The Fellowship of the Ring

 

Almost exactly 4 years ago, I painted a Reaper figure to use as my ideal Legolas. The Legolas that had been in my head since my father first read The Lord of the Rings to me, close to 4 decades past. In truth, I had no plan to take it any further. But not long after, North Star released the first miniature to accompany Rangers of Shadow Deep, and darned if it wasn't nearly my ideal Aragorn... 

It took a little conversion work to get Aragorn just the way I wanted him, but after that, I was on a quest. Gandalf is a straight-up Reaper figure. Boromir was much harder, but eventually, I found a Reaper ranger with a horn. The more I looked at him, the more I began to see the possibilities. I had to cut off a weapon and add a shield, and he'd need some facial hair...

Gimili proved the trickiest of all. I think this is because I had the least clear vision of the character. In the end, I found a Reaper figure I liked. I wasn't sure I had Gimili when I finished, but a couple of years later, the figure has really grown into the character for me.

I had some Reaper minis for hobbits, but I could never quite get it to work. I could find a good Merry and a Sam, and a third figure that I could never decide if it was Frodo or Pippin. Also, the more I looked at them, the more I became convinced they were just too large, more small dwarves than hobbits. So, I reversed gears, went looking, and finally found my perfect hobbits. I got them from Scotia-Grendel, but they were originally produced as part of the Harlequin, The Lord of the Rings line. I swapped which one was Merry and which was Pippin, and gave them their movie colours to better distinguish them. 

Four years is a long time to paint 9 figures (or actually 12 if you count the 3 discarded hobbits), but really, aren't these the most important 9 in the collection?

(Of course now that original Legolas is looking a tad dated... my painting has gotten better since then... maybe I should go back and paint him again...)