Model Showcase: Witch King/Nazgul from Lord of the Rings

Stay off the road!

I'm a pretty big fan of the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings movies. I wouldn't go as far as "fan boy," but I certainly enjoy them every time I see them, and they're pretty much the biggest modern epic of the modern generation since Star Wars.  So, I have picked up a few LotR kits from Games Workshop over time, but rarely do I buy armies, just characters I really enjoyed.  So, when I saw the kit of the Witch King that shattered Gandalf's staff, I had to give it a go.

If I had remained 100% screen accurate, this would have been a rather boring kit, as the massive use of blacks and dark grays would make even Batman jealous. So, I decided to spruce him up a bit. My first plan was to add a touch of brown to the wings to visually get them separate from the body. I also wanted to give the scales an oily iridescent look make them pop. Finally, the sculpted fire on the sword had to go.

I started with the sword. I sanded off the entire sculpted fire section and started with bare, smooth plastic. I then primed and painted the sword as I normally would, Leadbelcher base, Runefang highlights, etc. I then used a product you would never think of for fire...I used Water Effects by Woodland Scenics. I spread a bit of it out of the bottle (it comes out in a white paste, much like PVA glue) and used a toothpick to add small dabs all along the sword. As it dried, I used another toothpick to "pull" the edges up, like flame would do. One of the benefits to using Water Effects is that it dries crystal clear, but maintains shape very well as it dries. Once it had all dried clear, I painted it all clear orange and yellow from Tamiya's range. Unfortunately, I lost all of my pics from this process. :( I then finished up the remainder of the Witch King with blacks and grays.

I then airbrushed the wings, first with black, then with a gray-blue mix from Tamiya, and then used Tamiya's Buff tan color to make them appear a bit more "see-through."

 

Finally, after spraying the actual Nazgul lizard black and highlighting and washing as normal, I sprayed the scales gloss black. This is where I deviate significantly from the film, but I thought it added much more visual interest. I decided to make the scales iridescent, much like the scales of a black adder snake change color as they reflect light at different angles.

To achieve this effect, I wondered about what animals do this, then remembered I live in the south, where three out of every two households have a bass mounted on the wall somewhere. I ordered some taxidermist's iridescent acrylic paint the next day, and sprayed a nice blue/indigo color over the gloss black scales very lightly and carefully. The effect is actually amazing. Its as subtle as I wanted, and looks fantastic in person. The trouble is its difficult to show in photographs, as you can't turn the model and reflect the light at different angles in real time, but you can see in the photographs, especially the one below, how parts of it appear just black, while some go from purple to blue as well.

The only standout part of the base is that I added some of my wife's Dimensional Magic to the gem part of the shield to make it bubble out and add some depth. The rest is just normal rock.