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 Post subject: Gangleri's Miniatures
PostPosted: Thu Mar 30, 2017 3:20 am 
Kinsman
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Hello, folks. I've been admiring the work I've seen on this site for years but have been quiet up till now (don't like to comment on others' work without presenting my own for comments/criticism), mainly because I've been unable to take decent photographs of my miniatures. I recently came across the milk jug lightbox thread in the Photography Workshop section, however, and am pretty happy with the results, so I thought I'd post them.

Over the past few years the focus of my collecting and painting has been on Rhovanion and (to a lesser degree) Eriador in the tumultuous period shortly before the events of the Fellowship of the Ring. The miniatures I used to test the lightbox - and thus the ones I present first - are supposed to be the troublemakers Saruman has sent into Breeland.

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Some Dunlendings, come up the Greenway to do Saruman's bidding.

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Two half-orcs. These are Perry plastics with Orc hunter heads and some Bretonnian bits. I did them a while ago and am thinking of repainting the skin (was going for the sallow tone Tolkien describes).

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Ruffians. The archer is from Red Box Games with Perry hands. Both heads are Perry Russian infantry heads with forage caps, which are my only source of almost-bare plastic heads for conversions. Plus, most of the faces are a bit grimacey, which makes them good for rogues and brigands. The one on the right is a bit bibulous and has a red nose to prove it. The archer is painted to resemble a member of the Blackwolds, a gang of bandits from Lord of the Rings Online that pesters eastern Bree. As you will see, I get a lot of inspiration from this game. Basing still incomplete.

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Sharkey himself, on an incognito trip from Isengard. I tried to blend some brighter colors into the robe, but only the pink is really visible in this photo. I was trying to recreate the subtly shimmering quality of the robe he wear as Saruman of Many Colors. The bird in front of him, which is one of his "spies," is painted as a common grackle. I see them in my yard at certain times of year, and their cunning yellow eyes, shimmering iridescent feathers (which seem to change color), and shifty behavior always remind me of Saruman.

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A Bree militiaman. Perry Agincourt plastic miniature with an old Warhammer shield. This is a test for a "Breeland Defense Force" project I've had in mind for a while. Basing is undecided until I do more of these. In LotRO, the Boar's head is the emblem of Bree proper, and it's a nice little image to paint. Tolkien writes that Breelanders have somewhat swarthier complexions than other men in the North, so I gave him the same skin-tone as the Dunlendings, who are not-too-distant cousins to the Bree-men.

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Image is a bit too bright, but I'm pretty pleased with Gollum, especially the fish. Finished him last night.

I'm eager to hear what you all think. C&C welcome, as are tips for normalizing the photo colors a bit more. Hope to have more photographed soon.

-Gangleri
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 Post subject: Re: Gangleri's Miniatures
PostPosted: Fri Mar 31, 2017 4:09 am 
Craftsman
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Fantastic. Your Dunlendings, Sharkey, and Golum are my favorite.

I agree, it's really tough to get the proper photo of your work. I'm still trying to figure it out.

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 Post subject: Re: Gangleri's Miniatures
PostPosted: Fri Mar 31, 2017 7:19 am 
Loremaster
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Great band of thugs you're assembling there, good use of the terrific Perry sets too.
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 Post subject: Re: Gangleri's Miniatures
PostPosted: Fri Mar 31, 2017 8:07 am 
Craftsman
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Very nice work - A Breeland force would certainly be unique :)
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 Post subject: Re: Gangleri's Miniatures
PostPosted: Sat Apr 01, 2017 2:22 pm 
Kinsman
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Thanks for the comments, all.

Coenus Scaldingus wrote:
good use of the terrific Perry sets too.

The Perry sets are a wonderful trove of figures and parts, and of course there's the nice continuity of style and proportion between them and the Perry LotR work from 15 years ago. The one downside is that the bases can be rather thick, and when glued to a slottabase each one looks like he's standing on a hillock and towers over the other figures.. So you have to trim or remove the base, which can be a pain.

slinky wrote:
A Breeland force would certainly be unique :)

Then the project is a go!

Some famous personages from Middle-earth:

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I see there are a few imperfections I will have to clean up.

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I didn't like the stone in the staff, so that had to go. The bird had already gone to Saruman, and I decided to replace it with a moth in reference to the films (always loved that scene).

