Haldir Rhovanion, Grey Elf Warden - MM383 (1998) conversion

This is a special mini for me, one of the rare conversions I do, designed to represent my favourite home-made character in Middle-earth. Born as the main character of a short story I wrote as a school assignment at 14, developed into a player character in a game of MERP, and again resurrected, updated and polished in many other stories and games.

Haldir son of Handir, also called Rhovanion, is an Elf of the Grey Havens. Like many inhabitants of Mithlond he has mixed heritage, claiming ancestors in Doriath, Gondolin and the Falas, but he identifies as Sinda. Originally a border warden, he left service in Mithlond after failing to prevent an Orc raid into Elf-lands that claimed many lives, among them his bethroted Aerin. After a period of wandering, overcome with sorrow and sense of failure, he was saved by a wandering company of Elves in the Shire and was directed to seek the counsel of Elrond Half-elven who could make sense of some obscure dreams and visions he had been having. The Lord of Imladris suggested that those dreams of the fall of Gondolin, and darkness, a sword shining of blue light meant that Haldir might yet have a destiny to fulfil in Middle-earth and invited him to enter his service as a warden.

Let's now address the elephant in the room - why am I using the miniature of a Man to represent an Elf? I'll answer with a controversial statement: although Chris Tubb is possibly my favourite miniature sculptor, his male Elves are dull. They are too feminine (mostly), they all have long hair (not my vision), and they are usually dressed either in long robes or very simple tunics. I needed a warden, the Elf equivalent of a Ranger, and here it is. Mithril Miniatures, can you make an Elf equipped for ranging? Thank you.

My first miniature - Metal Magic Elf Archer w Cape

It was sometimes between 1993 and 1995, I guess. There was this shop, Pergioco, on the back of piazza Cordusio in Milan. It looked like a tiny shop, but there was a stair leading downwards into a very large room packed with boardgames, role-playing games, miniatures, dice and such. It was Saturday afternoon paradise, for an early teenager like I was.

Not that I had the money to buy anything. The subway tickets to the city centre took away about 40% of my weekly budget. But still, a few months after playing my first session of RPGs, I decided to buy a miniature. It was though deciding which one, but finally the choice fell on this one.

Elf Archers with Cape (1033e, 1992) from Metal Magic, a brand at that time owned by Hobby Products, a German manufacturer. To this day, I consider this one of the finest miniatures ever produced, and one that has shaped my aesthetic taste in fantasy. Truly, Josef Ochmann did a hell of a job on this one.

Take the perfect dynamic pose, for example: this Elf is loading an arrow and is set to shoot at a distant point, aiming slightly upwards to achieve a longer range. He has a distinctive elfin physique, slim but proportionate. Then there are the details: the trimming on the tunic, the fishlike scales of the armour following the shape of the chest, giving the idea of a lightweight armour and not a heavy one falling vertically. The sword on one side and the quiver on the other. High boots and a long cape. This is the hyperuranic elvish adventurer.

This was, for a long time, Haldir, the Sinda warrior from the Grey Havens, whom I played in MERP. Too bad I had no idea how to paint it and no budget to buy the expensive sets for painting at the time.

So I gave it to one of the guys in my playing group, because he claimed he was good. He held it for about 6 months and, after repeated requests to return it, gave it back with the lousiest paintjob ever. It was, quite literally, a clumsy brush of pink on the face and hands, one of grey on the armour, and one of green on the cloak. End of it (WIP, he claimed). But what made me really mad was that I made ONE request: that the cape was to grey. Haldir was a Grey Elf, after all, and having read the Silmarillion quite recently, I was adamant about it.

Years later I found another friend (I had left the old group since, and wasn't playing MERP anymore) who could paint, and graciously offered to paint my miniature. He did what you see now, a very nice paintjob, at least for a teenager from the 90s. We didn't have much money fro colours and brushes, and we didn't have any access to GW's paint courses or youtube tutorials. Everything was perfect, except for one detail: the cape was, again, green.

If you want a job well done, they say, there's only one way to do it. So I did it myself. Meanwhile the GW shop had opened in Milan, I got myself a set of colours, and painted the cloak in grey. And that's how, over the course of several year, this miniature got painted.

What was your first miniature? Any interesting story to share? Let me know in the comments!

Thranduil in Autumn Attire (MC8 Elvenking) - Painting Manual

In this post I will try to describe, step by step, my approach to paint a miniature. It will probably be TL,DR, but hopefully someone can find some useful tips.

So, everything starts with a pack.

I got mine from a fellow Mithril lover who had put part of his collection for sale, and so, from Denmark, here's the Elvenking. This is a classic figure, one of those you saw on Mithril advertisements back in the 90s.

Now, how to paint this. You know I'm a Tolkien purist and I wanted to get this right, so I did some research in the sources. "The Hobbit" is the one:

"[...] at the head of a long line of feasters sat a woodland king with a crown of leaves upon his golden hair [...]"

