Forty-two? Oh, that's not bad for a pointy-eared elvish princeling.
Hmph! I myself am sitting pretty on forty-THREE.
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (extended edition)
Welcome to Middle-earth and to The Art of Caesura!
I haven't painted too many of The Lord of the Rings models (the last one, and first on the blog, was Faramir back in May) but everytime I do, I wonder why I don't! They're great, characterful, "old-school", low fantasy models, and many of them are sculpted by institutions of the miniature sculpting biz: the Perry brothers!
Whilst doing a bit of research for this post, I found out that "Gimli on Dead Uruk-hai" was actually a limited edition model sculpted by Michael Perry. I can't actually remember picking this guy up, but he recently emerged from a basement box!
From the outset I knew I wanted to paint Gimli in earthy tones to contrast the metallic Uruk.
I started by painting the Uruk-hai and, although you can only see peeps of it on his lower face, right arm and legs, one of the elements that I'm happiest with is his skin. I've been using the Scale 75 flesh tones set for about the past year or so and have found it generally great, but find that it falls down when painting darker skin. It does, however have a really nice matte plum "African Shadow" that worked well as a base for the Uruk's skin.
For Gimli, I did sort of use the still from the film (above) for reference, but more just to see the shades of brown they used, and the texture of the various materials. For example, his boots looked like a lighter, more flexible leather (or hide) and his gloves are more of a hard leather. I tried to emulate these on the model.
His trousers, gloves beard and hair all started with a base of Doombull Brown, chosen for its nice warm red tones. I then shaded his trousers and gloves with Agrax Earthshade, and his beard and hair with Carroburg Crimson before highlighting the former by mixing in Ushabti Bone, and the latter by mixing in Evil Sunz Scarlet and Yriel Yellow.
Gimli's boots and pipe received a base of Steel Legion Drab, washes of Seraphim Sepia and highlights with Ushabti Bone.
I had painted the blood where the axe head is lobotomizing the Uruk-hai (Blood for the Blood God with a little Druchii Violet) but actually forgot to add the pool of blood below his head until I started taking these photos. How could I almost forget to use more of my favorite paint!?
Just a fun little end note...I actually had the honour of meeting John Rhys-Davies the other year at Kerry Comicon. What an absolute gent!
Thanks for joining me for another romp in Middle-earth on The Art of Caesura!
Watching: Tom Crean: Antarctic Explorer - a fantastic play that I would highly recommend!
Gaming: Bulletstorm
Next Week:
Comments
Post a Comment
Tell me all...