ask!  ;)
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Hobgoblin on April 13, 2015, 12:26:15 AM
Those Scotia Grendel orcs are nice. I'd love to see a size comparison pic if you don't mind. I've seen the "not-Isengard" ones on the Scotia Grendel site, which again look nice but have very long swords, but these "not-Mordor" ones look better.

Gray Ghost and Emilio, I have some of the Mithril orcs, but I don't think they are terribly faithful to the books - especially the Isengard ones. They generally have very small heads (when big orcs seem to have had disproportionately big heads), and their equipment isn't right, IRRC: the Isengarders have Orcish-looking equipment and scimitars, rather than Mannish gear including straight swords. They're also generally barefoot, rather than heavily shod.

That's another point connected to the size argument, actually. When Aragorn and co. are surveying the dead bodies at Amon Hen, Aragorn's first observation is about the Isengarders' equipment rather than their size:

"Here are others that are strange to me. Their gear is not after the manner of Orcs at all."

That, along with the other evidence, indicates that the Isengard Uruk-hai aren't off the Orcish scale when it comes to size, but are just big Orcs. It's their uniforms and weaponry that are unusual.
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: blackstone on April 13, 2015, 07:42:48 AM
Another indication of the size of orcs is when Frodo and Sam disguised themselves in orc armour in Mordor. The armour clearly fitted and they didn't stand out as being too short.  :)
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Hobgoblin on April 13, 2015, 07:52:33 AM
Yes, that's dead right. Of course, Frodo and Sam aren't disguised as uruks - their column of smaller orcs is being driven by two uruk taskmasters, and later on a column of uruks charges into them - but it does suggest a continuum. Smaller orcs must be hobbit-sized, which suggests that uruks might be roughly the size of dwarfs.
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Arthadan on April 13, 2015, 10:20:45 AM
Thanks both! I'm writting a serie of articles regarding miniatures for Middle-earth for the Other Minds magazine and this debate is very interesting for me.

Another indication of the size of orcs is when Frodo and Sam disguised themselves in orc armour in Mordor. The armour clearly fitted and they didn't stand out as being too short.  :)

Let's see what the book says:
Quote
Over the tunic went a coat of stout ring-mail, short for a fullsized orc, too long for Frodo and heavy. About it he clasped a belt, at which there hung a short sheath holding a broadbladed stabbing-sword. Sam had brought several orc-helmets. One of them fitted Frodo well enough, a black cap with iron rim, and iron hoops covered with leather upon which the evil Eye was painted in red above the beaklike nose-guard.

`The Morgul-stuff, Gorbag's gear, was a better fit and better made,' said Sam; `but it wouldn't do, I guess, to go carrying his tokens into Mordor, not after this business here. Well, there you are, Mr. Frodo. A perfect little orc, if I may make so bold-at least
you would be, if we could cover your face with a mask, give you longer arms, and make you bow-legged. [...]

So, a short ring-mail for a full-sized orc turns out to be too long for a Hobbit. He can only pass out as a little Orc, thus we can only conclude that the smallest Orcs are Hobbit-sized (but are bow-legged and have longer arms).

@Hobgoblin
Quote
Those Scotia Grendel orcs are nice. I'd love to see a size comparison pic if you don't mind.

Sure, what would you like to compare it with? what's the average man-height in your collection?

Another suggestion would be good old Nick Lund Orcs:
(http://www.mirliton.it/images/catalog/OR002.jpg)

More later!
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Arthadan on April 13, 2015, 01:47:42 PM
And one more, Thunderbolt Mountain goblins:

(http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0118/3042/products/8504_1024x1024.jpg?v=1334320573)

If you like your Uruks short, these would do fine. I'll include them in the comparisson pic.

By the way, can anybody recommend me a free hosting image site?
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Skrapwelder on April 13, 2015, 03:35:28 PM
What about Copplestone's Half Orcs?

(http://www.forlornhopegames.co.uk/media/com_hikashop/upload/thumbnails/384x336/sim4617.png)

http://www.forlornhopegames.co.uk/fantasy-warriors/category/35-half-orcs (http://www.forlornhopegames.co.uk/fantasy-warriors/category/35-half-orcs)
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Gangleri on April 15, 2015, 11:11:49 PM
I knocked together this comparison scale at work yesterday.  Rather crude but it might be useful. 

(http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/MrLeedra/Dwarves/Orcs_zps0idewdt5.png)

I've avoided generic terms like orc and goblin because they tend to confuse the issue.

Man: I think it's fair to estimate the average height of the typical man of Gondor or the North (and Rohan) as about six feet, though some were noticeably taller (Aragorn at no less than 6'6").  The Dunlendings themselves would be roughly this height as well, though their cousins the Bree-men, as well as manly of those in West Gondor, were somewhat shorter.

Snaga: I've used this term to refer to the 'standard' orc.  As discussed before, hobbits, at roughly three feet, could pass for small orcs, but even the larger 'standard' orcs would probably have been shorter than dwarves (at about five feet). So would roughly four feet (plus or minus six-eight inches) be a fair guess?  We can presume certain regional variations in size, build, and feature (larger eyes for the orcs of Moria, for example) as well, but the basic build should be the same: large heads, fairly long arms, somewhat bow-legged.  Whether the tracker-orcs were just drafted from the smaller members of this breed or a 'sub-species' is unclear.

Black Uruk: these are the soldier-orcs of Mordor, like Grishnakh.  Note the long arms, the crooked legs, and the broad shoulders.  I've shown them a bit shorter than the Isen-uruks, as noted in previous posts - could this perhaps a matter of posture more than actual height?

Isen-Uruk: Saruman's soldiery.  These are the stocky, straight-limbed orcs at Helm's Deep and Parth Galen. Both types of Uruks are about dwarven-height, so around five feet.

Hero:  These are the truly enormous orcs, like the Moria Chieftain, Azog, perhaps the Great Goblin, and I imagine the orc-leaders from Silmarillion and BoLT.  They're almost man-high, let's say around 5'6" or 5'8".

Goblin-men: basically indistinguishable from men apart from their faces, which vary from simply ugly, squint-eyed and leering to quite horrible and orcish.

In all cases, I imagine that orcs are deceptively strong, and that even the smaller, wirier ones are able to 'punch above their weight.'

I welcome your opinions and input.
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Spooktalker on April 16, 2015, 03:31:44 AM
I have been considering Wargames Factory orcs to be half-orcs. They are very straight and the fit of the head on the shoulders especially says "man" and not "orc." I doubt you'll find any orc faces on less-orc-like miniatures, but if these don't suit for whatever reason maybe you could put these heads on human figures.



Do they suit you?

I also like the suggestion of Thunderbolt Mountain for your uruk-hai. They seem to fit your description rather aptly.

You might also check out Sgt. Major's (not) LOTR line (formerly Vendel). The "orcs" are bigger than the "goblins" and are faithful in terms of round shield and mail, but maybe the heads aren't large or fierce enough for you.

http://www.sgmm.biz/Orcs_c_69.html
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Hobgoblin on April 16, 2015, 10:10:17 PM
Arthadan/Spooktalker: The Thunderbolt goblins look extremely good. I love the old Tom Meier giant goblins, and was thinking of using them as Mordor Uruks or Uruks living in the Misty Mountains. I'd read somewhere that the Thunderbolt ones were of a larger scale and thought they might be too tall. But if not, they're very much in the running.

Spooktalker: The Sgt Major/Vendel orcs look pretty much perfect. I'd seen pictures of these before I got back into miniatures, but had forgotten about them. I think they're probably the most ready-to-go book-faithful Isengarders around (I even see some straight short swords!). The heads look good too. It'd be easy enough to add bows and quivers. I shall set about acquiring some forthwith. Does anyone sell them in the UK?

I've got some of the Wargames Factory orcs; how upright they are depends on how you use the reversible torso. The heads would be perfect on other bodies (either for uruks or half-orcs). Any ideas on which manufacturers' human bodies would work? I'd tried them before on Perry bodies, but they're a bit large.

Ganglerl: that looks really good! I think you're dead right that there are basically just two sorts of Orcs in Tolkien: small ones (sang) and big ones (uruks), rather than the small, medium and large notion promulgated by MERP/ICE et al. As you say, though, there are clearly all sorts of variants, like the tracker orcs with the wide nostrils, but they broadly seem to fall into the categories of big and small. One very minor quibble: I don't think the Moria orcs are ever suggested to be physically distinct from other orcs; they're the same as those that live elsewhere in the Misty Mountains (e.g. those that waylaid the dwarves in The Hobbit and those that fought at the Battle of the Five Armies), and include uruks among their ranks.

Skrapwelder: The Copplestone half-orcs are nice (perhaps a bit steroidal, but that's a minor objection). I wonder how they'd go with the Vendel orcs. I'd need to convert some axemen, but that's easily done.
 
Many thanks all!
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Spooktalker on April 18, 2015, 02:23:13 AM
I know you mentioned Asgard/Viking Forge (and those are my pics of them you linked to BTW  :D ) so you may have seen these already but Asgard also did half-orcs, or goblin-faced men. Just two sculpts, one with sword and one with spear. The spear pic seems to have gone missing on the site, but here's the sword one:

(http://www.thevikingforge.net/FG-6-1024x768.jpg)


http://www.thevikingforge.net/25mm-fantasy-goblins.html

Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Spooktalker on April 18, 2015, 02:42:35 AM
Arthadan/Spooktalker: The Thunderbolt goblins look extremely good. I love the old Tom Meier giant goblins, and was thinking of using them as Mordor Uruks or Uruks living in the Misty Mountains. I'd read somewhere that the Thunderbolt ones were of a larger scale and thought they might be too tall. But if not, they're very much in the running.

The elves are stated 30mm, but that's "true" 30mm, and actually look much, much smaller than 28mm figures even though they are of the same height or taller.  I would say the heads of the elves are literally 1/2 the mass of a 28 figure or less. Here's a pic I found of the goblins:
(https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1264/1443057563_df63d08832_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/3cw3JP)Orcs & Goblins 001 (https://flic.kr/p/3cw3JP) by Cacique Caribe (https://www.flickr.com/people/9593487@N07/), on Flickr

You can see the goblins don't have tiny heads, likely as Meier paid attention in Tolkien class.

The thing to keep in mind is the (separate) weapons are extremely, extremely, oh so slender you would not believe it. I bought a bunch to use for 70/early 80s 25mm figures and while the maces and axes are fine as long as you are careful, the scimitars and elf swords are so slender I'm not sure whether it's possible to game with them, however dextrous you are. Even if you are dextrous enough consider replacing the weapons with thicker ones and I think it will go a long way toward having the goblins fit in with other figures.