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The moth is unfortunately quite delicate and has already broken down the middle once. I also wish I had painted it as a less exotic specimen - perhaps I will change it.

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Aragorn, son of Arathorn. I went with a five-o'clock shadow instead of Viggo's beard to straddle both sides of the Aragorn facial hair dispute.

Hope you like them! More to follow soon.
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 Post subject: Re: Gangleri's Miniatures
PostPosted: Tue Apr 04, 2017 9:35 am 
Loremaster
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Very nice work on all the miniatures but I have to say my favourites are the Dunlendings, Ruffians and half-orcs. They have a real grubby/shifty feel about them which elicits the feeling I got for them from the books.

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Last edited by Crucium Giger on Tue Apr 18, 2017 8:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
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 Post subject: Re: Gangleri's Miniatures
PostPosted: Fri Apr 14, 2017 9:47 pm 
Kinsman
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Crucium Giger wrote:
Very nice work on all the miniatures but I have to say my favourites are the Dunlendings, Ruffians and half-orcs. They have a real grubby/shifty feel about them which elicits the felling I got for them from the books.


Thanks, Mr. Giger. You'll be pleased to hear I have a few more in the works.


Some of you may have read Tolkien's poem, "The Mewlips." It's a hobbit-poem about some strange monsters who live in a marsh over the "Merlock Mountains," catch and eat passers-by, and store their bones and treasures in sacks. The poem is rather vague, and we of course can't be sure whether these mewlips even exist or are just fantastical, but there were some sections and lines in it that reminded me very much of Grendel and his mother (and I imagine the similarity is not entirely coincidental, given Tolkien's love for and immense knowledge of Beowulf). I had two spare plaguebearer bodies lying around at one point and decided to make some mewlips, which turned out to be sort of a Middle-earth version of Grendel and his mother.

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They involved a fair bit of sculpting (including the naughty bits), but I am pretty pleased with how they turned out. The pictures don't show it so well, but the bases glisten, as though the mewlips are standing knee-deep in murky marsh-water.

Hope you like 'em.
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 Post subject: Re: Gangleri's Miniatures
PostPosted: Sun Apr 16, 2017 10:50 pm 
Kinsman
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Man those are disturbing, definitely stuff of Hobbit nightmares!
Inspiring conversions!

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 Post subject: Re: Gangleri's Miniatures
PostPosted: Sun Apr 16, 2017 11:09 pm 
Kinsman
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Wow great works both paint and conversion, love especially the bree militiaman, an entire army would be super awesome!

Great idea to make the mewlips, i probably have read of them having the bombadil books but didn't remember, so after this post ill go immediately to the book!

Thanks for this it's always a pleasure to see something so unique and peculiar turn into miniature from tolkien writing!
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 Post subject: Re: Gangleri's Miniatures
PostPosted: Mon Apr 17, 2017 4:46 pm 
Elven Warrior
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I was going to say 'beautiful conversions/sculpts', but I figured that would not really be appropriate, so I'll go for 'amazing conversions/sculpts'! :)
They seem very plausible and are close to how I imagined them. I love it when people make these true-to-the-books miniatures. :yay:
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 Post subject: Re: Gangleri's Miniatures
PostPosted: Sat Apr 22, 2017 1:51 pm 
Kinsman
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Eric wrote:
Man those are disturbing, definitely stuff of Hobbit nightmares!

Thanks, just what I was going for!

Morghot wrote:
Wow great works both paint and conversion, love especially the bree militiaman, an entire army would be super awesome!

Great idea to make the mewlips, i probably have read of them having the bombadil books but didn't remember, so after this post ill go immediately to the book!

Thanks for this it's always a pleasure to see something so unique and peculiar turn into miniature from tolkien writing!


I'm very glad you like them! Yes, the Mewlips are in the Adventures of Tom Bombadil, which is an interesting but often overlooked source of information (and enjoyment), and I hope to draw some more inspiration from there for a few future projects. The Bree militia are slowly in the works as well.

