My Third Diorama Beren and Luthien

A bit of an introduction from JRR Tolkien

The first mini is going to be Luthien. It took me ages to decide on the mini I wanted to use.

I eventual didn’t even choose an Elf model!

The Female Mage / druid from Dark sword.

https://www.darkswordminiatures.com/shop/female-mage-druid-with-staff/

Unfortunately no wip shots for this one as I painted her in one sittings at a “paint and drink” event at my local games cafe.

FYI don’t try eyes after a number of beers although a little bit seemed to steady my hand.

Paints were a combination of Scale 75 instants and army painter speedpaint.

I recently found out that voidshiled blue is a great highlight for dark blue, so used that too!

The casting on one side of the face is a little bit rough but I did my best with it.

In the above picture is after I had another go at fixing the face up a little bit.

Taken from Tolkien gateway-

After hearing of the Fall of Tol-in-Gaurhoth, where Huan had defeated Draugluin and Sauron, Morgoth decided to create a werewolf to kill Huan, who could only be killed by the greatest wolf to have ever lived. Carcharoth became involved with the Quest for the Silmaril when Beren and Lúthien had to pass him on their way into Angband. He stopped them, suspicious of Draugluin, (Beren in disguise) as he had heard of Draugluin’s death. Lúthien enchanted him with her magic, but on their way out Carcharoth attacked before Lúthien could enchant him again. Beren held out the captured Silmaril in an attempt to stay the beast, but Carcharoth bit off Beren’s hand at the wrist with Silmaril and all.

This mini didn’t take me long to paint at all. But I think it has come out quite well.

The Base for the fur is Werewolf brown, scale 75 instant.

On the palms of the hands I’ve used Cadian fleshtone blending into the werewolf brown down the arms.

Claws and teeth are Vallejo bonemeal with a little Agrax earthshade wash.

Towards the tip of the tail is also bonemeal blended into werewolf brown.

The eyes are dead white with a red ink.

I wanted to create the effect of a Silmaril burning at the inside of Carcharoth.

I started with Dead white, making brushstrokes out from a central point.

Leaving a small area in the middle I then used Scale 75 instants yellow and a red ink blending together towards to outer edge.

Finally a drybrushed the whole model with Bonemeal.

Next, on to Beren.

The model is from the Rangers of Shadowdeep range over at North Star.

https://www.northstarfigures.com/prod.php?prod=14787

After sawing his hand off with the ever handy multi tool, I made a start painting.

I used a mixture of Browns, Greens and Blacks from Scale 75 Instants (my go to paint at the moment)

I used a couple of metallic paints on the Sword and belt buckle.

I gave the mini a generous dry brushing of Bone white to finish off.

The are a few little things I need  to paint right on this mini (the sword) but for the most part he is now complete.

Below is a picture of Tolkien and his wife’s grave.

I tried to pay a little bit of a homage to this in my diorama.

I ordered a pack of gravestones and flowers from here https://badsquiddogames.com/shop#!/Overgrown-Graves-A/p/408113029

The grave that I chose had a little bit of inscribed writing on it. I smoothed this over with some modelling putty.

The painting didn’t actually take too long with much using being made of dirty looking washes.

I added this grave to a corner of the scene surrounded by Simbelmynë flowers.

This is the end of another project and one that I have really enjoyed doing.

I’m on a real Lord of the Rings and middle earth binge over the last few months.

It really is infectious Ben ?

The base of the Diorama is A4 foamboard.

The carved this into the shape I wanted with a hobby knife and used offcuts to raise certain areas of the scene (werewolf and grave)

I coated this board with some Valejo earth texture paint and applied thickly in places to create some wagon tracks.

I applied grass next, basically just sprinkled over PVA glue.

I then removed some grass to create a few more muddy parts.

Valejo water effect resin was added to certain parts of the wagon tracks to make then look a little more slick.

I needed some trees to add a bit of hight to the scene and these black trees seemed to do the job perfectly.

I found them at a local country park next to a sort of dried out bog.

These trees I mainly added to the werewolf side of the piece as I wanted a definite dark / shadow side of the scene and a light side of the scene with the flowers and Tolkiens grave.

Light against the shadow being a major part of Tolkiens work and lore.

The scene was a little too open so a curved wall and gate sections of wall were added to the piece to “frame” it a little bit.

Tree stumps and wall sections all from the amazing Fogou models.

The walls were sprayed grey, washed with army painter dark tone, washed a little less with strong tone then washed towards the bottom with green tone.

Drybrushing was then done with a basic bone white.

I hope you enjoy viewing the project as much as I enjoyed creating it.

Some pics of the final product