"Back to the Shadow" - Balrog - Part II

A Balrog — a demon of the ancient world.

This foe is beyond any of you… Run!

- Gandalf, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Film. 

Welcome to the full unveiling of the Balrog on The Art of Caesura!

Two weeks ago, for the blog's 4th birthday, I teased this miniature as the celebratory large birthday model. Last week we looked at the building and painting process and I left you on a cliff hanger right as I'd managed to snap his ankle off. Today we have the full model on his correct base; the cast is off, and his ankle is healed. 

Gaze in terror at Durin's Bane, The Beast of Khazad-dûm!

Overall, I'm thrilled with how it turned out. Especially, as I mentioned last week, because there were a lot of stages of the painting where it looked...not great, but it all came together in the end.

I like the intense contrast between the vibrant flames and the dark skin, it almost looks like it's glowing at times!

With whip.

I think you can see in the close-up pictures in this post what I was trying to accomplish with the skin tone: it is a very dark grey-brown as opposed to black. 

I painted his eyes, nostrils and mouth pure white to draw the eye, and make them look like the hottest parts of the model.

I left a lot more of the firey tones on his face than the box art, but I think it suits my Balrog, which is exploding with fire. 

The hottest Balrog accessories!

I forgot to mention last week that to paint his weapons I started from a Wraithbone undercoat (like the rest of the model), painted the flames at the same time as the ones on his back (overbrushed orange, yellow and Wraithbone), but then just coated the whole weapon (flames and all) with Contrast Nazdreg Yellow.

Once the Contrast Yellow was dry I highlighted the cutting edge of the sword and the fissures in the whip with a mix of Yriel Yellow and Wraithbone. 

I love this view, you get a real sense of the epic wingspan.

Above is mostly a picture of his base; the details give a nice sense of scale to the Balrog. You can also get a better idea of his skin-tone (dark grey-brown) compared to his hooves (pure black). 

Above and below you can see how I fared colour-matching the stones under his right foot (which I had forgot to paint at the same time as his base), and his skin-tone at the left ankle break (see last week's post for details!). All things considered, I don't think the break is too noticable in the end. 

I'll leave you with a couple more firey shots of his back. 

So happy birthday again to The Art of Caesura! I'll see you same time, same place next week!

Watching: Great British Bakeoff Season 6

Reading: The Great Believers - Rebecca Makkai

Gaming: Jurassic World Evolution

Next Week:

He arrives precisely when he means to...