Saturday, March 21, 2015

What is the collective noun for a group of Gandalfs?

I have to confess that in my youth I was a bit of a Tolkien fanatic, and although I am not as bad as I was, I have still read the lord of the rings about 70 times and the Silmarillion is still my favourite book.  It is then, with great wonder, that I have never really bought into the games workshop figures of the same name.  I feel that it has something to do with the fact that they seem to be trying to rip me off at every turn with their pricing policy and so figures that I should in all honesty own thousands of, I own very few of!!  It may also be because, on some level, Peter Jackson pisses me off with his desire to try and improve on what is an awesome story.  I enjoy the films most when I try and remember that they are "based on" the books and not the books themselves.  I still own all of the extended versions of the films and at least one per year I watch them back to back in a 10+ hour marathon of elves and orc goodness.
However, this is starting to change as I have this building urge to collect and game middle earth.  I already have a few figures that I am painting for friends and have bought a few more to start my own collection and I can feel the start of a fanboy addiction......
I've had a go at painting the GW figures before and was quite pleased with how they turned out and so felt that this would be a good place to start recording this collection.  What better place to start then than with Gandalf.  For a small, starting collection I seem to have more of him than I should!!
Gandalf the Grey is an iconic figure and this figure really does him justice.  I painted him in grey (duh!!!) and earthy, homespun colours.
 He clutches his staff and orchrist, a sword made in gondolin by the elves
 A nice, simple figure to paint, and I enjoyed him so much that I felt that I would like the mounted version.  For that I needed to buy a new set!
This time I painted him more blue than grey but I like the effect just as much

 Push comes to shove, I could always use him as one of the blue wizards.....

You cannot fault the sculpting on some of these figures,  they really are top quality.  I love the pose of the mounted version.


 The horse is well animated and the wizard's robes fall very naturally.



The Last version of Gandalf  I have is as Gandalf the White, after he has been set back having died defeating the Balrog of Moria.

 I found the all white colour scheme a little intimidating and if I could do it again, I think that I would have varied the base colours of the white for a little more variety.
 The mounted version suffers more so from the monotone colour scheme but I feel it turned out as well as I am able to do it.  The model suffered from having a horse that only has one foot on the floor.  A dynamic pose but an unstable one and so I had to support the model with a pin from its belly.  This goes into the rock it is jumping over.





And here we have a final group Gandalf shot.  A good start to my addiction......
Thanks for looking :)

20 comments:

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    1. only if your gollum! more than one gandalf would be his worst nightmare!

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  2. Gandalfi? A gaggle of Gandalfs? Nice work. Particularly like the Blue Gandalf!

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    1. the blue one is my favourite and he is the least correct of them all in terms of colour choice.

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  3. Fantastic brushwork on them all.

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    1. Thank you Bryan. They are nice figures but I am going to try the plastic ones soon and that could spell the end of the project if I don't like them!

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  4. Terrific stuff CW, absolutely mind-blowingly well painted on them all. I've put my LoTR stuff to one side as a result, and will wait until the memory of your Glamdring of Gandalfs is a bit more distant in people's memories ;-)

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    1. I do like a glamdring of gandalfs!!:) Thanks for the compliment but they are not quite that good. I am looking forward to getting inspiration from your figures!

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  5. Replies
    1. Thank you. They were nice figures so that makes it a little easier.

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  6. Replies
    1. Thanks Bob. I am going to try extra hard to get them to look right as the subject has been a passion of mine since I was 9!!

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    1. Might need to do some elves next to get over it!! Or maybe goblins - they seem to be less hairy:)

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  8. Your "argument" of Wizards is very impressive, though the "dynamic" mounted version of Gandalf is not my tastes in mounts.
    You've done a great job on the various colour schemes, but the the "white" version is my favourite, despite your reservations.

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  9. I wonder if he was meant to be charging out to save faramir from the ringwraith? Any pose that only has one hoof of a horse touching the ground is always going to be strange. I also like an 'argument of wizards'. I should try and find a Saruman figure to paint to add to the argument!

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  10. Wonderful renditions of Gandalf and I agree an argument does sound right. Looks like this will be the start of something very cool.

    Frank
    http://adventuresinlead.blogspot.com.au/

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    1. That's a cracking site you've got there Furt. I don't know how long the bandits posting took you but I've drunk a couple of cups of tea reading though it, and am still only halfway ;-)

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  11. What a lot of excellent Gandalfs! I agree that the white one on a white horse is a bit stark, though I'm not sure how you could have done this any differently.

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  12. I think varying the base colour my have broken it up a little I think but maybe next time:). White is always a difficult for me to paint. More practice needed I think!

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