Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Nazgul : The Nine (+1) Limited ed. Mithril Miniatures Ringwraiths

I was recently lucky to have the chance to paint a set of limited edition Mithril Miniatures Nazgul for a client.


I really love Mithril Minis.
This was a very fun set: lots of flowing capes, a mark of Mithril, with each Nazgul being very individualistic.

The set had one 'generic Ringwraith' pose, then 9 Nazgul based on the characters created by Iron Crown Enterprises. Tolkien never went into specifics on the Nine, except in the case of Khamul the Easterling, and the Witch King of Angmar, but I.C.E. was granted licence from Tolkien Enterprises to develop the characters for their RPG, which then Mithril got their rights to make the miniatures from them.

And here they are.

Ringwraith

For these I decided it was best to paint from a white primer.  Many people like to start with black primer for everything, especially when the mini has a good deal of black, but I prefer the opposite. I find I can get much nicer smooth shadow tones this way. 


The Witch King of Angmar


Khamul, the Easterling


I love the Mumakil helmet. I gave him a subtle pattern in his hauberk, for his 'exoticeast'


The horselord. I gave him the most color of all of them. 



This one was sculpted with a face.  Odd. So I painted the face as a bronze 'sculpted face' helmet.
He got a touch of brown, being a more 'barbaric' type of heritage.


This one might have been my favorite armor. Fancy, so I gave it a 'heat tarnish' of gold.


The only one without battle armor & sword.  Just robes & Morghul knife, so I went with a touch of deep red, for that 'assassin feel'.


Clearly of Numenorean heritage.


The 'standard ringwraith' iconic look.

The Nine together: 


The Mithril minis scale really well with the GW Lord of the Rings minis, so they'd be great on the battlefield as well as for collecting. I may have to get some for myself someday! 

12 comments:

Barks said...

I would never have contemplated starting with a white undercoat. I've learnt something here!

Paul´s Bods said...

They look very good...usefull for something like Fantasy Knights as well, Game of thrones?
Never thought of White for a base colour, especially for figs which are basically. Doesn´t it make it difficult to see Details?

Simon Quinton said...

Great job LF, these look like a nicely sculpted set of miniatures. I'd not seen them before. Your client will be pleased.

fireymonkeyboy said...

They're interesting figs, kind of a departure from what I'm used to with GW's range.

FMB

Chris Stoesen said...

These are very nice. The really look the part.

Unknown said...

These would set a person back a bit to buy! They turned out beautifully Ferret. Perfect old skool sculpts painted by a modern hand.

Pat Hatt said...

That artwork is awesome and then you sure did a stellar job too.

Sam Wise said...

I love the Mithril figures too and I have a quite big collection, but I've never painted those figures (I don't have the 9, maybe 2 or 3...)

Your work is Fantastic !! It's a great idea to give touches of colours at some of them.

I think that they are the best I've ever seen !
(and all the 9 together, never!)

Monty said...

Wonderful! Each is so clever and unique. Black over a large area is my least favorite color to work with. I struggle to work up from the base. Too low and your work is lost. Too high a jump and then it's gray! You've nailed it here.

iemattias said...

Those are real nice. I could see a couple of those poses making decent vampires for blood bowl.

Laughing Ferret said...

Thanks everyone, comments much appreciated :)

I prefer working from a white primer, I feel I have more control that way.
Paul: No, haven't felt like it makes seeing the details difficult, no more than black, and probably easier.

Simon: he was very pleased, happy to say. said the pictures don't do them justice, and they were troublesome to photo, being nearly grey scale, so I can see that.

Wow Sam, high praise, thank you kindly :)

Twin Cities: it is a sweet spot that is easy to miss or overshoot, thanks!

Mattias: Hmm.. I am on a mission to have all 24 Blood Bowl teams but Vampire is a team I haven't decided on a theme for yet, maybe Nazgul would work.

Mitch K said...

Fantastic work. I love Mithril's minis. To me, they have a Tolkien feel that no one else quite captures. On the other hand, I always found them hard to paint well (shallow detail?) so my hat is taken even further off to you for the quality of these!

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