I've got some of the Wargames Factory orcs; how upright they are depends on how you use the reversible torso. The heads would be perfect on other bodies (either for uruks or half-orcs). Any ideas on which manufacturers' human bodies would work? I'd tried them before on Perry bodies, but they're a bit large.
 

Reversible torso, interesting. I thought of Fireforge "sergeants" but looking at them the scale armored ones might be good (especially if you can get a few from a friend) but the padded cloth ones not so much. What about plastic gripping beast vikings?

(http://www.farfaraway.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/2012-06-26-at-15-50-07.jpg)


btw this thread is just as interesting to me as my saner half has been losing ground in recent months toward the half that is assured another big fantasy project like LOTR is a great idea. I was going to say the thread is "helpful" rather than "interesting" but helpful may be the opposite of what it is. ;)
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Hobgoblin on April 18, 2015, 07:34:19 AM
Thanks, Spooktalker (and for the earlier photo link! ;) I've never been much of a fan of green orcs, but those on your blog are absolutely superb - enough to shake my anti-green fundamentalism considerably!).

That Asgard half-orc is very interesting indeed. I'd never seen a close-up of those before and had previously dismissed them as not as good as the others in the range (were they also sculpted by Jez Goodwin, I wonder?). But looking at that picture, I think those may actually have been intended as Uruk-hai. They certainly match the description very closely:


Here's the first detailed description of the Uruk-hai (from "The Departure of Boromir" in The Two Towers):

"There were four goblin-soldiers of greater stature, swart, slant-eyed, with thick legs and large hands. They were armed with short broad-bladed swords, not with the curved scimitars usual with Orcs; and they had bows of yew, in length and shape like the bows of Men. Upon their shields they bore a strange device: a small white hand in the centre of a black field; on the front of their iron helms was set an S-rune, wrought of some white metal."

Bingo! Many thanks indeed!

As an aside, while this miniature matches the description of the Uruk-hai rather than the half-orcs, there is one point in LotR where the Uruk-hai are described as half-orcs: at Helm's Deep, when Gamling says "But these creatures of Isengard, these half-orcs and goblin-men that the foul craft of Saruman has bred, they will not quail at the sun".

At that point in the text, the half-orcs (goblin-faced men) haven't been described, though we later learn that there were "many" of them there. Anyone reading the text will assume that "half-orcs", at least, refers to the Uruk-hai. And while the inconsistency may pain many a nerd, I think it's actually very good "world-building" on Tolkien's part. There aren't set term for Saruman's creatures: the somewhat Mannish Orcs are generally just described as "Orcs" (they call themselves the "fighting Uruk-hai" and the "Uruk-hai of Isengard"), and the Orcish Men are generally just described as "Men" (though also as men-orcs, orc-men and half-orcs). Here, Gamling seems to be making a distinction between "Mannish Orcs" and "Orcish Men" - which is exactly the distinction Tolkien makes in an unpublished text (I forget which) in which he described "both Man-orcs large and cunning, and Orc-Men treacherous and vile." That - and copyright! - may explain why the astonishingly text-faithful Isengard Uruk is called a "half-orc": whoever designed it had obviously read Tolkien pretty closely.

Those Gripping Beast vikings look ideal as goblin-men bodies. The heads look pretty savage too: some very minor green-stuffing or even a suitably sallow and squint-eyed paint-job might get them there. I'll investigate (and invest).

The Meier goblins look fantastic. I'll probably get some of those as well ...
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: area23 on April 18, 2015, 05:15:02 PM
My favorite Uruk Hai are the old half-orcs by Grenadier. They look like monstrous early-saxons.
(http://leadadventureforum.com/images/lpl/s08/r08/area23_Fighting_Uruk_Hai_area23_R8.jpg)

I always imagine uruk hai as purpose bred pedigree battle orcs, while half orcs and goblin-men would be a bastard crossbreed.
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Hobgoblin on April 18, 2015, 06:46:21 PM
I like those half-orcs, but I suspect that they're too tall to be Uruk-hai. They're the size of largish Men, right? I've never seen one in the "flesh".

From the description of the Battle of the Fords of the Isen in Unfinished Tales, it appears that the "Orc-men" are the real shock troops:

"As soon as the enemy had gained possession of the eastern end of the Fords there appeared a company of men or Orc-men (evidently dispatched for the purpose), ferocious, mail-clad, and armed with axes. They hastened to the eyot and assailed it from both sides. At the same time Grimbold on the west bank was attacked by Saruman's forces on that side of the Isen. As he looked eastward, dismayed by the sounds of battle and the hideous Orc-cries of victory, he saw the axe-men driving Théodred's men from the shores of the eyot towards the low knoll in its centre, and he heard Théodred's great voice crying To me, Eorlingas! At once Grimbold, taking a few men that stood near him, ran back to the eyot. So fierce was his onset from the rear of the attackers that Grimbold, a man of great strength and stature, clove his way through, till with two others he reached Théodred standing at bay on the knoll. Too late. As he came to his side Théodred fell, hewn down by a great Orc-man. Grimbold slew him and stood over the body of Théodred, thinking him dead; and there he would himself soon have died, but for the coming of Elfhelm."

The Orc-men are sent in against a shieldwall that the Isengard Orcs have struggled to dent. While the Orc-men are the real heavy hitters (being tall enough to cope with the Rohirric shieldwall), the Uruk-hai appear to have different strengths: "the fierce Uruks, heavily armed but trained to move at great speed for many miles". And of course we see that training in action when the Isengarders capture Merry and Pippin.

Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Gangleri on April 18, 2015, 11:03:37 PM
Here, Gamling seems to be making a distinction between "Mannish Orcs" and "Orcish Men" - which is exactly the distinction Tolkien makes in an unpublished text (I forget which) in which he described "both Man-orcs large and cunning, and Orc-Men treacherous and vile."

I think that's in Morgoth's Ring.  Do you imagine that we see in this quote the distinction between the queer-looking Men in Bree (the Orc-Men) and Saruman's soldiers (the Man-orcs)? By the brief description it seems that the Man-orcs are better-suited for fighting and the Orc-men for spying and mischief-making, which matches Merry's remark that the half-orcs he saw leaving Isengard were similar to those he saw in Bree but uglier and more threatening. 
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Arthadan on April 19, 2015, 02:58:14 PM
A quote from The Hobbit about goblin/orc size:

Quote
Out jumped the goblins, big goblins, great ugly-looking goblins, lots of goblins, before you could say rocks and blocks.

Please note they weren't big compared to a hobbit, the book specify that sort of comparisson:
Quote
If you have ever seen a dragon in a pinch, you will realise that this was only poetical exaggeration applied to any hobbit, even to Old Took's greatgranduncle Bullroarer, who was so huge (for a hobbit) that he could ride a horse. He charged the ranks of the goblins of Mount Gram in the Battle of the Green Fields, and knocked their king Golfimbul's head clean off with a wooden club.

Quote
Then he saw that it would have been no good even if he had managed to get astride his barrel, for there was no room to spare, not even for a hobbit, between its top and the suddenly stooping roof where the gate was.

They were big from the author's point of view, which is not a hobbit. One more quote:

Quote
The passage was low and roughly made. It was not too difficult for the hobbit, except when, in spite of all care, he stubbed his poor toes again, several times, on nasty jagged stones in the floor. "A bit low for goblins, at least for the big ones," thought Bilbo, not knowing that even the big ones, the ores of the mountains, go along at a great speed stooping low with their hands almost on the ground.

The passage was low, but again not for a hobbit. So the passage, which was of greater height than Bilbo, was shorter than the big goblins.

So not only uruks can be "about man size".   

Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Hobgoblin on April 19, 2015, 06:12:08 PM
Hi Arthadan,

I don't think that's quite right: the goblins are big, but they're big for goblins (however big goblins are) - just as big men are big compared with other men, and big dogs are implicitly compared with other dogs.

Two things about the point about stooping goblins: first, uruks aren't described as "about man size". Rather, one "huge orc-chieftain" (doubtless an uruk from the earlier mention of them) is described as "almost man-high". It's a small description, but an important one.

Second, these big goblins are almost certainly uruks (along with the bodyguard of Bolg and the Great Goblin). LotR tells us explicitly that there were uruks in the Misty Mountains:

"Orcs begin to make secret strongholds in the Misty Mountains so as to bar all the passes into Eriador. Sauron begins to people Moria with his creatures."

Hence the "black uruks of Mordor" that the Fellowship encounter in Moria.

And:

"Orcs began to raid in the eastern regions and slay or steal horses. Others also came down from the Misty Mountains, many being great uruks in the services of Saruman, though it was long before that was suspected."

So there are uruks in the Misty Mountains (which explains Agog, Bolg and their bodyguards, and presumably the "big ones" that Bilbo is thinking of). By the time of the events of The Hobbit, there have been uruks in the region for more than 400 years.


Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Hobgoblin on April 19, 2015, 07:41:55 PM
I think that's in Morgoth's Ring.  Do you imagine that we see in this quote the distinction between the queer-looking Men in Bree (the Orc-Men) and Saruman's soldiers (the Man-orcs)? By the brief description it seems that the Man-orcs are better-suited for fighting and the Orc-men for spying and mischief-making, which matches Merry's remark that the half-orcs he saw leaving Isengard were similar to those he saw in Bree but uglier and more threatening. 

Hi Gangleri

I think the distinction is probably between Saruman's Uruk-hai and his half-orcs. The ferocious soldiers at the Isen are called "men or orc-men", not "orcs or man-orcs". I imagine that "man-orcs" are "orcs", and "orc-men" are "men". "Half-orcs," of course, could be used for both types - and I would argue that it is in LotR: for "orcs" by Gamling at Helm's Deep, and for "men" by Aragorn in "Flotsam and Jetsam".
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Arthadan on April 20, 2015, 01:45:18 PM
I wasn't aware there were uruks all over the Misty Mountains, I'm learning much here.
 :)
By the way, since you are at it, I'm sure you have also researched the right colour for orc skin. I know it varies from dark/black to lighter colours..same as human flesh and dark as in African black? And what about the eyes?

