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.
