Tolkien Orc Kitbash p.26 - More orcses painted, Precious

[OSHIROmodels]

I never listen to James

Don't I just know it 

[Tim Haslam]

I love them!
Fantastic kit bashing.
But I also Like the GW style too.
Just all green skins, really 

[Cubs]

Yes, the skin tone is definitely the dilemma. (It definitely won't be 'Goblin Green' though )
Again, the information in Tolkien's works is sketchy, conflicting and often misquoted / misinterpreted. When he refers to 'black orcs' for instance, does he mean 'black' in the poetic sense (as in black-hearted, wicked) or does he literally mean they look like Africans? Or coal miners coming off shift? Probably it's 'black' in the first sense.

Yeah, there's the bit with Farmer Maggot going on about how he doesn't want to be talking with black men on his doorstep(!), referring to his unsettling encounter with the Black Rider. I think it's pretty definite Tolkein uses the term in an older way, to describe someone's general aspect (including attire) as opposed to the modern use of the word to denote ethnicity.

[FreakyFenton]

Following with interest as from what I have seen, it promises to be great!

[Maxromek]

Will follow this thread with eyes wide open

[Hobgoblin]

Again, the information in Tolkien's works is sketchy, conflicting and often misquoted / misinterpreted. When he refers to 'black orcs' for instance, does he mean 'black' in the poetic sense (as in black-hearted, wicked) or does he literally mean they look like Africans? Or coal miners coming off shift? Probably it's 'black' in the first sense. I don't recall if he ever actually says they have 'black skin', and I don't want to get into the whole mid-C20th attitudes to ethnicity thing, which I think is a red herring as far as Tolkien is concerned.

Couldn't agree more with that last bit (and what Cubs said)! I liked your Krays comparison: the orcs are very much portrayed as (mid-C20th) British rather than 'foreign' when we see them close up: 'us' not 'them'. And in a letter, JRRT describes brutish British officers as "the Uruk-hai". I think it's significant that he uses the archaic 'swart' to describe his goblins while using the cognate 'swarthy' to describe Men.

For what it's worth, he does describe one orc (the small tracker in Mordor) as 'black-skinned', but the context strongly implies that this is unusual. The small orc is accompanying one of the 'black uruks', who, one can reasonably infer, doesn't have black skin (Tolkien more or less confirms this by describing orcs in general as 'sallow' - and uruks seem to make up the bulk of the orcs we 'see' in LotR). And when we first hear of the 'black uruks of Mordor', the first one we see is clad in black mail. So it's a fair takeaway that the 'black' might be a reference to livery and armour as much as anything (we know the Mordor and Isengard liveries are black).

One more thing: your kitbashes and conversions look great, inter alia, because the goblins have hair. It's become commonplace for gaming orcs to be bald, but Tolkien describes his goblins as 'hairy' at least twice. And in the literature of Tolkien's beloved Middle Ages, 'black' often referred to hair colour rather than skin colour.

[Mason]

Oi!
Riccardo!
You bin stealin' ma dreams again?

I intend doing something 'similar' myself soon (hence why I have been after some old Citadel Half Orcs' as I have had a hankering for proper Tolkien Orcs for ages.
Not kitbashing at present, though, as I have a lovely bunch of old Asgard Orcs for the Mordor Mob and intend using the Citadel Half Orcs as Saruman's 'experiments' as they look more like wretched humans than their later Orcs.

Anyways, enough of my ranting....

Great work so far, though, as these chaps of yours look much more like a 'proper' Orc than the usual fantasy trope.
 

(Although, I must admit that the GW Mordor Orcs were closer to my vision of a Tolkein Orc than the Uruk Hai ever were).

[AKULA]

I never listen to James, and I think you've got it right, Matt. That little orc's mama was a huge Conan fan

Actually I was thinking that maybe James had a helmet like it

 

[OSHIROmodels]

Shush you.

[Dentatus]

So those are freaking genius. Nailed the look - and spirit  - of them. So simple and effective it seems obvious in hindsight.

[Tim Haslam]

So is it deliberate do you think, that Peter Jackson had his goblins and orcs with cockney accents in the movies?
I always put that down to Hollywood always having the baddies with English accents, I never realised that Tolkien perhaps saw them that way?

[Hobgoblin]

So is it deliberate do you think, that Peter Jackson had his goblins and orcs with cockney accents in the movies?
I always put that down to Hollywood always having the baddies with English accents, I never realised that Tolkien perhaps saw them that way?

They definitely use British idioms: Ugluk threatens Merry and Pippin with "bread and breakfast - more than you can stomach" in Isengard. And they say things like "I daresay". Shagrat and Snaga use "Garn!", which is a typically Cockney contraction of "Go on!", although Tolkien does say at some point that the Orcish expletives are bowdlerised versions of what they actually said. That's the only element of Cockney, though: I'd say that they speak with a mix of officer-class and working-class British English. People tend to conflate the dropped aitches of the trolls in The Hobbit with the orcish dialogue. I think the good Captain has it spot on with the Krays, though: sinister gangster talk of the "old times" of "good loot nice and handy".

[bobhope]

Always took that view that orcs  were Tolkien’s vision of the corruption of man/elves through the brutishness of modern war, and borne through fire and blood etc etc

(Probably as I grew up reading Tolkien in parallel with Charleys war - and always thought they were both telling aspects of the same story)


Tolkeins descriptions of -wide mouths, fangs and long arms “ape” propaganda shots of the period

Reckon you’ve captured the posturing pretty well there!

[fred]

Looking forward to seeing more - it feels like another epic project coming on.

Interesting that you have shared photos of the minis primed - rather than in an earlier stage where the GS additions can be seen - and perhaps a little easier to see how you have adjusted parts.

[astrobouncer]

I really enjoy the orc pictures in this thread, thank you both.