'Fellowship' from PeterA: "We Are Your Friends, Frodo"

It didn't take much thought to decide on my entry for the final Bonus Theme. Although I had painted up Boromir, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimili some time ago, I had never got around to painting up the remaining five members of the Fellowship, so this was the perfect opportunity to get them done.

All of these are GW metal figures sourced from Ebay, as I never bought the original Fellowship boxed set, and I have no love for the more recent plastic version.

First up we have Gandalf the Grey. I do like this sculpt, the dynamic pose is really characterful. I did try to do a glowing effect from the crystal at the top of his staff, but it looked absolutely pony, so re-painted the top brown.

Next we have Merry (on the left) and Pippin (right). I have painted these as if they are wearing Elven cloaks, although I think the sculpts are based on their appearance from earlier in the movie. Pippin has a red cloak at that point, so I did his scarf red as a nod to that.

Next are Sam and Frodo. Again, very characterful. I can imagine Sam charging off to Frodo's defense, whilst Frodo himself leans back, clutching the Precious Ring. I tried to give Frodo's sword, Sting, a blue glaze to represent what happens when enemies are near but I need more practice I think! I also love the fact that they come with packs, with Sam's being suitably larger than Frodo's (it even has a spoon and small pot sculpted on).

And here they are all together. 

And here is the now complete Fellowship of the Ring!

The quote from the top comes from this passage in The Lord of the Rings:

"You can trust us to stick with you through thick and thin - to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours - closer than you keep it yourself. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word. We are your friends, Frodo"

Seems like a pretty decent definition of Fellowship to me!

'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!)

'Reconnaissance' from PeterA: "Find the Halfling!"

Given that the overarching theme of the Challenge is Fellowship, my thoughts turned to making each entry I can make into the Bonus Rounds themed around the Lord of the Rings. I have a fair few GW LoTR figures in the lead pile and this gives me a perfect reason to dig some out and get them painted (Although, of course if I want to justice to this idea I might, regrettably, have to buy some new figures. You know, for completeness' sake).

One of my favourite scenes from the trilogy is the breaking of the Fellowship at Amon Hen from the first movie, as they are set upon by a mob of Uruk-Hai scouts led by Lurtz. Many moons ago, GW did an excellent 2-part scenario based on this scene, for which you need 36 Uruk-Hai scouts. With this in mind, my entry for this Bonus Round is a group of 16 Uruk-Hai scouts to add to the (pitifully few) already painted figures I have.

First up are 8 Uruk-Hai archers.

They are joined by 8 Uruk-Hai armed with swords and shield or just swords.

And here is a shot of all of the Uruk-Hai (Lurtz crept into shot but doesn't count as he was already painted up pre-Challenge).

I wanted the figures to look dull and dirty, so have painted them in a variety of Vallejo browns and very dark grey, before heavily washing them with GW Nuln Oil. Looking at them now, a few White Hand markings would work, so I may re-visit them in the future and tart them up a bit. I tried to switch the colours around on different figures, so they would look varied but still tie together. Having said that, I still managed to paint two identical sculpts identically! The figures are all from the GW plastic box set; who knows maybe the remainder of the box will get finished before March!