The diorama that never was

 I'm going with a kind of an atypical post today, it's a little trip down through memory lane. I've noticed I haven't ever shown most of my Lord of the Rings minis, just a couple of vignettes (and I couldn't blame any of you if no one remember them. Looking through the archive I can see the first one was in 2012! And in fact it was painted even before).

I got the GW minis as they were released back in the day with the movies. I'd love to say something like "it was long time ago, kind of 10 years ago..." but it's been 25 years since the first movie (glups!)

Now that the kids are really into the movies (and even better, quite into the books!! I'm so happy), I've taken the minis out of the cupboard again and have been running a few games. They enjoy the game and I enjoy them getting step by step into the hobby.

The thing is that one of the Nazgûl chipped a little during the games, and I decided to put a little bit of work into them all. Not exactly repainting, but just reworking the highlights on the dull cloaks and adding some tufts to the bases.

Nothing too spectacular, the essential work remains the same

You see the bases resemble a stream or something like that. I'll explain: back in the day I really thought of making a vignette with the Nazgûl, just the scene in the movie when Arwen crosses the ford of Bruinen with Frodo. So I represented the Nine in different stages of crossing the ford.

In my mind, I would build a big stand where I could insert the minis and which would represent the Bruinen:

General composition, more or less

The thing is that such a diorama would have been insanely out of scale, and in the end I never got to do it, but still kept the bases with that scene in mind. What I've done now is just repainting the edge of the bases and adding some more natural tufts, besides a little rework on highlights (only the Nazgûl, no work was added on the horses or on the Arwen mini).

Nin o Chithaeglir lasto beth daer; Rimno nin Bruinen dan in Ulaer!

You can see, there was no way of making such a diorama into the real thing, I would have needed way more space than I had then (and now too!). Anyway, it's been fun to remember my original idea, and I also enjoyed putting some work into these minis.

Well, given that I was doing that on the riding minis, I thought I could do just the same on the standing ones. Slight rework on the highlights of the cloaks and some more work on the bases, that's all: 

Nine for Mortal Men, doomed to die

 As told before, now that the kids are deep into LOTR, I'm making the most of the situation, I hope I'll be bringing more stuff of the like anytime soon!