Chest of Colors forum

Some time ago I agreed to take part in a paint minis for charity scheme on an LOTR themed website, as LOTR is my biggest interest it seemed fitting. I had previously been an active supporter of the Paint Aid project that was held with not a little success on Cmon and felt it would be cool to take part again in something similar. My contribution to this particular one is the Gondorian Battlecry Trebuchet and crew of which there are three for those who are unfamiliar with the model.
I have completed the actual Trebuchet itself and also one of the crewmen and I have put the pictures here for your viewing. I would like to say one thing about this model, I find LOTR miniatures very frustrating as you either get a very good cast with lots of clear detail or a very poor one, there seems to be no inbetween. The stone thrower itself is a multipart kit and the fit was terrible, I had to force some of the components to get the whole thing to go together and therefore the final result is a bit wonky looking, for this I apologise but it was totally out of my control and having spoken to other people who have made this same model I am not the only one to have had this problem. Anyway without further ado here is the model as it stands so far,

Click to see full-sized image

Click to see full-sized image

Click to see full-sized image

Click to see full-sized image

Click to see full-sized image

The base is designed to be able to have the crew removable should the trebuchet become damaged in which case they would (should they survive its destruction) revert to regular Gondorian Infantrymen. Also I wanted a neitralish looking base so as it makes it usable in a wider variety of settings, even though the engines would primarily have been used for the defense of Minas Tirith, there is nothing to say that one could not have been used in the field of battle as a ranged weapon. I have two more crewment to complete and I may yet add one or two more details to the main base but we will see what time I have to do that, as it has taken me long enough to get this far.

I hope you like it.

Sooo.... are you wanting comments or suggestions or are you just sharing? Any of these is fine; I'm just curious.

Just sharing, but feedback is always nice.

Having helped fix a Mumak model (aka That Damn Elephant ) I have all the sympathy in the world for the fitting problems.

From the pics it looks like you've got it looking pretty good. The wonkyness probably is just seen close up.

My only "you might want to" comment is something that comes from the pics, which might be not so great on my monitor (:( ). I think the overall model would look nicer if there were some slightly more extreme highlights to help pick out the wood grain in areas. Mostly I just like models that are supposed to be wood, especially if the wood grain is modeled, to have the grain be fairly obvious from a small distance. Just me.

The wood has gone darker which is the effect of a couple of dull coats, I know what you mean about the would grain, the sculpted relief was so fine that it is very difficult to get the grain effect to stand out also all the timbers have a slightly concave cast to them so when drybrushing the would the highlight is mainly falling on the oter edges. Still it is supposed to be used for gaming so I do not want whoever ends up with it to be afraid to use it.

I have learnt one thing with this kjit and that is I never want to build another one. I have yet to do a Murmak I have that pleasure awaiting me.

I too had the pleasure of helping someone built that thing. First we had to sand down a lot of metal and afterwards fill up with a lot of GS. Imho yours looks great. I like the darker wood.