Another quick update on my ongoing Mithril Miniatures Evil army. I say ongoing, but I have actually already finished painting the army. My main problem is having enough time for photography and then updating the blog. I have already moved onto painting some Chaos Dwarfs, and some 40k Praetorians, but their photographs will have to wait until the Mithril Miniatures have had their turn. I did really enjoy painting the army, and I am very pleased with how they turned out.
Anyway, back to this blog update. This update concerns Mithril Miniatures boxset MB396 Shelob's Lair. Originally produced in 1997, this boxset was made to represent the confrontation by Frodo and Sam against Shelob, with Gollum lurking in the background. The set consists of Shelob, who is a multi-part kit, and a single miniature of Frodo, Sam, and Gollum respectively. I haven't painted the latter three yet as I wanted to focus on Shelob. I only acquired this boxset this year, in March, as a birthday present from my mother (who incidentally, doesn't really like spiders!).
As mentioned, the Shelob miniature is multi-part, consisting of a body, an abdomen, eight legs, and two arms. She was surprisingly easy to assemble, the arms being a little fiddly but no real problem. The design of Shelob represents her spider-like form, but does have other elements also suggesting the fact that she is more a daughter of Ungoliant than a giant spider per se. This is suggested in such details as her more humanoid looking face, and her possessing arms (although ending in claws). One last thing to mention is the model is big, very big. The last photograph demonstrates how large she is.
With painting I wanted make her both dark but with colour, so I opted for a gradation of red, with the brighter red on the legs joints and edges of the body to contrast the darker red parts. I also thought it would give her a spider look, without actually copying a particular spider colouration. In addition, I also wanted to keep the look simple and uncomplicated, and to preserve an stark evil feel. I'm very pleased with how she came out.
Enjoy :)
I positioned the legs to give the impression she was creeping along.
As I mentioned before, the sculpt suggests her true non spider ancestry from Ungoliant, which I think was a good choice.
I had to make a special custom base for her. In the foreground is a base Orc warriors on the standard 125mm by 50mm base. At the far side is one of Shelob's Giant Spider daughters from Mirkwood. Shelob is a big model, and her base is much bigger than a normal Midgard base, but it's an appropriate size for her.
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