Okay, there is no way I am going to be able to wait to post my Fellowship figures until all of them are finished. I like them too much and couldn't wait any longer to post pictures of them, so here they are. They turned out WAY better than I even hoped.
Here we have Boromir, Merry, and Aragorn. Now let's see them one at a time.
Waahhh! Waahhh! Waahhh! Boromir, Son of Gondor, with his famous horn.
And his shield strapped to his back. He, like Aragorn, was made using the regular old upside down milk bottle construction like I've been using for my fantasy figures for a while now. Thing is, both he and Aragorn wear a coat-like piece of clothing (not to mention Aragorn's leather armor has a skirt to it), and this clothing sticks out from their bodies. I could have just ignored this and painted it all on the milk bottle. But the problem with this is that the milk bottle tapers smaller as you get down to their feet. So it just would not have looked right. In other words, had I done that, Boromir's black leather coat would have been wide at his shoulders and very narrow at his feet. That just doesn't look right. Speaking of feet, I actually put tile spacer feet on these guys, which is also different than the other fantasy figures I've been doing (the heroes anyway). To make the coat, I used a piece of regular white paper and cut it to the right shape, put some glue on the milk bottle, and wrapped the paper around the wooden milk bottle. It was a little fiddly, but honestly, once the glue dried, it is a really sturdy coat. It only goes half way up the milk bottle but to remedy the extra thickness of the paper, I just painted the top lip of the paper as his belt, which makes it look very natural. Everything else is standard construction except for his horn. I just cut it out of a tile spacer.
And now to Aragorn ...
Same basic construction. His coat/paper piece is the same except that it's a bit shorter in length, and I also cut two levels in it because the green coat is longer than the skirt of his leather armor.
Not the best picture but I learned from my other Ranger figure how easy it is to do a tile spacer bow and glue it on the figures back. Did that with Aragorn too, as you can see.
And finally, Merry the hobbit ...
My favorite things about this figure are a) the feet, and b) the cloak. The feet you can see well here. They are tile spacers just like I did for the goblins (in fact his body is the same 1/2" spool as the goblins), but rather than leaving them consistent in thickness (like a pair of goblin boots would be in my mind), after gluing this figure to the base, I cut the feet down at about a 45 degree angle from the edge where it glues onto the spool body until you get to the end of the tile spacer. Makes for a nice tapered foot shape I think, especially after I painted the hair on the top of the feet with the toes sticking out at the bottom.
The cloak is just two pieces of paper. The first is a rectangle glued over the back. The second is a crescent moon shape that is glued into place to make the hood. Then I just painted it. I have done some Fellowship figures in the past where I used craft felt to make the cloaks. They look good because they are "fuzzy" like cloth (because they are cloth!), but they are pretty tricky to make and only super glue will hold them in place. And invariably you get super glue all over the fabric which changes its texture and color, or worse than that all over your painted figure because you can't paint the figure once the cloak is on it without getting paint on the cloak, which of course ruins everything. But the bad part is that you end up getting super glue on the painted figure usually when you are gluing the craft felt cloak into place, which is also a problem. The paper was a lot easier to work with, I could use regular white glue to put it into place, I glued it onto an unpainted figure, and once the glue dries it is very sturdy.
Good luck at the sword arm and the other foot, as well as the profile of the cloak. That was another problem with the craft felt cloaks with figures at this scale, they were just too thick. The craft felt cloaks look more like parkas than cloaks. Good look at his other hobbit foot too in this picture.
I hope you like them! I'm working on another batch of goblins now as well as Pippin and Gimli. Gimli is giving me a little trouble, but I'm confident I will work it out eventually.
Yet more fantastic figures.I really like the work you have done with the paper on the cloak/clothes.I can't wait to see the rest of the fellowship.
ReplyDeleteAlan
Really great work and very evocative. I have posted each of the figures as separate posts in DM Scotty's Facebook page. Somehow I think Merry is going to win. :)
ReplyDeleteThe feet and the hooded cloak are really well done.
Thanks! They have been a lot of fun to do, and I am obviously putting way more painting details in these figures than I do usually. But they are the Fellowship after all, right! They deserve a lot of attention. Dale, I think you are right, Merry will likely win. But in person, when you can turn the figure around in your hand and look at it from all angles, I think Boromir is the most impressive looking. But that could change. I'm a bit worried about Gandalf's hat. I made a felt one for an old figure before, but I think I am either going to use wooden pieces (which might be too "blocky" looking) or make it out of paper like I did the cloaks (probably the best option. Regardless, I have become really excited about this project and am almost halfway to its completion in only a couple of weeks. I need to figure out how to do the Balrog and how to do the terrain, but I'm hoping to put this game on for my gaming club by May hopefully.
ReplyDeleteHey Graymouser, these figs are fantastic! Also checked out LOTR figs on the Wargaming on a Budget group. I apologize if you have already provided this, but may I ask, what are the basic parts I would need for these dudes? Thanks! Jonathan
ReplyDeleteHi Jonathan,
ReplyDeleteI would bet that the figures on the Wargaming on a Budget group are mine as well. I will eventually post some pictures where I have the old ones side by side with these new ones.
Thanks! For the hobbits, the pieces are a small round bead for the head (I think it is a 3/8 inch bead) with a 1/2" x 1/2" spool for the body. The arms, weapons, and feet are tile spacers that I cut to the shapes I need. The hobbit areas are tile spacers but you do need to cut them and glue the pieces together to make the bent arm. The cloak is just white paper cut and glued onto the body. The human heroes are wooden milk bottles to make the body, with tapered wooden plugs for the head (I believe they are 1/2" plugs). Arms and weapons are tile spacers. The skirt/coat is just white paper cut to fit and glued to the body. The feet are also a cut tile spacers.
I know this isn't very helpful, I need to do a YouTube video.
That's great thanks! The only wooden milk bottles I have access to are 2 inches tall, is that sound about right?
ReplyDeleteIf you are trying to make them scale with 28mm figures then the milk bottle, which represents the body from the feet to the shoulders, should probably be somewhere around 20mm tall, or less than 1 inch. This leaves you with about 8mm for the piece that represents the head. You can always use a 2" piece, but your figure is going to end up more like 60mm tall.
DeleteHi Jonathan,
ReplyDeleteI believe the milk bottles that I use are 7/8" tall. You can get them online from various suppliers of wooden craft parts. Just do a search on 7/8" wooden milk bottle" and you should get several options.