By the way here you are the scale comparison:

(http://s27.postimg.org/55mjpacz7/20150413_152954.jpg) (http://postimg.org/image/55mjpacz3/full/)
subir fotos a internet (http://postimage.org/index.php?lang=spanish)

From left to right:
-GW Sam
- Ral Partha orc
- Fantasy Warriors (Mirliton Miniatures) Dwarf
- Fantasy Warriors (Mirliton Miniatures) Orc
- Thunderbolt Mountain goblin
- Black Tree (Scotia Grendel) Orc
- Wargames factory viking (32 mm to the top of his head)

Fantasy Warriors Half-orcs would be between Black tree orc and Wargames Factory viking. Hope it helps.
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Hobgoblin on April 20, 2015, 04:29:53 PM
I was just about to post something on that! But as a question rather than an answer!

In a letter, Tolkien says explicitly that orcs were "sallow" (sickly yellow or brownish yellow). I don't think any orcs are actually described as such in the published books, but the half-orcs are, which suggests that sallowness was an orcish trait.

We get a close-up of the Moria orc-chieftain:

"His broad flat face was swart, his eyes were like coals, and his tongue was red"

He can be presumed to be one of the "black Uruks of Mordor" that Gandalf has just mentioned. "Swart" means "black" or "dark", and is widely used in Old English (sweart), including in Beowulf. It's often used to describe "white" people, though, including servants or Welshmen, and it can be used to describe blood. So it doesn't necessarily mean "black-skinned".

Ugluk is a "large black orc" and his troop are "swart".

The tracker-orc that Sam and Frodo encounter in "The Land of Shadow" is explicitly described as "black-skinned", but that somewhat implies that the uruk ("a big fighting-orc, like those of Shagrat's company") accompanying him is not.

So, there's something of a puzzle here. The uruks are "black" and "swart", but not necessarily "black-skinned" in the way that the small tracker is.

One possible answer is that they are black of hair and beard, with dark complexions. One sense of "black" (now rare, according to the OED) is "Having black hair or eyes; dark-complexioned". This was used in phrases such as "black Irish: and "black Dutch", in the same way that Anglo-Saxons described the dark-haired Welsh as "black". In quite a bit of medieval literature (in which, of course, Tolkien was an expert), a "black man" means a dark-haired "white" man. In the letter in which Tolkien says the orcs are sallow, he also says that they resemble "degraded" and "repulsive" versions of "the least lovely Mongol types", which would also imply black hair. Here's the quote:

" ... squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes; in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types."

It's also interesting that the dwarfs of Norse mythology appear to be identical to the svartalfar (swart or black elves) and the dokkalfar (dark elves). They are "black" but are also describe as "pale" or "pallid". In the Alvissmal, the Eddic poem in which Thor confronts the dwarf Alvis, he describes him as "pale about the nose" as if he has been sleeping with corpses. The names of Tolkien's Dain and Nain, in their original Norse forms Dainn and Nainn, mean, respectively, "The Dead One" and "The Corpse". So, in the Germanic mythological tradition, it's possible for creatures to be both "black" (of beard, hair and eyes) and "pale" of skin. Given Tolkien's love of archaic forms, the Uruks could be "black" in the same sense (hair, beards, eyes) and just generally dark-complexioned or sallow otherwise.

Another possibility (again, common in medieval literature) is that "black" refers to the Uruks' clothing or uniforms. Their liveries certainly seem to be black for both the Mordor and Isengard varieties.

As to their eyes, we don't get any specific description about the colour apart from the Moria chieftain's eyes, "which are "like coals". That could mean that they are black; equally it could mean that they look as if they are burning.

I'll probably paint my Tolkien orcs in a mix of colours ranging from a pale sallow colour to black. But I'll be sure to give the Uruks a "black" look overall, whether through hair and beards, clothing or skin colour. In the last case, I wouldn't aim to replicate "black" human skin, though, but go for a non-human hue.
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Arthadan on April 20, 2015, 07:10:13 PM
The new RPG line, The One Ring by Cubicle,  has some gorgeous art true to the book. Here you are some swart orcs:

(http://th05.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/f/2011/123/1/a/misty_mountains_goblin_by_jonhodgson-d3fhjwc.jpg)

(http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/210/3/f/great_orc_by_jonhodgson-d420ar5.jpg)

And here a swarty and a dark one:
(http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2014/307/a/4/orcs_by_jonhodgson-d854xqs.jpg)

The yellow eyes work well, but I'm not sure how correct they can be.
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Vermis on April 20, 2015, 07:48:19 PM
A great topic that's shaken some of my assumptions about uruk-hai. :) The line up drawing on the previous page also makes me wonder if GW's gorilla orcs are so far off the mark...
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Hobgoblin on April 20, 2015, 08:35:20 PM
I like those drawings: those orcs work perfectly well within the textual descriptions.

Vermis: the "Tolkien-compatability" of GW orcs is interesting, I think. A lot of the early Perry goblins would make rather good LotR orcs, as would the Lone Wolf giaks. The Fantasy Tribe orcs (though marvellous) are probably too tall, but then there are later Perry orcs - from the time of Orc's Drift - that fit quite well as uruks: long arms, shorter than humans and in some cases, armed with bows as well as melee weapons. The Lord of the Rings range from around the same time were also pretty good - especially the "Orcs of the Red Eye" and the warg rider. The three Uruk-hai were nice too, though they were very much Mordor uruks rather than Isengard ones. The "Orcs of the White Hand" were nice Citadel orcs, and had long bows, but had scimitars rather than "short, broad-bladed swords, alas ...". The three "Snaga" were good, I remember.

Most of all, the Perry "goblins" were often facially similar to their "orcs", so you could assemble a continuum of orcish creatures of different sizes, rather than the subsequent divide between long-nosed goblins and snub-nosed orcs. It was at that point, under Kev Adams, that Citadel orcs began to get much bigger and taller and more comic: great in their way, but much less Tolkien-appropriate.
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Arthadan on April 23, 2015, 06:41:12 AM
Hobgoblin & Gangleri:

I'm writing a series of article about miniatures best fitting Tolkien descriptions for Other Minds magazine and Id like to ask your permisson to use what you have said about orcs (and Gangleri's drawing) in this thread, when I get to write about orcs.

Please PM me with the answer and how you want to appear in the credits if you agree.
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Emir of Askaristan on April 23, 2015, 12:00:32 PM
Great discussion guys - fantasy isn't my gaming thing any more, but this is really interesting and I will always have a love of Tolkien's work which coupled with a love of history was the reason I got involved in gaming to begin with.

The terms Goblin and Orc are interchangeable in Tolkien, hobgoblin being used to describe larger Orc/Goblins.

Orcs were bred, not created, since Melkor/Morgoth didn't have the power to create life, only to pervert it. If Orcs were bred from Elves Then they may have initially been taller, but being evil are somewhat twisted and mis-shapen. Given the bullying nature of their society bigger orcs would have more status, whilst smaller ones would have had more subservient roles to play - such as trackers and spies rather that true warriors.

Man-orcs and Orc-men are probably the same thing, with the more mannish of them being sent to live and spy on humans - alternatively it could be a derogatory term for a lesser mortal who has the features, behaviour and attitude of an orc....just think about some of the names people have called other nationalities and ethnic groups in history!! Also if orcs could be bred from elves then they could be bred from humans too....

Lastly isn't "Uruk" the orkish word for simply "orc" with "hai" meaning people? Various heroes describe these as being bigger and more man like than normal Orcs, but the Uruk-hai still clearly identified themselves as Orcs.

Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Hobgoblin on April 23, 2015, 05:45:22 PM
Great discussion guys - fantasy isn't my gaming thing any more, but this is really interesting and I will always have a love of Tolkien's work which coupled with a love of history was the reason I got involved in gaming to begin with.

The terms Goblin and Orc are interchangeable in Tolkien, hobgoblin being used to describe larger Orc/Goblins.

That's right - the only caveat is that Tolkien abandoned "hobgoblin" after The Hobbit, because he realised that, etymologically, it referred to smaller goblins (an interesting example of the etymological fallacy, as "hobgoblin" had come to men a terrifying monster by Bunyan's time. But then, Tolkien's project had its roots in the early meanings of words.). Effectively, "uruks" replaced "hobgoblins" by the time of LotR.

Orcs were bred, not created, since Melkor/Morgoth didn't have the power to create life, only to pervert it. If Orcs were bred from Elves Then they may have initially been taller, but being evil are somewhat twisted and mis-shapen. Given the bullying nature of their society bigger orcs would have more status, whilst smaller ones would have had more subservient roles to play - such as trackers and spies rather that true warriors.

The "bred from Elves" thing certainly doesn't sit easily with the diminutive stature of Orcs in the books (unless shrinkage was part of the "corruption" process). But your "If ..." is spot on. I don't think Tolkien ever really made up his mind what Orcs were; the issue presented difficult theological issues for him, which he struggled to resolve.

Man-orcs and Orc-men are probably the same thing, with the more mannish of them being sent to live and spy on humans - alternatively it could be a derogatory term for a lesser mortal who has the features, behaviour and attitude of an orc....just think about some of the names people have called other nationalities and ethnic groups in history!! Also if orcs could be bred from elves then they could be bred from humans too....

I think Tolkien does distinguish between the two in Morgoth's Ring. Here's the quote (bold emphasis mine):

"It became clear in time that undoubted Men could under the dominion of Morgoth or his agents in a few generations be reduced almost to the Orc-level of mind and habits; and then they would or could be made to mate with Orcs, producing new breeds, often larger and more cunning.  There is no doubt that long afterwards, in the Third Age, Saruman rediscovered this, or learned of it in lore, and in his lust for mastery committed this, his wickedest deed: the interbreeding of Orcs and Men, producing both Men-orcs large and cunning and Orc-men treacherous and vile."

The both tells us that there are two types. And I think the "large" tells us that these Men-Orcs are primarily Orcs (as Orcs are small creatures, being large for an Orc is noteworthy). No doubt the Orc-men are larger, but as they are primarily Men, it's not a noteworthy feature. That interpretation fits nicely with the other texts, which tell us that Saruman has large Orcs that use Mannish equipment (and don't mind the sun at all) and horrible men with faces like those of Orcs.

Lastly isn't "Uruk" the orkish word for simply "orc" with "hai" meaning people? Various heroes describe these as being bigger and more man like than normal Orcs, but the Uruk-hai still clearly identified themselves as Orcs.

Yes: Tolkien tells us in LotR that uruk is just the Black Speech for Orc, but says that it was applied "as a rule" to the great soldier-orcs of Isengard and Mordor. And -hai just seems to mean "folk" or some such. But that doesn't preclude Saruman's having tampered with the genetic make-up of his big goblins. His great uruks do seem to be somewhat different from the uruks of Mordor, but they are both clearly Orcs. But then that's what the Morgoth's Ring quote suggests: that Morgoth made bigger Orcs by crossbreeding his original strains with Men. The half-orcs seem to be a useful by-product.
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Cubs on April 23, 2015, 06:14:56 PM
Doesn't it say in the Silmarillion that Orcs were twisted forms of Elves (just as Trolls were twisted forms of Ents)? If they're bent and stooped, with bow legs, that would also account for them being shorter in height.

