Wednesday, January 23, 2013

10mm Guardian Statues Terrain Project

Inspired by the giant statues guarding the river in the Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring movie, I decided I wanted to make something similar for myself to guard the entrance to the elvish kingdom  in my 10mm 'Look, Sarge, No Charts: Fantasy, Ancients and Medieval" (aka "Bear Yourselves Valiantly") game I'm putting together for Cold Wars.
(You can click any photo to see it larger)
The finished Guardians standing watch on a river.
 
To begin with, I would need suitable figures for the statues.  So, I permanently 'borrowed' two High Elf Spearmen figures from my wife's collection of the old Combat Hex Lord of the Rings Collectible game. (Yes, I had her permission. :-) )  These figures stand approximately 35mm to the eyes, and I figured they would be perfect for large statues in 10mm.

The assembly: plaster rocks, plastic figures and sand all glued to a cut down CD.
 
First I removed the figures from their plastic bases.  Then, I cut up an old scrap CD to make the bases for these terrain pieces.  Next I glued some old plaster cavern rock outcroppings I had to the CD's.  (Any suitable "rock" substitute could be used here: pink or blue insulation foam cut to shape, or actual real rocks.)  Next I trimmed down the back of the elves' robes and elbows to make them fit snugly to the rock and give the appearance that they were carved from the larger piece.  My final step was to smear some glue on the base, and scatter some sand and pebbles around the rocky outcroppings and statues.
A close up of the Milliput used to help close the gaps between the figure and the rock.
 
When these assemblies had dried, I used some Milliput to fill in gaps in the areas where the plastic figures met the plaster rocks, and attempted to give them a better appearance of being sculpted from a single piece of stone.
A view with a base of 10mm troops to give a sense of scale.
 
My next step was to prime the pieces with flat black Krylon Fusion spray paint. I then let this dry overnight.
Primed black, and ready for dry-brushing.
 
 
Next, I began the process of drybrushing the pieces.  I began with a dark gray-green, and then used a mid gray. I then did a lighter drybrush with a light gray, then did some light touch up with an almost white gray. Then when this had dried, I flocked the bases using a white glue and brown paint mixture and Woodland Scenics flock, then I added some Woodland Scenics bushes here and there.  The final step, when everything was dry, was to give them a spray with Testor's Dullcoat.
The finished products, again shown with some 10mm figures for scale.
 
   I'm very pleased with how these turned out, and all in all they did not take long to do.  Most of the time was in waiting for steps to dry.  They are now ready to stand guard over my Elven Kingdom.
Another view of the finished pieces from the reverse side.

2 comments:

  1. Neat idea! I like how they came out.

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  2. Very nice.

    We watched Lord of the Rings over the last weekend. My 14 year-old (Dane, you've met him at Historicon a couple of times, Chris) noticed the statues were in sandals. His comment?

    "Huh. Must've been Casual Friday when they were sculpted."

    I gave myself +100 parenting points for raising a kid with a twisted sense of humor.

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