The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey trailer

I don't usually post film trailers but I am very excited about this.  I have only watched it twice and am already humming the song! 

It sounds like it will be another stunning soundtrack by Howard Shore.  Oddly, for me, the novel of The Hobbit is totally identified with Sibelius' 2nd Symphomy, which I played for the first time as I was reading the book for the first time.  The opening, rather pastoral, first movement actually summed up the Shire for me very well.  Even more oddly, Shore's "Shire" music is musically very close to the Sibelius in feel.

The various legal issues which caused production delays have been all to the good as Peter Jackson is directing which is as it should be.  Hopefully the Perry brothers will be starting work on figures for Games Workshop soon!

Attack Troll

These attack trolls appear in the Return of the King film where Sauron's army is besieging  Minas Tirith.  The box set gives you a number of alternative versions to build which include 3 alternative weapons, a shield, 4 head/helmet options and the opportunity to build a drummer. 

I reckon that I might need three more sets, therefore. Having painted one the others should be quicker to do as there isn't all that experimenting to do as regards paint colours.

I went for the horned helmet version first as it is the one I remember from the film, bursting through the gates of Minas Tirith.  I thought I had finished the figure last week and put it up on my main blog but looking at it again it looked somehow wrong.  I realised that I had left the cheek guards off the helmet but that was remedied today and the figure is now finished.  

I sometimes find the colours that Games Workshop use on their LotR figures a bit odd compared with the colours in the films, which tend to be much more muted than they often depict them.  In this case I looked at the Weta Workshop site as they, naturally, produce the most accurate models of their creatures.

Weta Workshop bust

It was clear that this particular troll has a pinky grey-brown colour.  Fortunately, I had a pretty good match for this with Humbrol number 250, desert pink, which was actually designed for RAF planes in the first Gulf War!

Given it was a big figure (much larger than the cave troll I painted before) I used five colour shading rather than my usual three.  For the armour I used a base of Citadel Bolt Gun Metal, then a darker shade by mixing some Choas Black in.  I then highlighted using Chainmail and then Mithril Silver.  I then applied a coat of Badab Black wash to take off most of the shine before dry brushing some rust on using Humbrol 100.

Once I'd sorted out how to handle the flesh the rest was comparatively straightforward. I'm never 100% happy with my completed figures but this one went better than most.  It probably has armour which is still too bright but overall I am quite pleased with it.  Got me thinking about finishing some more Minas Tirith soldiers anyway.

Sauron

Here is the Games Workshop Sauron figure which I got some time ago.  I painted this using lots of layers of Citadel Blotgun Metal, Chainmail, Tin Bitz and Mithril Silver with Humrol enamels for the black cape and base.  I need to finish the Elendil and Isildur figures which came with it too.

I haven't tried using him a game yet but I suspect he will need some major heroes to bring him down!

Cave Troll

One of the things I don't like about the Warhammer universe is the use of monsters.  Oddly, I basically want my fantasy armies to feature men rather than creatures.  Likewise I don't like magic so the surrent focus on this from GW is not to my taste at all, either. I know, I might just as well play Saxons and Vikings!  The current White Dwarf is pushing the Warhammer Ogre army which seems to feature large, fat, ugly bald men not dissimilar to many of the scooter riders I saw over the Bank Holiday on the Isle of Wight.  Why anyone would want an army of slaphead bikers is beyond me.

There are monsters in the Lord of the Rings, of course, but they are the exception not the rule.  This is the first one which appears in the films and I needed to paint it for a game (Balin's Tomb) we had at Guildford some years ago. 

I couldn't find many source pictures at the time as a colour guide.  In the film he is basically just grey so I toned down the skin tone that GW used on their examples.  I was quite happy with the way he turned out and recently put together a plastic armoured troll to have a go at for a change.