Man-height is also quite a broad category, with the different races of men being surprisingly different heights, especially the Dunedain.
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Hobgoblin on April 23, 2015, 06:33:43 PM
It says in the published Silmarillion that it was reported that Elves were "by slow arts of cruelty corrupted and depraved" into Orcs by Morgoth. But JRRT didn't publish that himself, of course, and it wasn't his final thought on the matter. He evidently agonised over what Orcs were and whether they could be redeemed. He thought at various stages that they might be beasts, "robots", made from stone, made from Elves and made from humans. There's some info on that here (section 14 on):

http://tolkien.slimy.com/faq/TolkNgFaq.txt (http://tolkien.slimy.com/faq/TolkNgFaq.txt)

The thing about height is that we know that some Orcs were similar in size to a Hobbit and all were significantly shorter than Men: enough for it to make a real difference in combat (Helm's Deep, The Battle of the Fords of the Isen) and enough for man-height beings with Orcish faces to be immediately distinguishable from Orcs.
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Hobgoblin on April 23, 2015, 06:39:28 PM
Oh, and we also have Gollum's statement that the Haradrim are "much bigger" than Orcs. That's pretty conclusive, given that Gollum had had ample exposure to Orcs of all shapes and sizes. 

One thing on Trolls: they weren't twisted forms of Ents, but perhaps made "in mockery" (i.e. imitation) of Ents. There's nothing in Tolkien's writings that suggests Ents were turned into trolls (and a lot that suggests that trolls were made out of stone).
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Cubs on April 23, 2015, 08:01:41 PM
Ah, fair enough.
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Emir of Askaristan on April 23, 2015, 08:39:55 PM


One thing on Trolls: they weren't twisted forms of Ents, but perhaps made "in mockery" (i.e. imitation) of Ents. There's nothing in Tolkien's writings that suggests Ents were turned into trolls (and a lot that suggests that trolls were made out of stone).

Trolls.....now that's the next topic  ;)
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Vermis on April 23, 2015, 10:04:11 PM
I may be misremembering, but in Tolkien's earliest M-E writings, were the elves much more like the - for want of a better term - pre-Tolkien conception of elves, or the Nordic idea of elves/dwarves, as a diminutive folk? Becoming 'human+' beings later. If the idea of Orcs twisted and bred from elves is an old, unresolved idea, perhaps something similar can be said of their stature.

Trolls.....now that's the next topic  ;)

What's the difference between cave, stone, hill and mountain trolls? ;D
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Elbows on April 23, 2015, 11:13:31 PM
Might I suggest a box of Wargames Factory orcs...if only for parts?  Might be useful to kitbash with some other plastic set and get what you're aiming for.

(http://www.wargamesfactory.com/Images/ProductImages/boxsets/wgf-ml001/WGFOrcs03_sml.jpg)

(http://wargamesfactory.com/Images/contest2011/ml/ml-1.jpg)

Cheap as chips and maybe a good source for heads and arms...and the hands are all empty so more traditional weapons could be used.  I think it may be useful if you end up concocting some.
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Arthadan on April 24, 2015, 06:05:55 AM
i think the trick jere is that size and height are not the same. If you try to walk as bow-legged as you can you will seem shorter, plus you can't keep your back straight while walking (let alone running) like that.

Just remember Moria orcs in the films. They seemed very short when compared with Aragorn and Boromir, but they were normal sized people. Check out this short animation on Devianart: http://ivanix.deviantart.com/art/Walking-like-an-Orc-27972403 (http://ivanix.deviantart.com/art/Walking-like-an-Orc-27972403)
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: orc on September 04, 2015, 11:46:06 AM
Great Topic Here Hobgoblin  :o I'm very interested...because like you,I'm working on different orc warbands:

Misty Mountains (orcs and black uruks)
Mordor (orcs and black uruks)
Isengard (orcs, uruk hai, and half-orcs)

I choose Mithril miniatures to my project because in my opinnion they are the most near to the books...but I'm doing some conversions using wargames factory orcs parts, to be near Angus Mcbride style !  :D

Any idea about the skin color to use with them?are the black uruks skin color, differents from the uru-hai?

Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Erny on September 04, 2015, 12:26:46 PM
I think Tolkien does distinguish between the two in Morgoth's Ring. Here's the quote (bold emphasis mine):

"It became clear in time that undoubted Men could under the dominion of Morgoth or his agents in a few generations be reduced almost to the Orc-level of mind and habits; and then they would or could be made to mate with Orcs, producing new breeds, often larger and more cunning.  There is no doubt that long afterwards, in the Third Age, Saruman rediscovered this, or learned of it in lore, and in his lust for mastery committed this, his wickedest deed: the interbreeding of Orcs and Men, producing both Men-orcs large and cunning and Orc-men treacherous and vile."

The both tells us that there are two types. And I think the "large" tells us that these Men-Orcs are primarily Orcs (as Orcs are small creatures, being large for an Orc is noteworthy). No doubt the Orc-men are larger, but as they are primarily Men, it's not a noteworthy feature. That interpretation fits nicely with the other texts, which tell us that Saruman has large Orcs that use Mannish equipment (and don't mind the sun at all) and horrible men with faces like those of Orcs.


I've always thought of this a bit like animal cross breeding. A liger has a lion father and a tiger mother, a tigon a tiger father and lion mother. A Man orc is thus the product of a Man and Orcish mother, an Orc man that of an Orc and a woman.  Given the age Tolkien grew up in and his experiance in WWI one would assuem that mules and to a lesser degree hinnys were part of his everyday world.

Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Hobgoblin on September 04, 2015, 02:03:26 PM
Great Topic Here Hobgoblin  :o I'm very interested...because like you,I'm working on different orc warbands:

Misty Mountains (orcs and black uruks)
Mordor (orcs and black uruks)
Isengard (orcs, uruk hai, and half-orcs)

I choose Mithril miniatures to my project because in my opinnion they are the most near to the books...but I'm doing some conversions using wargames factory orcs parts, to be near Angus Mcbride style !  :D

Any idea about the skin color to use with them?are the black uruks skin color, differents from the uru-hai?



I think RPGs, war-games and general fandom have tended to introduce sharper distinctions between different types of orcs than Tolkien himself indicates. One thing that's worth noting is that the Uruk-hai are orcs. They're also goblins. Gamers tend to distinguish between "orcs" and "Uruks", but Tolkien tends to describe the Uruks of Mordor and Isengard simply as "orcs" (or "goblins").

It's clear that there are meant to be lots of different breeds of orc; the tracker in Mordor seems to be specially bred for the role, and Faramir's men think that Gollum could be some peculiar sort of orc. But the main distinction seems to be between big goblin-soldiers (Uruks) and smaller orcs ("Snaga"). Both (or all) types are generally referred to in the narrative as "goblins" or, more commonly, "orcs".

I don't think Tolkien ever talks about "orc and Uruks" (happy to be corrected, though!); it's a distinction that he simply doesn't make. I'd hazard a guess that most of the orcs that we "see" when we read LotR are actually Uruks - some of those in Moria, Grishnakh's party and Ugluk's troop, for example. The natural inference from the text is that all of Saruman's orcs are Uruks, and that very many of the armies of Mordor are. As an example, throughout the Helm's Deep account, the orcish soldiers of Isengard are described as "orcs" but call themselves the Uruk-hai.

I think we also get an indication that "Uruk-hai" can refer to orcs of Mordor too. The tracker-orc, when discussing events at Cirith Ungol, describes reports of a "pack of rebel Urukhai". Now, we know that "the filthy rebel Gorbag" was an Uruk, and presumably at least some of his followers were too. Given that the tracker's rumours are fairly close to what Shagrat must have reported ("a sort of small dwarf-man", "an elf-warrior"), I think we can safely infer that "Uruk-hai" means "big orc-soldiers" in Mordor as well as Isengard.

Skin colours? Tolkien explicitly describes the small tracker-orc as "black-skinned". That would indicated that his Uruk companion wasn't. The Uruks in Moria are "black", Mordor Uruks are described as "black orcs of great strength", and Ugluk is a "large, black orc". Both the Moria chieftain and Uguluk's Uruk-hai are described as "swart". But that doesn't mean that they were black-skinned like the tracker. Tolkien, after all, is drawing on a literary tradition in which people with dark hair and countenance were described as "black". So it's quite possible that Ugluk was "black" in the sense of having black hair, black eyes and a black beard.

There's some support for that elsewhere. Tolkien, in a letter, says that the orcs were "squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes; in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types". That may not read particularly well to contemporary sensibilities; I think, though, he clearly had the Huns (ancient foes of the Goths, to whom the Rohirrim have many resemblances) and the Mongols in mind. Both were described by Western contemporaries in fairly monstrous terms. "Mongol" coloration would suggest black hair, eyes and beard.

There's also the point that orcs have to look sufficiently human for Bill Ferny's friend (who probably does have Orcish blood) to look "more than half like a goblin" and the leader of the ruffians in the Shire to look "like a huge orc". The half-orcs marching out of Isengard are identified as "horrible" Men: "man-high but with goblin faces: sallow, leering, squint-eyed". Given that they're marching with the Uruk-hai, to whom they're presumably related, one would think that there should be a skin-colour continuum between the Uruks, the Orc-men and the Men of Dunland - ranging from "swart" and "sallow" to some fairly light complexion for the Hillmen (though they, of course, are "dark", given their hair and eye colours).

Obviously, though, there's no compelling reason why miniatures should match the book descriptions when it comes to details like skin colour and eye colour. Think of illustrations for Tolkien: among my favourite are Ian Miller's wonderful battle scenes. I think there's no suggestion that the armies of Isengard were actually like that in Tolkien's mind's eye - but that's not really the point!
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Captain Blood on September 04, 2015, 06:59:49 PM
A very interesting and persuasive analysis Hobgoblin.
Long ago I dredged through the same material and set of mentions myself, and more or less ended up with the conclusion that Tolkien uses the terms 'orc', 'uruk', 'uruk-hai' and (to a lesser extent) 'goblin' pretty interchangeably.
Whilst he clearly implies that some orcs are larger and more manlike than others, the differing terms he uses to describe orcs may be fairly indiscriminate, and don't necessarily correlate directly to different sub-species or races.

