Mithril MC3 Thorin Oakenshield

 

This is one of the Classic series by Mithril, issued in the early 1990s. They represent key characters in the original stories of Tolkien, and namely the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings.

In this specific sculpt, Chris Tubb represented Thorin in fine clothes and holding on his shoulder the sword Orcrist. We may suppose this was meant to either represent Thorin during his stop at Rivendell, shortly after he recovered the sword from Hill Trolls in Rhudaur, or in Esgaroth, while he was a guest of the Master. The sculpt dates from 1991, as indicated on the base.

Thorin looks particularly relaxed and lordly, in line with the description of the Hobbit, where he is described as "an enormously important dwarf" and "very haughty". He drinks wine, plays a silver harp, does not help clean the table and holds a very long and institutional speech. I must say I really love how Tubb used he pose of the figure to bring out its character.

Now, allow me this short rant: Thorin's main characteristic is to be haughty. He is, after all, a very noble Dwarf, perhaps the noblest living in Middle-earth and Arda. He is heir of the kings of the Longbeards, the direct descendant of Durin the Deathless. He is pompous, sometimes arrogant, in a way obsessed with his inheritance and his family duty. But he is also a good leader, generous with his men, beloved by his people; he's smart, very good in talking his way out of situations, and yet keep his honour by not telling any lie; he can be aggressive, but he can be fun, too, laughing and singing with the other dwarves. He is just not simply a self-centered, brooding dick, as portrayed in the movies. I really hated how he came out there. Really, Thorin is such a great and complex character, PJ didn't do him justice. But then again, he didn't do justice to any character in the story, especially the grey-shaded ones.
Right, end of the rant.

It took me some time to decide how to paint it. The reasoning was that at Rivendell and Lake-town Thorin probably wore clothes that were fine but still not excessively rich: he was travelling after all. They should display deep colours, but not too garish. The only set thing was the hood: in the Hobbit, Thorin wears a "detachable hood" which was "sky-blue [...] with a long silver tassel". Now, this miniatures displays a cloak, not a detachable hood, but still here is the long silver tassel attached to the hood. I decided to go with it and keep the colours of sky-blue and silver.

The first layer of painting left me unhappy with the gold-rimmed cloak. That seemed too much for travelling clothes, so I changed that to silver as well.

 

Yes! I'm very happy with how the cloak turned out. Still room for improvement, but definitely better than the last one. The sword also looks nice - I painted it silver with a dark blue scabbard, to retain some "elvish flavour". I decided to leave the base pretty much disadorned, except for a dark green base and some lighter drybrush. This miniature will probably be used in games, so I don't want to add staff that will come off with heavy handling.

Look at the famous Thorin, son of Thráin, son of Thrór, heir of the Folk of Durin, gloating at the prospects of his homecoming to Erebor:

The King beneath the mountains,

The King of carven stone,

The lord of silver fountains

Shall come into his own!

His crown shall be upholden,

His harp shall be restrung,

His halls shall echo golden

To songs of yore re-sung.

The woods shall wave on mountains

And grass beneath the sun;

His wealth shall flow in fountains

And the rivers golden run.

The streams shall run in gladness,

The lakes shall shine and burn,

And sorrow fail and sadness

At the Mountain-king's return!

Mithril from the Past

One of the things that happen when moving from a home to another, is finding old boxes buried somewhere deep in a cabinet, or under a pile of other boxes in a closet. And when those boxes are opened... lo! the Past.

So here are a few Mithril miniatures that came out of one of those boxes.

MC 6 - Glorfindel



 

This is probably the first Mithril miniature ever I purchased and painted. That was back in the early '90s, and I used enamels. The result was not pleasing. So in the late '90s/early 2000s I washed it with some nasty acid and painted it again, this time with proper acrylics from Citadel. But I obviously got still a lot of way to go.
I know, the painting sucks, but the miniature is so pretty it still looks good under that layer of white.

M125 - Gandalf

Gandalf was purchased and painted in the late '90s/early 2000s. It's an improvement, although still far from being ok.





Haldir (M124 - Strider)

Here we are still in the late '90s/early 2000s. I wanted a miniature for my MERP PC Haldir the Elf, a Sinda warrior, and choose Strider as a base. Sometimes after I purchased the miniature, the GM had Haldir find a scale coat of laen, a crystal-like material - which I tried to represent by painting the tunic white and adding scales in pencil. Not particularly effective, but at least we are getting better than earlier attempts at painting.







Haldir and Aerin's Farewell (M343 - Aragorn's Leave-taking)

Haldir was not only a PC, but it was the main character of a story I started to write shortly after I read the Silmarillion. It involved the kidnapping of Haldir's bethroted, the Noldo Elf Aerin, by a raiding band of Orcs from Angmar. When I saw M343 from Mithril (that was the early 2000s) I knew it was perfect to represent the last meeting of the lovers before catastrophe, so I used it as a base to paint the scene.









My technique was improving, and I have to admit I put a lot of love and effort in this, so even after so many years I am still quite fond of this couple.

M371 - Advancing Axemen

These were the last Mithril miniatures I painted in the early 2000s (painted in full, at any rate - see later). Shortly afterwards I moved abroad and buried all the miniatures in a box until they re-emerged in 2016.

 

  

These Dwarves are meant to represent warriors from Drúhar's Folk, a branch of the Stonefoot Dwarves inhabiting the Iron Mountains in Middle-earth's Far North (at that time I was writing the fan module Far North). Here we are going somewhere at last, with blackwash on the chain mails.

And now they're back!

There is actually another miniature I started back at the time but I never finished. I am finishing it right at the moment and will be posting soon about it, so stay tuned!