The Lord of the Rings is by all means the most renowned fantasy novel: ever since it was published it has made people's imagination drift and, supposing anyone had not read the book yet, the motion pictures have managed to spread its worldwide fame thanks to a movie trilogy that is breathtaking, to say the least.
We have decided to reproduce the most significant moment of the second episode of this movie remake, the Twin Towers: the attack on Helm's Deep.
Our goal was to replicate the movie model as faithfully as possible: in order to carry out such a intricate project, after viewing many times on DVD the scenes concerned, we ransacked the libraries searching for books on the subject.
All these documents allowed Michele to draw the castle in proportion to the central movie characters, so as to give the manor more magnificence and grandeur as opposed to the individuals. In order to guarantee the correct proportions, we used those models by Games Workshop intended for the Lord of the Rings, in 25mm scale: indeed by using characters in this scale we managed to limit the size of the building to reasonable measures, although still impressive for being the model of a building: the base size of the model is 180cm x 120cm and it is 90cm high.
The base is divided in two panels: on one we reproduced the castle, while on the other we placed the slope leading to the castle's main gate and the grounds opposite the castle, where the attack takes place. We left separate the slope to the gate detachable, supposing that all this work will eventually be used as a modular setting for wargames.
Let's see how you build the castle. As previously mentioned, the whole project was achieved in observance of the proportions of the castle we watched in the movie: we used 1 cm plywood for the supporting frame of the castle while we used 2 cm plywood for the castle base.
Once we built the frame using 4 mm Masonite sheets, we set up two arcs of semicircular walls: masonite turned out to be the most suitable material as far as ease of bending and resistance to weights and torsions.
Once we had built the supporting frame, we coated it using polystyrene panels texturized in a stone slate pattern (this product is readily available in railway modeling shops). At this stage we had to make the rocks surrounding the manor. We found some polystyrene panels 3-4 cm thick and used them to increase the thickness of the rocks by gluing layers successively using PVA glue. When the glue had dried up and everything was firmly attached, we used a stiff blade to cut out the gullies, ledges, and cavities in the polystyrene so the result was a realistic "rock effect".
The following step consisted in coating all the ground and the rocks in the model with PVA glue before we sprinkled everything with a mix of sand and small stones.
We got rid of the surplus sand once this texturizing layer dried up (in other words we removed any unglued sand) by turning the panels upside down and we later primed using dark paint over the whole model so as to balance the background colour and get the whole model ready for the finishing colours. As for the previous step, we waited for the paint to dry up before moving to the following step.
Here's the part when we decorate the model! We used acrylic colours by Vallejo which we applied using the drybrush technique. We started off with the darker colours (dark, medium, and ground brown), before moving to progressively lighter flesh colour shades, up to tan colour and ending up with very light colours (sand and greys).
Once we finished the building we turned to the vegetation, which consisted in patchy grass and scattered bushes.
We made both grass and bushes by using lichens and powders you usually employ when replicating plant life in railway modelling. Again we used PVA glue to fasten the grass, however this time we added some water, in order to make it less thick and to glue the grass fibres more soundly.
When the grass was properly glued down, we applied some drybrush layers in a yellow and tan shade: this allowed us to get rid of the uniform and unrealistic look of the synthetic grass.
We have now reached the stage when we place the bushes. Again we used a small trick so that these lichens would not look quite so "artificial", despite being natural. We dipped them in a glassful of a mix of PVA glue and water (20% PVA glue and 80% water); after extracting them we wrung out the water and we dipped them in a container where we previously had mixed several colours of powders for vegetation. The outcome of this "dust-scattering" over the lichens is that you get a bush with realistic colour and looks.
Fine, at this stage the model is finished and here comes the best part… indeed, after so much work, it's time to have fun, when we place the models splendidly painted by Marco Malgrati and Richard Bradley: the final result is what you can see in the last pictures of the series.
This ends the step-by-step description of how we built Helm's Deep. Good-bye for now, it's time to play... there's no way you can have more fun than if you play a wargame using well-made miniatures on a superbly-made setting!
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| In Breve... |
The model frame was built using 1cm plywood, while the base is made up of two 90x120x2cm panels. The semi-circular walls have a first masonite coating, which is very flexible. Notice the size compared to the miniature (25mm) !
You start by glueing the polystyrene panels with relief stone slate printing and which you texturize by glueing sand and stones using PVA glue.
Detail of the first set of castle walls, the most ruined ones: compare the glacis height and the model to make sure that it is still high enough after the sand layer.
Once you have glued the ground layer and all the polystyrene walls, you apply a background layer (20% PVA glue, 80% water and a few drops of concentrated black colour, like for wall watercolours) so that everything is uniform and the model is ready for painting.
We painted using of the dry brush technique, with Vallejo acrylic colours, starting from the dark colours, such as the dark and medium brown...
...then move to light brown, and dark flesh, medium flesh and tan...
...and end up using grey and pure white.
The following step is when you spread the ground with a PVA glue layer, slightly diluted in water, on which you scatter grass fibers for railway modelling.
Once the grass is glued, you remove any surplus by means of a small vacuum cleaner, and using gold yellow and tan (still Vallejo colours) you dry-brush apply a thin layer so that the grass looks less synthetic. The bushes are finishing touches to the model and we made them by dusting lichens with vegetation powder.
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