But, to be fair, it's a long time since I've re-read the books  :)

Interesting thread though.
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Vermis on September 05, 2015, 01:12:17 PM
I think RPGs, war-games and general fandom have tended to introduce sharper distinctions between different types of orcs than Tolkien himself indicates. One thing that's worth noting is that the Uruk-hai are orcs. They're also goblins. Gamers tend to distinguish between "orcs" and "Uruks", but Tolkien tends to describe the Uruks of Mordor and Isengard simply as "orcs" (or "goblins").

I hear that! I'm still bemused when I see people moan that something's a wyvern rather than a dragon, or vice versa, based on limb count. Glaurung must mess with their heads.

Couldn't agree more with your whole post. (Although... do orcs have beards? ;) ) In addition, 'uruk-hai' is simply 'orc-folk' or 'orc-people' in Tolkien's black speech. I think the confusion comes from the fact that in the books, the term is first seen(?) in relation to Saruman's bigger, sun-resistant, humanlike orcs. Along with 'olog-hai' (troll-folk) popping up alongside descriptions of the newer, nastier, sun-resistant trolls. But then the Drúedain are called 'oghor-hai' by orcs, and they're hardly bigger, sun-resistant woodwoses bred by the bad guys!
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Hobgoblin on September 07, 2015, 01:08:57 PM
Long ago I dredged through the same material and set of mentions myself, and more or less ended up with the conclusion that Tolkien uses the terms 'orc', 'uruk', 'uruk-hai' and (to a lesser extent) 'goblin' pretty interchangeably.
Whilst he clearly implies that some orcs are larger and more manlike than others, the differing terms he uses to describe orcs may be fairly indiscriminate, and don't necessarily correlate directly to different sub-species or races.

Yes, I think that's right. One of the interesting things about all this is how people read the book in a milieu full of Tolkien-influenced pop culture. Take this passage (from "The Uruk-hai"):

"In the twilight he saw a large black orc, probably Ugluk, standing facing Grishnakh, a short crook-legged creature, very broad and with long arms that hung almost to the ground. Round them were many smaller goblins. Pippin supposed that these were the ones from the North. They had drawn their knives and swords, but hesitated to attack Ugluk."

Someone who comes to this from a milieu of Warhammer, World of Warcraft and D&D will read this casually and think, "Ah yes, goblins are smaller than orcs - so of course the goblins here are smaller than the orcs." But someone reading closely in 1954 would have noted that Ugluk's Isengarders have already been described as "goblin-soldiers" - and would note that Grishnakh is later described as both an "orc" and a "goblin", while it's presumably Ugluk's "great goblin-head" that ends up on the stake (which we saw in the previous chapter). So the comparison is in fact between smaller goblins and bigger goblins.

As you and Vermis say, the terms various terms are pretty much interchangeable, with the caveat that "the word uruk of the Black Speech ... was applied as a rule only to the great soldier-orcs that at this time issued from Mordor and Isengard. The lesser kinds were called, especially by the Uruk-hai, snaga 'slave'.

That quote, from the Appendices of LotR, again backs up the notion of "large" and "small" orcs rather than the "small, medium and large" notion that has come in from gaming (from MERP, for example). It also indicates that Uruk-hai and uruks are interchangeable; Christopher Tolkien says that the latter is an "anglicisation" of the former.
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Hobgoblin on September 07, 2015, 01:31:51 PM
I hear that! I'm still bemused when I see people moan that something's a wyvern rather than a dragon, or vice versa, based on limb count. Glaurung must mess with their heads.

Couldn't agree more with your whole post. (Although... do orcs have beards? ;) ) In addition, 'uruk-hai' is simply 'orc-folk' or 'orc-people' in Tolkien's black speech. I think the confusion comes from the fact that in the books, the term is first seen(?) in relation to Saruman's bigger, sun-resistant, humanlike orcs. Along with 'olog-hai' (troll-folk) popping up alongside descriptions of the newer, nastier, sun-resistant trolls. But then the Drúedain are called 'oghor-hai' by orcs, and they're hardly bigger, sun-resistant woodwoses bred by the bad guys!


I think that's right. I suspect the "humanlike" bit has been overplayed slightly by gamers, though; when Aragorn and co. find the dead Isengarders, it's their equipment, not their size or shape, that seems to be the surprise - and of course they've already seen at least one bigger uruk in Moria. It's notable that the Uruk-hai are always "Orcs", whereas the half-orcs/Orc-men are always "Men".

On orcish beards: we can perhaps rule out long beards like those of the Dwarves because the orcs in The Hobbit make fun of the Dwarves for their beards - but then the Elves also mock Dwarvish beards, and we know that at least some of Tolkien's Elves had beards.

Also, orcs were certainly hairy: one of those carrying the Hobbits across Rohan has "a filthy jowl and hairy ear", and Grishnkah has "long hairy arms". It would be a little odd if that hirsuitism didn't extend to their faces!

One more point: Tolkien said that his goblins owed a debt to George MacDonald:

"They are not based on direct experience of mine; but owe, I suppose, a good deal to the goblin tradition ... especially as it appears in George MacDonald, except for the soft feet which I never believed in."

George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin was published with illustrations that showed the goblins (aka gnomes and kobolds) with beards throughout.
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Vermis on September 07, 2015, 02:24:46 PM
As you and Vermis say, the terms various terms are pretty much interchangeable, with the caveat that "the word uruk of the Black Speech ... was applied as a rule only to the great soldier-orcs that at this time issued from Mordor and Isengard. The lesser kinds were called, especially by the Uruk-hai, snaga 'slave'.

Mea culpa! I recognise the quote, but it's been a while since I read it.

I think that's right. I suspect the "humanlike" bit has been overplayed slightly by gamers, though;

And, might I add, New Line Cinema. (http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110826110537/lotr/images/b/bd/Lurty_swears_oath.jpg) I get that the bigger movie orcs had more humanlike proportions so the job could be done more easily by human actors with a few facial prosthetics, but I'm still taken aback by how huge they made Lurtz.
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Hobgoblin on September 07, 2015, 02:47:46 PM
Mea culpa! I recognise the quote, but it's been a while since I read it.

And, might I add, New Line Cinema. (http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110826110537/lotr/images/b/bd/Lurty_swears_oath.jpg) I get that the bigger movie orcs had more humanlike proportions so the job could be done more easily by human actors with a few facial prosthetics, but I'm still taken aback by how huge they made Lurtz.

Yes indeed! They kind of mixed up the Uruk-hai with the half-orcs.

I think one older influence, too, is David Day's A Tolkien Bestiary, published in 1979. It had splendid illustrations, but the text was full of stuff that Day had obviously just dreamt up. For example, he says that the Uruk-hai were as tall as men - but the actual text of LotR makes it quite clear that this isn't the case at all. He also describes orcs as having black skin "like charred wood", which is again entirely his own invention; in the book, one orc is described simply as "black-skinned", implying that his Uruk companion and others aren't.

I think Day might also be responsible for cementing the idea that orcs are "twisted" elves. Now, Tolkien suggested that it what was eventually published as The Silmarillion, but it certainly wasn't his final word on the subject. There's no suggestion in LotR that Orcs are made from Elves, rather than "in mockery" of Elves. Tolkien at various times thought that they might be anthropomorphised beasts, animated stone, made from humans or even robots of a sort.
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Captain Blood on September 07, 2015, 02:58:53 PM
Once again, I agree with all of the above - hurrah: consensus! (At least for now :D)

I have to say, I did like 'Lurtz' despite his mighty size.
Whilst I think the Jackson / Weta team massively overdid the orcs in terms of the baroque nature of much of their arms and equipment, I infinitely preferred the 'Kiwis in rubber outfits' approach of the original Newline LOTR trilogy, to the ludicrously cartoony CGI of Azog and his sidekick in the Hobbit movies...
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Cubs on September 07, 2015, 03:20:25 PM
Tolkien, in a letter, says that the orcs were "squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes; in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types". That may not read particularly well to contemporary sensibilities; I think, though, he clearly had the Huns (ancient foes of the Goths, to whom the Rohirrim have many resemblances) and the Mongols in mind. Both were described by Western contemporaries in fairly monstrous terms.

Asiatic people (and especially Mongols) seem to have come in for special treatment in 1930's pulp as well. It seems to have been the fad of the age to define people by race and bloodline, and for some reason Asian people were the villains of the day.
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Steve F on September 07, 2015, 03:41:49 PM
I'd always assumed that the Orcs were the English working class.  Despite his exotic name, Tolkien was English, and, as a rule of thumb, for the English class trumps race (or gender, or sexuality, or anything else).  Conscription in the Great War had led to widespread concerns about the short stature and general malnutrition-fuelled ill-health of the urban proletariat.  Saruman brought Birmingham to Middle Earth and the Uruks were steelworkers: short, twisted, alien and threatening to a tweedy Oxford don, and sometimes blackskinned not through melanin but through soot and oil.

Or so it seemed to me.
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: area23 on September 07, 2015, 04:09:16 PM
In fact, the earlier descriptions of Huns were much like Tolkiens orcs, almost identical.

There's also the fashion of 'degenerate men' of the time. Lovecraft's ghouls and 'half caste' cultists, Howard's monstrous picts, but also morlocks, Opar's cavemen in Tarzan etc.
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Hobgoblin on September 07, 2015, 04:22:56 PM
Here's Ammianus Marcellinus' famous description of the Huns (I suppose you could make a case for beardless Orcs on this basis, but I think it's the other stuff that's more pertinent):

1 However, the seed and origin of all the ruin and various disasters that the wrath of Mars aroused, putting in turmoil all places with unwonted fires, we have found to be this. The people of the Huns, but little known from ancient records, dwelling beyond the Maeotic Sea near the ice-bound ocean, exceed every degree of savagery.

2 Since there the cheeks of the children are deeply furrowed with the steel from their very birth, in order that the growth of hair, when it appears at the proper time, may be checked by the wrinkled scars, they grow old without beards and without any beauty, like eunuchs. They all have compact, strong limbs and thick necks, and are so monstrously ugly and misshapen, that one might take them for two-legged beasts or for the stumps, rough-hewn into images, that are used in putting sides to bridges.

3 But although they have the form of men, however ugly, they are so hardy in their mode of life that they have no need of fire nor of savory food, but eat the roots of wild plants and the half-raw flesh of any kind of animal whatever, which they put between their thighs and the backs of their horses, and thus warm it a little.

