FATE OF THE WITCH KING

Finally! I've managed to create a Witch King model with a little gravitas. I never liked the models they released for him as none of them looked as cool as he did in the movie. Personally, I think this new model is simply, badass. To start with, I decided early on that he'd need to be set on a larger cavalry base. I know this isn't strictly within the rules, but it isn't technically outside of them either, as far as I know. It just seems to fit better. I wouldn't do this for another run of the mill captain. To give him a little lift, I used another piece of slate from the garden to act as a podium. Green stuffed onto the base, I placed a few scattered skulls around it to add a feeling of dread. I started with the special edition Fate of the Witch King model, which you can still buy from GW. A quick sawing off of the limbs and hands, and he's ready.

To get the pose just right was the main aim for this model. I wanted him to be posed just as he falls off his fell beast, and openly chalenges Eowyn to a duel. He holds his flail in one hand, and his sword in the other. After repositioning his left arm, I could then give him his weapons. The flail was made using his left hand and flail, replacing the chain with a real chain I managed to get from a jewellers.

After I moulded his sword back into his right hand, and a black undercoat, he was ready for painting!

This model was very simple to paint, as there's only three colours really. Drybrush codex grrey over the black on his robes, leadbelcher for the metal areas and bestial brown for the skulls. A black wash was needed for the robes after this, and a wash mix of black and scorched brown for the metal areas for a slightly rusted, dirty look. The skulls were layered with snakebite leather then bleached bone. For the final parts, the metal areas were highlighted with chainmail and the skulls were picked out with skull white. The base was finished to a typical standard of my army, with the rock podium being drubrushed with codex grey, fortress grey and white... And here he is. Now for the fell beast...

And to go with him, I thought it'd be best to finish Merry and Eowyn too...

GOTHMOG MOUNTED ON WARG CHIEFTAIN

To give my army a leader who both looked impressive and intimidating and could act as a force to be reckoned with, I chose Gothmog. Trouble is, I wasn’t satisfied with any of the individual models GW brought out for him, so I decided to make customize my own. As soon as the Warg Chieftain, or Alpha Warg model came out, I knew I had to have an Orc hero mounted on him. So that’s what I did. I've never seen it done before, so I'm actually quite proud of this one.

The model below is made up of the Warg Chieftain model and Gothmog Pelennor version, which comes with a different warg. The warg itself was made to look more dynamic by basing his already sculpted base on some slate from the garden, this gave it extra height and more balance.  A saddle and strap had to be made so Gothmog could sit comfortably on him. Finally after some green stuff around the joints and sawing a small section of mane off, he was ready. This is the result…

And just to show how intimidating he looks, I posed him next to an average height Osgiliath Veteran of mine. Huge.

And of course, no mounted model would be complete without the separate models. The warg acts quite nicely as a Wild Alpha Warg in certain scenarios.