Matthew: I've always loved the Ents in The Lord of The Rings and because of this they were one of the things I was really looking forward to in The Two Towers. Would they look right? Would they act right? Just as importantly, would they knock the stuffing out of Saruman's legions of Orcs?

I needn't have worried. From the moment Treebeard stepped onto the screen, I was hooked. As yet more Ents came into view I was determined that my force would not be complete without at least half a dozen Ents to march within it. Of course, by the time I'd seen the Ents in action at Isengard there was no going back. When I saw the film the second time that day I was already making mental notes about how I was going to muster an army of my own Ents.

This red haze settled somewhat when I left the cinema gone ten o' clock that evening (a fortunate turn of events as my desk too often groans under the weight of unfinished painting and modelling projects) and I had more realistically taken the view that perhaps two or three Ents would suffice (at least for now).

GETTING UNDERWAY

Keen as I was, there was no way I could justify creating Ents of my own without first painting up a Treebeard to lead them to war. Now, I'm terrible for buying a perfectly good miniature and changing it without provocation. This being the case, when I came to take Treebeard out of the box, I started to think about the possible alterations I could make to the model to individualise it. To give the model a more dynamic pose I bent the right leg at the knee, working Green Stuff into the resulting gap and sculpting it to match the contours of the surrounding bark and beard. Taking the armless and branchless model, I now worked on how to attach it to the base.

In a flash of inspiration, I decided to turn the model into a mini-diorama piece that depicted the sack of Isengard, with Treebeard engaged in combat with one or two of Saruman's denizens. With this in mind, it made sense for Treebeard's leg to be resting on some fallen stone - possibly part of the walls that he had just torn down. Taking some pink foam, I cut it into four rough blocks, which I then glued to the base, creating a perfect platform to which to attach Treebeard. Casting around for suitable victims to form part of the diorama, I was struck by how suitable the poses of some of the plastic Uruk-hai were. Without ado, I clipped two Uruk-hai from the frame - one was glued onto the collapsed wall directly in line with Treebeard's gaze. The second unfortunate Uruk-hai had its feet chopped off and then reattached at a more suitable angle. He then had the fingers of Treebeard's left hand twisted about his torso in a tight grip (so tight, in fact, that I didn't bother gluing it into position). Both of Treebeard's arms were then attached in slightly different positions to their standard fit by reshaping the existing sockets with Green Stuff and then gluing the limbs into their new poses.

Treebeard was now starting to take shape with arms, legs and antagonists all in place - all that remained was to add the branch and leaf sections. Mainly because some of the positions would look decidedly odd now I'd altered the position of the right leg, I decided to ignore the construction diagram, instead attached the various components to suit the appearance of the model. Finally, as I looked over the completed model I noticed that if I adjusted the pose of the right arm just slightly, it would appear that Treebeard was reaching out for the Uruk-hai on the wall, so I bent the arm inwards to complete this effect. With a little bit of filling and sculpting with Green Stuff, Treebeard was ready for painting.

PAINTING TREEBEARD

I gave the bark areas a heavy drybrush of Scorched Brown, over the obligatory Chaos Black undercoat, grading the highlights by adding Bestial Brown and finally Bleached Bone to the mix as I proceeded. The beard and mossy areas were given a basecoat of Dark Angels Green before being highlighted with an equal parts mix of Dark Angels Green and Codex Grey. The leaves were painted with Dark Angels Green and then drybrushed with Goblin Green. The bracket fungi were picked out with Bubonic Brown and then highlighted with Bleached Bone. The whole model was then given a wash of Brown Ink and Chaos Black mixed equally and thinned with water, with selected highlights being drybrushed on when this was dry. As a final touch, the eyes were picked out with Red Gore and Bleached Bone.

For texturing bases I tend to keep a small plastic tray with a mix of sand and small pebbles which I then PVA onto the base of a model. I applied this mixture onto the clear areas of Treebeard's base, careful not to get any excess glue onto the Uruk-hai or the stone sections. When this was dry I painted the stones Codex Grey, highlighting them by adding a little Bleached Bone. The Uruk-hai were painted with a very straightforward method, a Boltgun Metal basecoat on the armour and sword, Dark Flesh on the skin, and Scorched Brown on the hair and clothing. They were then given a wash of thinned Chaos Black before drybrushing the armour with Chainmail.

The base itself was painted Scorched Brown, and then given a gentle highlight with Snakebite Leather. To add a little more depth to this base, and to ensure Treebeard stood out from the other Ents I planned to make, I added small pieces of lichen here and there on the base, where possible concealing ugly joins between the stones and other elements. The finishing touches were to apply patches of static grass and granite chippings. The whole model was then given a drybrush with Codex Grey, applied more heavily on key areas, such as the face and the extremities of the branches.

Next: The Entmoot Grows