A Year in Miniatures 22: Durin’s Bane
It will come as no surprise to the vast majority of our audience that we’re big Tolkien fans. We have, at time of writing, three framed pieces of Lord of the Rings art on our walls, numerous pieces of jewellery, countless ongoing art projects, and a cat named Morgoth. What is surprising is that we actually have very few Tolkien miniatures. We think it’s time to fix that!
I’ve wanted a balrog miniature since Games Workshop first released them. However, for various reasons it’s not been a feasible project until now. One of those reasons is that I knew I wanted to do something really special for this one. This changed a little over a year ago when I decided I finally had the skills and capabilities available to actually pull this off.
So here he is: Durin’s Bane, the last model of 2022 (don’t look at the release date of this post, it took me a while to get around to editing the photos!). Right off the bat you’ll probably notice a few deviations from the base model. The spine and sword have been recast in orange resin, and lights have been placed inside the body cavity and hand to illuminate them from within. Another light has been positioned inside the mouth, recreating the Balrog’s fiery roar, and further lights in the base create a flickering fire effect from below. Last but not least, he’s mounted on a custom display plinth (which also serves to hide the bulk of the electronics) and proudly displays a custom plaque. This is a display piece in every sense of the word!
I always try to lean or at least improve on something with each model I paint. Usually this is something like OSL or NMM, but for Durin’s Bane this has mostly revolved around casting. I’ve worked a little bit with resin in the past, but recasting entire parts is not something I’ve ever tried. There was also the issue of routing the wires for multiple internal lights, a problem that I ended up solving by making a negative cast of the right arm and leg, cutting channels into the parts to lay the wires, then filling in the gaps with modelling putty and using the negative to recreate the original surface. I’m genuinely surprised at how well those processes worked, even with a few false starts! With all of that work, it’s hardly surprising that this took over a year to finish. In comparison, finding people to produce the plinth and plaque was a doddle.
Now that I’m comfortable with these techniques, we can of course offer them to our customers. More importantly (to me at least), I can use them on my personal projects! And before you ask, yes, I’ve thought long and hard about the feasibility of recasting the entire model in resin so that it’s all internally illuminated… Probably one for later. Self illuminating power swords is probably a safer level for now!
So that’s it for the Year in Miniatures project. We’re definitely ending on a high note! We’ll do a post-mortem next time, and discuss where this blog is going next, but I’m very happy with how this project has panned out!
Next time: something new!
27/03/23
Weeks Elapsed: 52
Miniatures Finished: 44