4 They are never protected by any buildings, but they avoid these like tombs, which are set apart from everyday use. For not even a hut thatched with reed can be found among them. But roaming at large amid the mountains and woods, they learn from the cradle to endure cold, hunger, and thirst. When away from their homes they never enter a house unless compelled by extreme necessity; for they think they are not safe when staying under a roof.

5 They dress in linen cloth or in the skins of field-mice sewn together, and they wear the same clothing indoors and out. But when they have once put their necks into a faded tunic, it is not taken off or changed until by long wear and tear it has been reduced to rags and fallen from them bit by bit.

6 They cover their heads with round caps and protect their hairy legs with goatskins; their shoes are formed upon no lasts, and so prevent their walking with free step. For this reason they are not at all adapted to battles on foot, but they are almost glued to their horses, which are hardy, it is true, but ugly, and sometimes they sit on them woman-fashion and thus perform their ordinary tasks. From their horses by night or day every one of that nation buys and sells, eats and drinks, and bowed over the narrow neck of the animal relaxes into a sleep so deep as to be accompanied by many dreams.

7 And when deliberation is called for about weighty matters, they all consult as a common body in that fashion. They are subject to no royal restraint, but they are content with the disorderly government of their important men, and led by them they force their way through every obstacle.

8 They also sometimes fight when provoked, and then they enter the battle drawn up in wedge-shaped masses, while their medley of voices makes a savage noise. And as they are lightly equipped for swift motion, and unexpected in action, they purposely divide suddenly into scattered bands and attack, rushing about in disorder here and there, dealing terrific slaughter; and because of their extraordinary rapidity of movement they are never seen to attack a rampart or pillage an enemy's camp.

9 And on this account you would not hesitate to call them the most terrible of all warriors, because they fight from a distance with missiles having sharp bone, instead of their usual points, joined to the shafts with wonderful skill; then they gallop over the intervening spaces and fight hand to hand with swords, regardless of their own lives; and while the enemy are guarding against wounds from the sabre-thrusts, they throw strips of cloth plaited into nooses over their opponents and so entangle them that they fetter their limbs and take from them the power of riding or walking.

10 No one in their country ever plows a field or touches a plow-handle. They are all without fixed abode, without hearth, or law, or settled mode of life, and keep roaming from place to place, like fugitives, accompanied by the wagons in which they live; in wagons their wives weave for them their hideous garments, in wagons they cohabit with their husbands, bear children, and rear them to the age of puberty. None of their offspring, when asked, can tell you where he comes from, since he was conceived in one place, born far from there, and brought up still farther away.

11 In truces they are faithless and unreliable, strongly inclined to sway to the motion of every breeze of new hope that presents itself, and sacrificing every feeling to the mad impulse of the moment. Like unreasoning beasts, they are utterly ignorant of the difference between right and wrong; they are deceitful and ambiguous in speech, never bound by any reverence for religion or for superstition. They burn with an infinite thirst for gold, and they are so fickle and prone to anger, that they often quarrel with their allies without provocation, more than once on the same day, and make friends with them again without a mediator.

12 This race of untamed men, without encumbrances, aflame with an inhuman desire for plundering others' property, made their violent way amid the rapine and slaughter of the neighbouring peoples as far as the Halani, once known as the Massagetae.
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Captain Blood on September 07, 2015, 04:34:33 PM
Fascinating theory Steve :)

Tolkien was definitely a man of his age and class... An era when eugenics was a perfectly respectable study and proposition amongst the well educated. So the grimy, swarming urban proletariat and the grimy, swarming slant-eyed Eastern hordes were probably equally threatening to a man of his time and background. They may well have been conflated into one kind of generic bogeyman archetype: the industrialised central Asian from the Black Country - maybe with a bit of Bolshevik thrown in ;)

It's certainly pretty clear that Hobbits are Tolkien's idealised bucolic English country folk. Thomas Hardy's Wessex folk taken to an extreme.

Presumably, the world of men (Rangers, Gondor, Rohan) are more representative of the English upper-middle and professional classes. The type of resourceful, mainly decent, indomitable and stalwart chaps who still ran quite an Empire in the 1930s.

I wonder what that makes the elves? :)
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Vermis on September 07, 2015, 07:25:25 PM
I'm reminded of this quote. (https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/411971-i-cordially-dislike-allegory-in-all-its-manifestations-and-always)

There's no doubt Tolkien was influenced by childhood stays in industrial Birmingham and rural Sarehole (IIRC the name Samwise Gamgee was adapted from a RL occupant of the latter) but I think it's a little unfair to assume it's all about school-tie old boys vs. uppity oiks and johnny foreigners. The whole thing of (his interpretation of ) Middle-Earth began as a mythology for England and a setting for his invented languages, following his professional and personal interest in old languages, legends and sagas, was more about elves than anything else, and that bucolic hobbits only started accidentally intruding on in the early '30's.

I could bang on with a load of quotes pilfered from Letters, but I'll just add...

Quote
Presumably, the world of men (Rangers, Gondor, Rohan) are more representative of the English upper-middle and professional classes. The type of resourceful, mainly decent, indomitable and stalwart chaps who still ran quite an Empire in the 1930s.

Quote
"...as I know nothing about British or American imperialism in the Far East that does not fill me with regret and disgust, I am afraid I am not even supported by a glimmer of patriotism in this remaining War."

Letter to Christopher Tolkien, May 1945. :) Not to make out that he was surrounded by a golden halo at all times, but I feel there are a lot of assumptions about Tolkien as a stereotypical colonial-era toff, clinging to the status quo, when his own writings and correspondence contain evidence that mitigates those, if not outright refute them. (Not singling CB or Steve out! I'm sure we all know there's an internetful of Tolkien criticisms out there.)
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Hobgoblin on September 07, 2015, 09:22:34 PM
I'm reminded of this quote. (https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/411971-i-cordially-dislike-allegory-in-all-its-manifestations-and-always)

There's no doubt Tolkien was influenced by childhood stays in industrial Birmingham and rural Sarehole (IIRC the name Samwise Gamgee was adapted from a RL occupant of the latter) but I think it's a little unfair to assume it's all about school-tie old boys vs. uppity oiks and johnny foreigners. The whole thing of (his interpretation of ) Middle-Earth began as a mythology for England and a setting for his invented languages, following his professional and personal interest in old languages, legends and sagas, was more about elves than anything else, and that bucolic hobbits only started accidentally intruding on in the early '30's.

I could bang on with a load of quotes pilfered from Letters, but I'll just add...

Letter to Christopher Tolkien, May 1945. :) Not to make out that he was surrounded by a golden halo at all times, but I feel there are a lot of assumptions about Tolkien as a stereotypical colonial-era toff, clinging to the status quo, when his own writings and correspondence contain evidence that mitigates those, if not outright refute them. (Not singling CB or Steve out! I'm sure we all know there's an internetful of Tolkien criticisms out there.)

I agree with all of that.

I'm pretty sure that Tolkien indicates somewhere that the portrayal of Orcs was influenced by memories of bullying NCOs/junior officers during the Great War. That's always rung true to me; after all, Ugluk et al are fairly well spoken (and demonstrate certain military virtues, despite being monstrous in other ways).

The quote about "Mongol-types" I gave above is actually fairly nuanced (and certainly so by the standards of the time).
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: area23 on September 07, 2015, 09:59:26 PM
Quote from: Jordanes
But after a short space of time, as Orosius relates, the race of the Huns, fiercer than ferocity itself, flamed forth against the Goths. We learn from old traditions that their origin was as follows: Filimer, king of the Goths, son of Gadaric the Great, who was the fifth in succession to hold the rule of the Getae after their departure from the island of Scandza,--and who, as we have said, entered the land of Scythia with his tribe,--found among his people certain witches, whom he called in his native tongue Haliurunnae. Suspecting these women, he expelled them from the midst of his race and compelled them to wander in solitary exile afar from his army. There the unclean spirits, who beheld them as they wandered through the wilderness, bestowed their embraces upon them and begat this savage race, which dwelt at first in the swamps,--a stunted, foul and puny tribe, scarcely human, and having no language save one which bore but slight resemblance to human speech. Such was the descent of the Huns who came to the country of the Goths.
I've got this quote as Jordanes but it very like Ammianus Marcellinus quoted above:
Quote from: Jordanes
"They made their foes flee in horror because their swarthy aspect was fearful, and they had, if I may call it so, a sort of shapeless lump, not a head, with pin-holes rather than eyes. Their hardihood is evident in their wild appearance, and they are beings who are cruel to their children on the very day they are born. For they cut the cheeks of the males with a sword, so that before they receive the nourishment of milk they must learn to endure wounds. Hence they grow old beardless and their young men are without comeliness, because a face furrowed by the sword spoils by its scars the natural beauty of a beard. They are short in stature, quick in bodily movement, alert horsemen, broad shouldered, ready in the use of bow and arrow, and have firm-set necks which are ever erect in pride. Though they live in the form of men, they have the cruelty of wild beasts."
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Paboook on September 07, 2015, 11:12:18 PM
Thank you so much for this most interesting & excellent topic. I am excited to learn a few new things about Middle-Earth!

1) As to the issue of appropriate miniatures, I really love metal Mordor orcs sculpted by the Perry twins in the early stage of GW's LOTR. They are short to 28 mm men, most of them have slightly crooked legs. The minies are full of detail and character. The weapons include crude sabres, axes etc. (there are also 4 bowmen not included in the picture)

(http://i1127.photobucket.com/albums/l626/moletoad/OrcWarriors.jpg)

The later plastic GW Mordor orcs are man-sized and upstanding. They fit better to the concept of uruks than common orcs/goblins in my opinion.

(http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/catalog/product/600x620/99121462003_MordorOrcsNEW01.jpg)

This random picture from the web serves as a nice comparison: the metal orc is second from the right, the rest are plastics.

(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GmKjrtpbEe4/VIFV8SFK-0I/AAAAAAAABL4/WtIiM-68nGA/s1600/DSC01826.JPG)

2) As to the issue of Tolkien's books mirroring the 1930s... I think that people often forget he intended to create new mythology based on the models represented in historical material (sagas etc.). Therefore, the word of Middle-Earth is not a piece of fictional realism (as the Word of Ice and Fire for example) and Tolkien was not trying to lead modern society to the Dark Ages. Every author is somehow influenced by his life and times, but that isn't enough to explain and understand his work. Just my two cents :)
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: orc on September 08, 2015, 01:40:50 AM
I'm agree Perry twins GW's LOTR are the best miniatures from GW....but in my oppinion Mithril has the most real orcs, miniatures with a lot of character and hundreds of different orcish miniatures...sanagas,uruks,great uruks,half orcs,trolls,hallf trolls, Olog hai....

