'Mercenary' from PeterA: The Dark Marshal

To begin with I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do for this Round. I knew I wanted the entry to be themed to The Lord of the Rings, but what was it going to be? It seemed obvious that I would be choosing from the minions of Mordor, but the backstory for my first thoughts - Easterlings & Haradrim - did not really fit the mercenary theme.

Rather bizarrely, everything fell into place when I started considering the definition of mercenary as an adjective, rather than a noun. Looked at this way, a mercenary character is venal - corrupt and susceptible to bribery. And who better fits this description than one of the Nine Mortal Men who Sauron bribed with rings of power, enslaving them and turning them into Nazgul, Ringwraiths, the most feared of his servants.

With the entry fixed, all I needed was a suitable figure. A quick rummage in the LoTR lead-pile turned up this old metal cast of The Dark Marshall. I am not a fan of all of the alternative 'character' sculpts for the Ringwraiths, but I do like the backstory of The Dark Marshall - even as a mortal he had a 'murderous reputation' and now his soldiers follow his orders as much out of fear as obedience. Suitably wicked!

So here is my entry for the Mercenary Bonus theme - The Dark Marshal mounted on horseback.

Now, I do not like painting black, and there is a lot of black on this figure. To try and avoid horse and rider merging into one, I tried to create variety with different shading and highlighting. The Dark Marshall's robes are highlighted with a blue-grey (GW 'The Fang') and then washed with GW 'Drakenhof Nightshade'. I might have been better off using a lighter colour, as the wash has really muted the highlights - I can give that a go on one of the other eight Nazgul!

Meanwhile the cloth covering the horse was highlighted in a lighter blue grey (GW 'Russ Grey '), but instead of using a wash I used GW 'Gulliman Blue ' glaze to tone down the highlights slightly but still leave them distinct from the Marshall's cloak.

Finally, bits of the horse itself like the tail were highlighted in a light grey (VJ 'Deep Sea Grey')

Last of all, as a nod to his past as a King of Men, The Dark Marshal wears a golden crown for a bit of contrast (and a break from highlighting all that bloody black!)