Hob

and

"In a great hall with pillars hewn out of the living stone sat the Elvenking on a chair of carven wood. On his head was a crown of berries and red leaves, for the autumn was come again. In the spring he wore a crown of woodland flowers. In his hand he held a carven staff of oak."

Hob

There isn't actually much more. It is mentioned that he has green banners, and he loves emeralds (supposedly because they are green).

"To the Elvenking he gave the emeralds of Girion, such jewels as he most loved [...]"
Hob

So he likes green, we get it. But who is the Elvenking?

Looking at other sources, such as the Lord of the Rings and Unfinished Tales, we learn his name is Thranduil. Of Sindarin descent, he was the son of Oropher, who in the Second Age left Beleriand and became a king among the Silvan Elves of Greenwood the Great. Oropher died in the War of the Last Alliance, and Thranduil succeeded him as Elvenking. It was after a thousand years of his reign that a shadow came over Greenwood, and it started to be known as Mirkwood. Thranduil did not have the power to wage war against the Necromancer of Dol Guldur, and so he withdrew from the old palace in the Mountains of Mirkwood and has a new dwelling delved in the northern part of the Forest, which was what remained of his kingdom in the late Third Age. Thranduil was the father of Legolas, of the Fellowship of the Ring.

So we have a Sindarin king ruling over Silvan Elves and a dwindling kingdom. I expect him to be elegant and refined, but in a simple way. He probably has nice clothes of fine fabric, Elven-made or possibly imported (he imports his wine, after all).

Now, let's look at how the Elvenking has been depicted in other media, just to get some inspiration.

This is my favourite one: art by Pauline Baynes, Tolkien's own appointed illustrator. This is taken from "Bilbo's Last Journey". Here the Elvenking has the red crown of leaves and berries, a light green robe and a dark green cloak embroidered with red thread.

What else?

This is the Elvenking from the Hobbit Cartoon (1977). And that's a big nope.

This is the Comic Book by D. Wenzel (1989).

You all know this guy. Good god, do I hate his impression of an elf >:(

Srsly?

Okay, we have an idea, but very confused. Frankly, I only like Pauline Baynes' idea, so I start working on it.

It's not bad, but it's not good either... I think I could do something more. The colours are too many and too different. But I don't want a predominantly green pattern, this is not Spring anymore. I want an Elvenking in Autumn garments. I want him to look close to Nature, but a Nature that is striving against Shadow. He lives in caves, but his kingdom is covered by trees.

Then it hits me:

"In fact the subjects of the king mostly lived and hunted in the open woods, and had houses or huts on the ground and in the branches. The beeches were their favourite trees."
Hob

Beeches.

 

 

Do you see what I see? The pattern. Earthy greys. Deep yellows. That's my Elvenking.

Let's start painting!

We start from the browns: boots and undergarments.

Then we paint the grey undertunic, and the bright overtunic, orange with yellow dry-brush.

 

A lighter, brighter yellow for the cloak.

Ah, Thranduil's hair. If you're familiar with Tolkien fandom, you'll know about the Great Hair Colour Debate about Legolas. But the Hobbit says quite specifically that the Elvenking's hair were golden (take this, PJ!). I went for a dark ochre just because I prefer to keep a light yellow for the few Elves of the House of Finarfin, and I also find it goes better with the Autumn mood.

Next we do the belt and the scabbard with the same brown as the boots. It's leather brown mixed with a point of grey. Details are highlighted in yellow (flowers on the belt) and white (flower of the scabbard). We also add a metal colour to the scabbard's edges and the sword hilt.

And now here's the crown. A flat red will do the trick, as we'll work further on it later.

The first hand is now finished. We do a little retouch here and there, especially on the yellow parts since I didn't find any bright yellow that's really good either in Vallejo or Citadel ranges. Then we paint the base, in our case a neutral dark brown. When we are done with this, we start the shading.

Here's what a little Fleshtone Wash can do!

Not to mention a Sepia Wash for all Yellow parts, and a Black Wash for all others! It's highlight time now, and we add a bit of the original colours on top of the shaded parts, to let the outer bits of the miniature flash out.
We'll do this especially for the yellow cloak and the red crown, which have been dimmed down by the washes; I want them to be the most striking parts of the figure.

We're done, at last! The Elvenking's painted and finished. Imagine meeting this guy in a dark forest, standing among the trees out of nowhere.

"[They] were Wood-elves, of course. These are not wicked folk. If they have a fault it is distrust of strangers. Though their magic was strong, even in those days they were wary. They differed from the High Elves of the West, and were more dangerous and less wise."
Hob

But the work is not done completely. To do justice to the figure, we need to base it properly.

We'll start with a layer of fine sand, attached with vinilic glue.

And progress with some more coarse earth, to represent stones and rocks. Add a pinch of Noch marshland grass of the matching colour, and there you have it!
Ladies and gentlemen, the Elvenking in Autumn garments!