This are from my army: MUHAAHAHAAAAAA!!!





Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Cubs on September 09, 2015, 10:20:42 AM
Just to further confuse matters, I was flicking through my 'Characters from Tolkein' book by David Day - basically a bestiary drawing on all the Tolkein books. It specifically says that Orcs and Uruk-Hai are black or dark skinned 'like burned wood'.

He suggests that although the terms Orcs, Goblins and Uruks are pretty much interchangeable, Orcs/Uruks are the original name of the creatures first created by Morgoth from kidnapped Elves, with them acquiring the term goblins as their bloodlines become weaker following their great defeats by the Elves and the scattering of their tribes. They have long arms and walk stooped. He also says that Uruk-Hai (Greater Goblins, Hobgolblins) are first created by Sauron in Mordor (not by Saruman, although Saruman also uses them) and are like Orcs but greater in stature, straighter of limb and able to walk unafraid in sunlight. They also use straighter swords and weapons more like the men of the west, whereas Orcs/Goblins use weapons more like men of the east. They are the elite troops and first to fight.

He also mentions that Half-Orcs are the product of interbreeding Dunlending men and Orcs and are also dark of skin. This explains why Dunlendings, Half-Orcs, Orcs and Uruk-Hai are happy to fight alongside each other at Helm's Deep.
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Hobgoblin on September 09, 2015, 11:40:47 AM
Just to further confuse matters, I was flicking through my 'Characters from Tolkein' book by David Day - basically a bestiary drawing on all the Tolkein books. It specifically says that Orcs and Uruk-Hai are black or dark skinned 'like burned wood'.

I mentioned the Tolkien Bestiary a page or two back, I think - and specifically that "wood" quote. Although the illustrations are marvellous, the text is notoriously bad. Basically, Day just made load of stuff up. But because people assumed that he must have done his work, a lot of his assumptions and inventions have had wide circulation.

He suggests that although the terms Orcs, Goblins and Uruks are pretty much interchangeable, Orcs/Uruks are the original name of the creatures first created by Morgoth from kidnapped Elves, with them acquiring the term goblins as their bloodlines become weaker following their great defeats by the Elves and the scattering of their tribes.

Now that's pure Day invention. Tolkien says (in the introduction to The Hobbit) that "Orc" is "usually translated" as "goblin" - i.e. they're synonyms. Hence, "Orcrist" = "goblin-cleaver". And in The Lord of the Rings, he uses "goblin" to describe the biggest ones (the Uruk-hai).

There is one line, in The Lost Road (not published when Day was writing), that vaguely supports this line of thought: "Goblins they may be called, but in ancient days they were strong and fell". But note that this comes from a pre-LotR text that Tolkien abandoned. We know that he changed his concept of Orcs repeatedly. At one point, before LotR, Orcs, goblins and "Gongs" were different creatures. But by the time of The Hobbit and LotR, Gongs had gone and Orcs and goblins were two names for the same thing.

They have long arms and walk stooped. He also says that Uruk-Hai (Greater Goblins, Hobgolblins) are first created by Sauron in Mordor (not by Saruman, although Saruman also uses them) and are like Orcs but greater in stature, straighter of limb and able to walk unafraid in sunlight. They also use straighter swords and weapons more like the men of the west, whereas Orcs/Goblins use weapons more like men of the east. They are the elite troops and first to fight.

The Uruks of Isengard use weapons like those of Men, which Aragorn (who knows all about Orcs) remarks on. But the Uruks of Mordor seem to use characteristically Orcish weapons (the huge Uruk in Moria uses a spear and a scimitar). So it seems to be down to what the armouries of Isengard are churning out. Also, the Uruks of Isengard have long arms too. And they're not like Orcs; they are Orcs! The narrative voice in LotR almost always describes Uruks simply as "Orcs" (it's mainly the Orcs themselves that talk about Uruks and Uruk-hai).

Also, the Uruks (which, if we follow Christopher Tolkien and a couple of indications in the LotR text and appendices, are probably the sam as the Uruk-hai) were created by Sauron, but there is also a strong suggestion that Saruman's Uruks are slightly different - most probably through an admixture of Man-blood; it's not clear whether the half-orcs were a side-product of this or its main aim. After all, it's the half-orcs that seem to have been the main shock troops and the fiercest fighters of Saruman's army (they kill Theodred).

On "hobgoblin": Tolkien uses this twice in The Hobbit (in the introduction and when Gandalf talks about the Grey Mountains). But while he had originally used it to denote large orcs, he abandoned it later because, etymologically and in folklore, hobgoblins (=Robin goblins) were smaller, friendlier spirits.

He also mentions that Half-Orcs are the product of interbreeding Dunlending men and Orcs and are also dark of skin. This explains why Dunlendings, Half-Orcs, Orcs and Uruk-Hai are happy to fight alongside each other at Helm's Deep.

The half-orcs are described as "sallow", not dark-skinned:

"In one of the windows he caught a glimpse of a sallow face with sly, slanting eyes; but it vanished at once. ‘So that’s where that southerner is hiding!’ he thought. ‘He looks more than half like a goblin.’"

and:

"But there were some others that were horrible: man-high, but with goblin-faces, sallow, leering, squint-eyed. Do you know, they reminded me at once of that Southerner at Bree; only he was not so obviously orc-like as most of these were."

Another point (of purest pedantry!  :D): I don't think it's right to say that Dunlendings, Half-Orcs, Orcs and Uruk-hai fought at Helm's Deep. From a reading of LotR, it seems that all the Orcs at Helm's Deep were Uruk-hai. The book tells us that Saruman's Orcs are big and equipped like Men, but it doesn't mention any smaller breeds in the armies of Orthanc. "Orcs and Uruk-hai" isn't a formulation that Tolkien uses, because all Uruk-hai are Orcs (and goblins too).

One more thing: Day takes the Silmarillion story about Orcs being created from "twisted" Elves as given. But it's by no means clear that this was Tolkien's conception when he wrote LotR. There are at least a dozen possible orc origins ("upgraded" beasts, animated stone, corrupted Maiar, robots of a sort, etc., etc.) that Tolkien mulled over. I don't think he ever finally decided - and he agonised over the issue for theological reasons: do Orcs have souls?

So, basically, David Day isn't to be trusted at all. Real Tolkien experts have huge lists of all that's wrong with his writings. But the Tolkien Bestiary's illustrations are marvellous - especially those by John Blanche and Ian Miller!
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: area23 on September 09, 2015, 12:54:40 PM
"man-high, but with goblin-faces" If you like the old Citadel orcs and goblins by Kevin Adams, I suggest his Saxons or Chinese he did for Renegade for half orcs (and dunlendings).
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Vermis on September 09, 2015, 01:00:42 PM
1) As to the issue of appropriate miniatures, I really love metal Mordor orcs sculpted by the Perry twins in the early stage of GW's LOTR. They are short to 28 mm men, most of them have slightly crooked legs. The minies are full of detail and character. The weapons include crude sabres, axes etc. (there are also 4 bowmen not included in the picture)

The later plastic GW Mordor orcs are man-sized and upstanding. They fit better to the concept of uruks than common orcs/goblins in my opinion.

I'm agree Perry twins GW's LOTR are the best miniatures from GW....but in my oppinion Mithril has the most real orcs, miniatures with a lot of character and hundreds of different orcish miniatures...

Hmm. I've a few GW uruk-hai scraped off ebay, because I thought the designs weren't bad. I quite like the berzerkers too, as non-canon as they might be. But the more I hear and read about the imagery in the books, the more I want to go that route instead! I guess I can adapt the plastics for Isengard uruks (plenty of iron helms already; need a few mannish weapon swaps and things), but while the early Perry and Mithril sculpts look good, the latter prices ain't conducive to army building, and I know the kind of asking prices for GW LotR metals on ebay... This is one of the times I kick myself for ignoring the game way back when.

I was thinking of keeping some plastic uruk-hai as half-orcs or orc-men, maybe dremelling out some of all that plate and sculpting mail over the area. Might be easier and more book-appropriate to resculpt faces or heads on some saxons or vikings (= dunlendings?) though. This is where those Gripping Beast crab-scuttle poses might come in handy... ;)
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Vermis on September 09, 2015, 01:17:31 PM
Another point (of purest pedantry!  :D)

That's the best kind. 8)

Quote
but the Tolkien Bestiary's illustrations are marvellous - especially those by John Blanche and Ian Miller!

And Victor Ambrus, IMO. :)

"man-high, but with goblin-faces" If you like the old Citadel orcs and goblins by Kevin Adams

No, TBH.

I'm part of the International Don't Like Kevs Orcs and Goblins Society. (IDLe KOGS) I'm the secretary, and I attend all the AGMs. We stand around in a big hall (http://i.imgur.com/aqBeym1.jpg) for an afternoon and say "nope, still don't".

I was considering Renegade saxons as, well, saxons. Didn't know they had chinese though (not on the site, any pics?), and hadn't a clue they were by Kev.
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Captain Blood on September 09, 2015, 03:28:04 PM
Yes, this is the problem with fantasy stuff... David Day says something and people assume it is based on research from the original text. In fact, it's just supposition / opinion on his part. Then it gets recycled into irrefutable fact!  o_o

I always thought the best miniature orcs (in terms of accuracy at least, but not figure quality) were the original 1970s Minifigs 'Mythical Earth' range... They had simple chainmal shirts, simple pointy helms, simple round shields, long swords, slightly pointy ears, slightly bandy legs, slightly slanty faces... Which I think is pretty much all the description of their arms, armour and physicality that you can actually find in the books.

Everything else - this entire, vast sprawling cornucopia of orc design with all the weird and wonderful physical and physiognomical shapes, and fantastical array of gothic / baroque arms and armour - is entirely the invention of the stable of latter-day illustrators from David Day through Alan Lee, John Howe, and their whole, numberless host of imitators... All gradually taking their art off to more and more extreme visions of 'orcdom' - and further and further from the essentially simple thing Tolkien describes in his books  ::)

Ah well... That's the creative process for you  ;)
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Cubs on September 09, 2015, 03:33:57 PM

So, basically, David Day isn't to be trusted at all. Real Tolkien experts have huge lists of all that's wrong with his writings. But the Tolkien Bestiary's illustrations are marvellous - especially those by John Blanche and Ian Miller!

Ay carumba! That's that one put to bed then.
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Emir of Askaristan on September 09, 2015, 03:55:16 PM
Loving this discussion.

