Games 2006

Isengard and the tower of Orthanc will be this year's spectacular Lord of the Rings display at NWA's Games 2006. Our open day to the public will be held on Saturday 12th August at the Croydon venue.

Watch The Progress

On these pages watch the progress to see how Isengard is coming together. It is to be constructed for 1/72nd scale (25mm:6ft) miniatures for use with the Lord of the Rings Battlegame by Games Workshop.

It had to be playable for wargaming and able to be transported in 1 car (not 3 cars like Minas Tirith). Thus it had to be made quite robust.

Model Design

Time was spent drawing the basic layout in the AutoCAD computer drafting program in 3D. This allowed comparison with photos of Isengard from the film to make sure that it looked appropriately proportioned even though it was scaled down. It also ensured that the model would fit on a series of 2' x 2' (600mm x 600mm terrain modules).

The drawings are done in the computer at real size. For example, if the wall height is 240mm then you draw the wall in AutoCAD at 240mm high. This allows AutoCAD to calculate measurements for you on other parts of the drawing. This was especially useful to avoid having to calculate the lengths of curved wall sections for cutting out - at the click of a button AutoCAD calculates it for you.

Shwon at left and right are rendered images of the AutoCAD drawing. This allows a good idea of what the finished scenery will look like before any physical work has to start.

Time to paint the terrain modules after the coating had dried. The modules were all painted in acrylic paints. The black was a 4 litre tin of liquid acrylic matt black (whatever brand was cheapest) bought from a hardware store. The paints used for touching up of black and any other colours were the range of Chromacryl Student Acrylic paints bought from an art & craft store. They are cheap but good quality and come in a good range of colours. They are the consistency of soft toothpaste so I find them easier to mix and a perfect consistency for dry brushing than compared to more liquid paints.

Rather than pay extra for textured paint, I made my own. Because of using a large tin of liquid black paint for the base coat, I did not want to make it all textured paint. But rather than mixing the sand and paint in a container, I painted the black on thickly first to an area of the terrain, then sprinkled the sand on, then with a brush wet with black paint I went back over the area to mix the sand in and make sure it was covered with black paint. I did this for two reasons. I was worried that the sand would all drop to the bottom if I mixed it with a lot of paint in a container. I also was able to control how much sand I wanted in each area (by sprinkling on more or less sand). The key to realistic terrain is having lots of subtle variations of colour and texture.

Once the black was dry, it was on to the dry brushing. At each stage the paths were gone over in the same colour several times to ensure they came up lighter than the surrounding terrain. If you look at the Lord of the Rings films, the paths are very light coloured. Dry brushing of Burnt Sienna was followed by Raw Sienna, then a 50:50 mix of Yellow Oxide and Neutral Grey, followed by just Neutral Grey and then a very light dry brush of White on just the high points to give the impression of reflected sunlight. You can see the difference each stage makes in the photos below.