Fëanor, the mighty elf wrote:
I was going to say 'beautiful conversions/sculpts', but I figured that would not really be appropriate, so I'll go for 'amazing conversions/sculpts'! :)
They seem very plausible and are close to how I imagined them. I love it when people make these true-to-the-books miniatures. :yay:


Thank you! It means a lot to hear it from you. It's one of my favorite things in this hobby to explore the little sections of the books, sometimes no more than a phrase or two, where Tolkien hints at things but doesn't flesh them out, and I have another project near completion in this vein.


Here are some Brown Lands orcs, the kind who shot arrows at the Fellowship traveling down the Anduin or cross over on rafts to raid Rohan. They're meant to be your ordinary generic orcs, sort of drab and clad in 'dun raiment.' The treasured metal sculpts I have not touched, but I tried to customize the plastic ones to make them a bit more interesting.

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More to follow..

Cheers!
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 Post subject: Re: Gangleri's Miniatures
PostPosted: Sat Apr 22, 2017 6:37 pm 
Kinsman
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These are anything but 'drab and in dun raiment'! Your painting brings a lot out on the sculpts of the miniatures (especially like the skin on Grishnakh and the scraps of yellow cloth). The conversions on the plastic orcs add lots of character too.

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 Post subject: Re: Gangleri's Miniatures
PostPosted: Sun Apr 23, 2017 8:11 pm 
Elven Warrior
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Very nice painting, sculpting and freehand :yay:

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 Post subject: Re: Gangleri's Miniatures
PostPosted: Mon Apr 24, 2017 8:54 am 
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Now the Mewlips are creepy. Great work on them, truly things from a Hobbit's nightmare.

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 Post subject: Re: Gangleri's Miniatures
PostPosted: Mon May 01, 2017 2:13 pm 
Kinsman
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Thanks for your comments, all!

For a long time I've been working on a group of Dunedain whom I refer to as the "Knights of Evendim." They keep watch over the revered ruins of the North-kingdom that lie along the shores of Lake Evendim, and in observance of this duty they dress more nobly than their brethren who wander the wilds.

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The photo doesn't show it, but this was the most complicated conversion I've ever done. I had to cut out and reposition the left arm, grind away the quiver, and resculpt the clothing to hide the scars. The shield is meant to show the view looking west from the hills over the eastern shore of Lake Evendim after the sun has set. I painted it "from life," as it were, looking out my window at a winter sunset last year. In the foreground is a silhouette of Tinnundir, one of the old buildings outside of Annuminas that can be explored in LotRO. For reference here is a screenshot:

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These were in part an excuse to use the old Grey Company miniatures and do some free-hand painting. I found the miniatures (which I think are some of the best-looking ones GW ever did) hard to paint, however, especially the faces. There's a third in the works and has been lying half-converted on my table for about 5 months - should really finish him.

In other news, I am working on converting some more brigands. This one is nearly finished:

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Perry WotR body, HYW arms, and Mahdist head.

More to come soon-ish.
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 Post subject: Re: Gangleri's Miniatures
PostPosted: Mon May 01, 2017 3:54 pm 
Elven Warrior
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This is the first time I've seen this thread and I really like your work. I think the style is quite unique. My favorite piece is Grishnakh, I just love that face.

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 Post subject: Re: Gangleri's Miniatures
PostPosted: Tue May 02, 2017 8:27 am 
Loremaster
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Some more fine work, keep em coming :)

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 Post subject: Re: Gangleri's Miniatures
PostPosted: Wed May 03, 2017 1:56 am 
Elven Elder
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Lovely conversions

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 Post subject: Re: Gangleri's Miniatures
PostPosted: Mon May 22, 2017 5:19 pm 
Kinsman
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Thanks to all for the comments!

GreatKhanArtist wrote:
My favorite piece is Grishnakh, I just love that face.


Thanks, it's among my favorites too.


Got around to taking some more photos - for some reason they didn't come out too well, kept getting horizontal bars across a lot of them. Warg riders!

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Leader

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I call this one "Magua."

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Didn't really like the wavy swords in this set and swapped them out for more brutal blades.

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Skulls are always a worthwhile addition.

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Scout. I didn't like some of the faces and decided to hide them behind masks.

Hope you like them.
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 Post subject: Re: Gangleri's Miniatures
PostPosted: Tue May 23, 2017 8:14 am 
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Those warg riders look very cool, nice additions to them with the spikes and masks!


Last edited by LarryjoeNL on Wed May 24, 2017 4:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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