My own purely personal take on the best figs to use would be the (very) old pre-slot citadel Half Orc range including those that made up their regiment of reknown.  These are human-like but with slant eyes and other features which are non human but are not the exaggerated bulldog jawed fanged meat cleaver types of later citadel/GW designs. The Asgard range of Wolf-Riders were also nice I seem to recall.

The best looking creatures in the films were the hobbits themselves and the Three Trolls. Almost everything else was over fantasised and exaggerated. There...now I've put myself in a bad mood and am going to go off and grump for a bit.......  >:(lol
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Hobgoblin on September 09, 2015, 03:57:50 PM
Ay carumba! That's that one put to bed then.

Sorry if that was a bit heavy-handed!  :)

There are good examples of the kind of thing David Day got up to here:

http://tolkien.slimy.com/essays/DayBooks.html (http://tolkien.slimy.com/essays/DayBooks.html)

Another myth that he planted, I think, is that the Uruk-hai were "man-high". This is nowhere in Tolkien. A "huge" Uruk chieftain in Moria was "almost man-high", but he seems to have been enormous for his kind. By contrast, Ugluk was just "a large black orc". And Gollum says that the Haradrim were "almost as bad as Orcs, but much bigger"; Gollum, of course, had lived for centuries in the Misty Mountains (where there had been Uruks for centuries) and had been held captive in Mordor, so he would know how big orcs could be.

Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Paboook on September 09, 2015, 04:18:32 PM
Hobgoblin, thank you so much for another great post!

Vermis, the GW uruk-hai don't seem to be "true" uruks unfortunately. But I think they can serve as nice starting point for authentic representation of Isengard "orc-men". Just switch the odd quasi-Roman shields for round ones and the weapons for standard swords and spears.

As to the Perry Lotr range, I forgot about quite "Tolkienish" trackers based on the description of the scout in chapter  "The Land of Shadow".

"One was clad in ragged brown and was armed with a bow of horn; it was of a small breed, black-skinned, with wide and snuffling nostrils: evidently a tracker of some kind. The other was a big fighting-orc, like those of Shagrat's company, bearing the token of the Eye. He also had a bow at his back and carried a short broad-headed spear. As usual they were quarrelling, and being of different breeds they used the Common Speech after their fashion."

Metal Mordor bows

(http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/Mordor_orc_bowmen.gif)

Trackers

(http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/catalog/product/600x620/99061462025_OrcTrackersNEW01.jpg)
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Admiral Benbow on September 09, 2015, 05:25:04 PM
I'm agree Perry twins GW's LOTR are the best miniatures from GW....but in my oppinion Mithril has the most real orcs, miniatures with a lot of character and hundreds of different orcish miniatures...sanagas,uruks,great uruks,half orcs,trolls,hallf trolls, Olog hai....

This are from my army: MUHAAHAHAAAAAA!!!

Wonderfully painted miniatures, orc! Could you show some more pics?

Very interesting discussion and suggestions here, think about re-reading the books again ...  :)
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Gibby on September 09, 2015, 07:56:13 PM
I'm reminded of this quote. (https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/411971-i-cordially-dislike-allegory-in-all-its-manifestations-and-always)

There's no doubt Tolkien was influenced by childhood stays in industrial Birmingham and rural Sarehole (IIRC the name Samwise Gamgee was adapted from a RL occupant of the latter) but I think it's a little unfair to assume it's all about school-tie old boys vs. uppity oiks and johnny foreigners. The whole thing of (his interpretation of ) Middle-Earth began as a mythology for England and a setting for his invented languages, following his professional and personal interest in old languages, legends and sagas, was more about elves than anything else, and that bucolic hobbits only started accidentally intruding on in the early '30's.

I could bang on with a load of quotes pilfered from Letters, but I'll just add...

Letter to Christopher Tolkien, May 1945. :) Not to make out that he was surrounded by a golden halo at all times, but I feel there are a lot of assumptions about Tolkien as a stereotypical colonial-era toff, clinging to the status quo, when his own writings and correspondence contain evidence that mitigates those, if not outright refute them. (Not singling CB or Steve out! I'm sure we all know there's an internetful of Tolkien criticisms out there.)

Well put.

I think it's a shame that people have begun to see his work as allegorical. I'm not accusing anyone here of that, but I know people who casually call Tolkien a racist due to some of the things discussed here. I think it's more indicative of the modern mindset to fall too easily into looking for racial/politically incorrect motivations in nearly all media.

I am reminded of Faramir speaking of a young, slain Haradrim:

"His sense of duty was no less than yours, I deem. You wonder what his name is... where he came from. And if he was really evil at heart. What lies or threats led him on this long march from home. If he would not rather have stayed there... in peace. War will make corpses of us all."

Didn't Tolkien say "We were all orcs, in the Great War" or something to that effect?

Also I won't open the hornet's nest of the Silmarillion's very very vague implication that orcs *MAY* have fought on both sides in the war of the Last Alliance.  ;)
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Hobgoblin on September 09, 2015, 08:37:58 PM
Well put.

I think it's a shame that people have begun to see his work as allegorical. I'm not accusing anyone here of that, but I know people who casually call Tolkien a racist due to some of the things discussed here. I think it's more indicative of the modern mindset to fall too easily into looking for racial/politically incorrect motivations in nearly all media.

I am reminded of Faramir speaking of a young, slain Haradrim:

"His sense of duty was no less than yours, I deem. You wonder what his name is... where he came from. And if he was really evil at heart. What lies or threats led him on this long march from home. If he would not rather have stayed there... in peace. War will make corpses of us all."

Didn't Tolkien say "We were all orcs, in the Great War" or something to that effect?

Also I won't open the hornet's nest of the Silmarillion's very very vague implication that orcs *MAY* have fought on both sides in the war of the Last Alliance.  ;)

Couldn't agree more. Is that quote from the film? I think the book one is even more pertinent:

It was Sam's first view of a battle of Men against Men and he did not like it much. He was glad he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man's name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies and threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would no rather have stayed there in peace -”

Emphasis mine. The point here is that Tolkien takes great care to distinguish between fighting between Men and Men (of different skin colours, but Men nonetheless - and remember that there are dark-skinned Men fighting for Gondor and pale-skinned Men fighting for Mordor as well as the other way around) and fighting between Men and Orcs (beasts, automata, evil spirits - whatever they are). And even then, he agonised over the possible salvation of Orcs.
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Gibby on September 09, 2015, 08:44:43 PM
Couldn't agree more. Is that quote from the film? I think the book one is even more pertinent:

It was Sam's first view of a battle of Men against Men and he did not like it much. He was glad he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man's name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies and threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would no rather have stayed there in peace -”

Emphasis mine. The point here is that Tolkien takes great care to distinguish between fighting between Men and Men (of different skin colours, but Men nonetheless - and remember that there are dark-skinned Men fighting for Gondor and pale-skinned Men fighting for Mordor as well as the other way around) and fighting between Men and Orcs (beasts, automata, evil spirits - whatever they are). And even then, he agonised over the possible salvation of Orcs.

You are right, it is Sam's POV in the book where those poignant words come from. I quite enjoyed the scene in the film where Faramir says it, so it's what came to mind first. I think a re-read of the books is in order this winter. :D
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Cubs on September 09, 2015, 08:49:16 PM
Sorry if that was a bit heavy-handed!  :)


Hell, if I'm wrong I want to be told, so I can get it right next time!
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Captain Blood on September 09, 2015, 10:49:09 PM
Hell, if I'm wrong I want to be told, so I can get it right next time!

 lol
You are a paragon of self-improvement.

I have enjoyed this thread  :)
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Cubs on September 10, 2015, 12:03:17 AM
I do try, I do try.
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Gangleri on September 11, 2015, 01:55:58 AM
Didn't Tolkien say "We were all orcs, in the Great War" or something to that effect?

I'm sorry to say that he seems never to have said or written those words.  It's a line often attributed to him in the form above: "Didn't he say that...", "I think I read somewhere that...", and so on.  I have never come across that phrase in Tolkien's own writing nor met anyone else who has.

I also think we should be very wary about connecting orcs to the working class.  Apart from Tolkien's interest in the "ennoblement of the vulgar," itself an extension of his Catholic beliefs, he was much too clever and much too generous for this sort of crude, classist allegory.  And let us not forget Gandalf's words to Denethor: "And for me, I pity even his slaves."

What's more, Tolkien was deeply displeased when adaptations of his works gave characters and races accents.  He wrote that all his works ought to be thought of as accent-free, as it were, and he was especially unhappy that orcs were inevitably given a Cockney accent and always dropped their aitches, even though (as Hobgoblin pointed out earlier) they speak Westron articulately and, evidently, without an accent.  This displeasure suggests he did not intend that orcs evoke the urban working class.
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Vermis on September 11, 2015, 10:08:41 AM
I'm sorry to say that he seems never to have said or written those words.  It's a line often attributed to him in the form above: "Didn't he say that...", "I think I read somewhere that...", and so on.  I have never come across that phrase in Tolkien's own writing nor met anyone else who has.

I can't recall it myself, but there was a similar sort of feeling about the next war: he had a special horror about the increased use of vehicles and machines, especially aeroplanes and the carnage caused by their bombing. He considered it as using Sauron's methods against him, and when Christopher wrote to him about his new duties as a pilot, he likened it to Frodo finding hobbit-children learning to fly nazgul-beasts. Not all orcs, maybe, but possibly something like Saruman, at the least!
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: Hobgoblin on September 11, 2015, 10:25:36 AM
This quote, from Letter 66 (written to Christopher Tolkien while he was serving with the RAF in WWII), is the one that implies that British soldiers (of all ranks, I think) could be Orcish:

"Your service is, of course, as anybody with any intelligence and ears and eyes knows, a very bad one, living on the repute of a few gallant men, and you are probably in a particularly bad corner of it. But all Big Things planned in a big way feel like that to the toad under the harrow, though on a general view they do function and do their job. An ultimately evil job. For we are attempting to conquer Sauron with the Ring. And we shall (it seems) succeed. But the penalty is, as you will know, to breed new Saurons, and slowly turn Men and Elves into Orcs. Not that in real life things are as clear cut as in a story, and we started out with a great many Orcs on our side… Well, there you are: a hobbit amongst the Urukhai. Keep your hobbitry in heart, and think that all stories feel like that when you are in them. You are inside a very great story."

Emphasis mine.
Title: Re: Book-faithful Uruk-hai and half-orc miniatures?
Post by: area23 on September 11, 2015, 11:01:49 AM
One cannot be pedantic enough on this argument.  :D
Very entertaining topic.