One of the most memorable creatures from The Return of The King is Shelob the Spider, who catches Frodo after he is betrayed by Gollum in the pass of Cirith Ungol. Sam bravely fights her off, even though she is several times his size. The Shelob model is just as imposing as her movie counterpart and stands over 6 cm tall from the ground to the tip of her front legs. On these pages, we'll show you how you can assemble the model and paint it.

ASSEMBLING SHELOB

Stage 1: After you’ve cleaned any mold lines and flash from the two back body halves, try a dry fit to see if they fit together snugly. If they don’t, carefully file down the flat inside surfaces until they do. Finally, use superglue to glue the two halves together.

Stage 2: Fit the front body to the back half to see if you need to remove any metal from the join to make it fit. After you finish any necessary filing, glue the front piece to the back with superglue. You may need to use some green stuff to fill in the gap between the two.

Stage 3: Now that the body has been assembled, it’s time to attach the legs. If you look closely, you will find that the leg tags are all coded, for instance L3. There are eight legs and two feelers, so start with the two front legs, L1 and R1, and remove any flash and mold lines. Make sure you remember which goes on which side! Drill holes in the legs and pin them in the appropriate sockets.

Stage 4: Take the other legs and pin them into the appropriate sockets. Start with the second row, then do the third row, and finish with the fourth row. If necessary, fill any gaps with green stuff.

Stage 5: Attach the feelers to the head just like you attached the legs to the body.

Stage 6: Finally, you might want to pin the legs to the base before you start painting her, just to make sure she doesn’t break off when you’re using or transporting her.

PAINTING SHELOB

Painting Shelob is very straightforward since most of the model is black. Start by undercoating the model with Chaos Black spray. Then mix Chaos Black with a small amount of Bleached Bone and carefully drybrush the hind body with this mix. Next, highlight the edges of the carapace legs, the mandibles, feelers, and head.

Add more Bleached Bone to the mix and highlight all these areas again, focusing on the highest details and sharpest edges. Next, glaze the whole model with a mix of watered-down Black and Brown Inks.

Scab Red was used as a basecoat on the reddish areas, which were highlighted with a mix of Scab Red and Dwarf Flesh. Add more Dwarf Flesh to the mix and highlight the spots on the back and the edges of the mouth. Paint a final highlight of Dwarf Flesh on the very edges of the mouth and the center of the spots on the back. Apply a mix of watered-down Brown and Red Inks over the red areas.

Shelob is a fun model to paint, due to the effective colour scheme and the impressive pose. The trick to painting creatures like her is to keep the colors muted and realistic. Stay true to the film, and you can't go wrong.