MODELLING AND PAINTING THE SPIRITS OF ARNOR

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THOUGHTS AND TIPS ON MODELLING SPECTRES

Spectres are a weird kind of warrior for players to field. They're not so great in a fight, but they can seriously mess up you opponent's plans with their Fell Light ability. Spectres are one of the few things that can lure an unwilling enemy Hero out from the protective ranks of his fellow warriors. This way, you can clobber him en masse with, say, two Cave Trolls and six Orcs. However, it's going to take more than one or two Shades to cause your opponent some serious grief, so you're going to need a small horde of 'em.

If you want to have a pile of Shades in your force, you might want to look into converting a few for the sake of variety. The three Dead Marsh Spectre models are awesome, but if you want to field 12 Spectres then it might be time to start converting a few! Now, keep in mind that you can make a Spectre by simply painting a model's skin a ghastly blue. In this case, it shouldn't be too tough to build up a small force of Spectres for your Angmar force. However, with minimal effort, you can create some truly unique Spectres using models from across the entire miniature range for The Lord of The Rings Strategy Battle Game. Perhaps you'll end up fielding a few spare models that you never thought you would end up painting!

One of the simplest things you can do to make a Spectre is break weapons and reposition a model's pose to make it more "Spectre" looking. In addition to this technique, adding sculpted ragged clothing, tears and rips enhance the "Spectre" look and feel. A lot of the plastic Mordor Orcs and Men of Gondor models lend themselves to this kind of treatment. Just have a look at a sprue and let your ghoulish imagination run. However, one of the most effective ways to "Spectre-ify" a model is to give it a rotted-out nasal cavity. The step-by-step directions below show you just how to accomplish this effect with a bit of putty work.

	Start by clipping off the nose of your model in order to make room for the putty work later. Just line up the clippers and snip off the offending feature.
	Once the clippers have done their grizzly work, use a hobby knife to flatten out the area and trim away any excess plastic.
	Using a very small drill bit, line up and carefully make a shallow hole in the face of your victim. Not too deep, now; you don't want to drill through anything important (like your thumb)!

	Now, we need to widen the drill hole a tiny bit. Grab a hobby knife and turn the circular drill hole into a small, triangular gouge.
	Clean up the new, triangular hole a bit. You are now ready to begin using putty, so mix up a very small amount.
	Press a teenie-tiny, very small, tiny, miniscule ball of green stuff into the triangular hole. The amount of putty needed for this task is really small, so go easy with it.

	With the putty all set to go, begin smoothing out the green stuff with your sculpting tool. The goal is to get the putty to match up with the rest of the model's face.
	Now for the tricky part. Using a hobby knife, insert the very tip of the blade into one side of the nasal cavity. Repeat this for the other side, then trim and smooth out any overflow putty.
	This Orc is now one mean lookin' customer. Once you have this technique under your belt, there's no stopping you from turning anything you want into a Spectre!

Introduction|Modelling Spectres|Gallery
Painting Shades|Painting Shades Part 2