Friday, October 31, 2008

Cave-Troll

Seeing as though it's October 31st I thought I'd post something scary. Well, something sort of scary-looking at least.



This is a cave-troll I sculpted as a unit for a 15 mm Hordes of the Things (HOTT) Middle-earth Mordor army. As you can see, it's heavily inspired by the cave-troll from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring movie.



It's classed as a Behemoth unit in the HOTT rules and sits on a cardboard base measuring 4 cm x 4 cm. The model stands 30 mm high from its feet to the top of its head. It's about 50 mm to the top of the hammer. Although it is 30 mm tall, the cave-troll is actually in 15 mm scale and it towers over my 15 mm orcs.



I actually used a plastic Fimir model from the boardgame Heroquest as an armature base for my cave-troll. I first cut off the Fimir's tail and axe. I then used the heat from the flame of a lighter to heat the plastic around the arm and leg joints. When the plastic was pliable I then moved them carefully to slightly different angles.



I used a pin vice to drill out the left hand of the model. The hammer's handle is made from a thin wooden skewer and the head was sculpted from Milliput. I then used a sharp craft knife to whittle down various areas on the Fimir model. After that I used a needle file to further smooth down the figure.



Once the base model was ready I then started building the shape back up again with Milliput. I used a piece of cloth from an old sock as the loin cloth. I painted the model with acrylic paints and used a spray sealer.




I made this model several years ago. It must have been in early 2002 because I'm sure it was just after I'd seen The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, but before I'd seen The Two Towers or The Return of the King.

If I was to create another troll today I'd do one one with armour and helm like the battle trolls in The Return of the King.

I'll soon be posting more pictures of a second cave-troll I've made, as well as more elements of my HOTT Middle-Earth Mordor army.


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