The Haradrim

 

Ever since i saw the mumak figure i wanted a Haradrim army. i had been holding out on playing LOTR until i felt it was stable enough and was on a larger scale than the Fellowship game. The release of the return of the king was what i needed. i have been working on the army on and off since 2004, and in 2007 have finally pulled finger and decided to finish them for the Wellington and Auckland GTs in september.

Haradrim Riders

I have 6 riders in my army, and since none of them will have bows, i did not want all of them to look the same, as there is only one model with a lance. i am also not a huge fan of the horses, i don;t know what it is, but i hate em. but i quite like the rohan horses (and if they had been released earlier the gondor horses). i happen to have a heap of spare haradrim raiders and also scored some rohan horses cheaply in a trade. i ordered some rider bodies and cut the torsos off. by using some bases i made i was able to pose the riders in quite dynamic action poses. i used a variety of spearmen and archers for the bodies, and also used a couple of easterling halberds for some variety. overall i think i got some quite nice cavalry to ride alongside my elephant.

 

Chieftain on a horse, i have put him on a higher base to give him a more dynamic pose. i used the regular chieftain body on a riders legs, and used a back banner from the mumak chieftain i was not using to stand him out.

I also filed down the head piece of the horse, to differentiate away from Rohan horses. i also did this for the above horses after taking the photos.

 

The

MUMAK

I got the Mumak at Games day 2004 to save me a few bucks. its an amazing kit, but with few parts and its pretty easy to put together. i did not like the fact that the model was looking to one side, i would have preferred it looking right ahead, trunk curled up in anger. so i decided to convert mine to do that. i did a bunch of research on photos of actual elephants on the net (good old google images) and figured out how the neck etc would look.

STAGE 1 the neck

As i said the model is looking to one side, to put the head straight on would leave a huge gap. so i would need to rebuild the right side of its neck. first i had to put the head on, thankfully the head isa seperate piece, so i assembled it and got ready to pin it. as this would be the major work site, and fulcrum, i did not want the join to be too flimsy, so 3 pins it is. The rubber bands are there while the glue on the torso dried.

Next i needed to fill the gap, its way too much for just greenstuff. so i used liquid nails first, to fill in the gap. Its a bit rough, but thats ok, cos i will be greenstuffing over it.

Now time to sculpt the neck properly, this is a multi part process, as i first have to build out the sides of the neck and the bottom, as well as the wattle, then put the ears on an build them in, and smooth the top of the head back into the body.

So the first part was to build the main neck part and build it down, i only went half way as i wanted to let it dry before i got the bottom done property. You can see a hole on each side where the ears will go, i wanted to pin them to make sure they stay on. also by pinning them i can dry fit them to make sure i don't have to cut any greenstuff out.

Then i finished both sides of the bottom of the neck.

On the left the i have built the top of the neck into the head, and on the right, i have smoothed out the gap between the halves of the model.

Ears are on.

The ears are smoothed into the front of the face, and as you can see i have extended the bottom of the neck into the bottom of the jaw.

Better views of the bottom of the neck and jaw.

Then i built sculpted in the wattle at the bottom of the neck, and smoothed out the model halves again. you can see on the front of the face the holes for the trunk pin.

Stage 2 - The trunk.

I was not a huge fan of the side to side trunk, and it certainly did not fit as well with the forward head position. so the plan was to change it to a trunk that curls up, like he is trumpeting. i am not that good a sculpter and cannot sculpt the end of the trunk, so i decided to use the existing one, i cut it up and placed in on a pair of pins, to fit the curl i wanted. this would also make the trunk longer as i fel the original a bit short. the trunk would have a bit of a curve, but i figured it was worth it to make it better than i could do it from scratch.

To be fair the trunk did not turn out all that well, but there is a limit to my skill, its ok, but its a bit rough in some places.

the original trunk

The pieces placed on teh pins, to make the shape and armature i needed.

The gaps filled in in the pins. once this hardened i cut down the greenstuff so that i could layer over it.

The first part was to resculpt the ridges along the bottom.

The to fill in the flat part of the trunk.

STAGE 3 - the howdah.

Having seen some other mumak models, they are a pain to transport, big and sticky outy in all sorts of directions. and also the howdah can be destroyed, leaving the elephant fine. for those two reasons i decided to make teh howdah able to break down. into its pieces.

The first stage is to hold the larger howda piece on. i used a large craftknife blade on the elephant and put a rather large magnet (about 5mm across) on the howdah, held in with greenstuff.

The top of the main howday piece, the posts are glued in, with 3mm magnets placed in each of the 4 corners, i decided not to put them on the end posts. on the right, i place 4 3mm magnets int he corners of the insert. i figured this would be the strongest place for them, as the bottom posts already slot into the hole anyway. as you can see in the left photo, i have also greenstuffed around the base to tidy up the gap. and on the right i filled in the hole i had to make to put in the magnets for the next piece.

This is the middle piece the other way up, the magnets were measured to be bang on where the top tower goes, i drilled right through the middle piece, and glued the magnets in place. on the right picture, you will see there was not a lot of room, so i very carefully drilled out a hole for the magnets, i actually did the right pictures magnets first, and used them to get a good grip when i place the bottom ones in. how did i do it? by gluing in the right pictures magnets, placing magnets on them right pics magnets, putting some glue in the holes on the left pic, and then pushing the magnets through. this helps ensure you get a flat surface, which would make the connection stronger.

The top howdah tower needed some holes filled, mostly on the side pieces.

The side pieces, the top two magnets on the mumak go into the pin holes, and the botttom one was placed in much the same way as the howdah ones, but figuring out the howdah piece one first. also i put int he posts that will hold up the main howdah, and used some GS to tidy it up.

becuase both sides are exactly the same and i worked out each side to fit each set of magnets, i need to differentiate them. so i reversed the magnets, meaning they can only go one side of the elephant, no chance of getting the wrong side.

There were lots of gaps on the these peices, so i had to fill em in.

This is the front forks and flag, where the mahud will stand. used 4 magnets on the elehpant and posts to hold it in place, and then built around it with GS, for some bracing and to fill in gaps.

STAGE 4 - the base

Since i decided to make the howdah removeable i figured i also needed to make the base removeable, after i read a rule that says once hte mumak dies you have to leave a template the size of the base there as difficult going. so i decided to put in more magnets, into the feet and base.

A word of advice, decide to do this before you glue all teh leg sides on, not after :) i had thought i only needed two magnets so glued on two of the legs. All the magnets were 4-5mm across and around 6 mm tall.

For the legs i did not glue on, i carved out the hole for the magnets, and once the hole was the right size, i used a lump of Greenstuff and some glue to stick the magnets in, so it is unlikely to move or fall up the leg.

for the other two legs, i carved the leg hole as usual, then once it was right, i pushed some GS up there with a thin sculpting tool, to block the leg. once that had dried i pushed the magnets up the leg with some more GS on top of them to lock it in place, some liberal glue was used as well.

For the base i did the same thing, placed a magnet on the foot magnet, dry fitted the holes, using paint on the bottom of the magnets to work out where to cut. cut out the holes and pushed them through. then locked in place with glue and GS. becuase it was never going to fit perfectly, i ended up with gaps between the foot and base, so i used GS to build up the base to provide contact to the foot. this would make the base more stable and not wobble.

The bottom of the base, GS to hold them in place. also means the bottom of the base is able to stick to things.

STAGE 5 - the body

there were some other gaps in the model so i had to fill them in.

There was a huge pouring plug that went over the under strap and extended the leg a bit oddly, so i carved it out and rescupted the leg and ropes.

The join where the model met around the arse was a bit off, so i redid it. also i sorted out all the gaps where the legs meet and other parts of the model.

STAGE 6 -PUTTING IT TOGETHER

so i have done most of the pieces all the magnets are done, so how does it all go together. well here are all the pieces seperated out so you can see how easy it is to transport.

Here he is all assembled in his glory

And finally to show you how tough the magnets are, here are two pics;

Sideways on the fridge

Hanging from my hand, all the weight of the model held by the top magnets.

Whats still to Come?

Well i have to finish the Mahud, and attach him to the forks, which will mean cutting down the front of the howdah.

then of course, painting him :) so more pics as i do stuff.