Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Mounted Radagast

Well, I headed off to my Dad's place to use his Dremel today. I wanted a mounted Radagast with a difference. Instead of mounted Radagast on horse I decided that mounted Radagast on Stag would be cooler.

The story for Radagast is fairly sparse, with Tolkien changing his mind a few times over the course of his life. We do know that he appears to have been distracted from whatever his true task was, but that part of his task was to look after the flora and fauna of Middle Earth. 

We also know that he either has the power to change shape or at least seems to have taught the skill to others. I toyed with "mounted Radagast" being an actual bear model (and may still do that too for coolness). But instead I went with a stag, so that it's obviously different from a horse etc. 

Here he is all burrowed out ready for climbing on board his mount.


As you can see, an unfortunate incident left me with a stag without one leg or an ear. I found the ear, but the leg remains missing.


Here it is from the back.


You may notice the longer staff. My plan is to have some greenery growing where the staff meets the ground. On my lava board it means that the Ents and Radagast will add that teeny bit of colour and life to the otherwise dreary landscape. A sort of nod to his powers if you will. This will help tie the theme in as well as (hopefully) look a little different and nicer than the plain bases.


And here he is with greenstuff and stag horns (and ear). Oh, and plastic feet (sorry poor plastic guy who now has no feet).


I had to greenstuff the rest of his tunic to drape over the stag and have tried to make the staff longer and more gnarled. I also had to greenstuff a stag leg, the greenery growing around the staff base will hopefully hide my horrible greenstuff skills!


The cloak had to fold over the back of the stag. I cut a triangle the same size and shape as the one missing from where I cut it, then attached it along the edges and let it drape over the back of the stag. Hopefully it'll paint up okay.


And here's the last angle of interest. The super shiny spot is where the dremel skipped once, burred the metal (and took a chunk out of my finger!). I've since put a bit of liquid greenstuff over it to smooth it back down.


Anyway, that's it so far. My plan is that Radagast, with his Eagle friends (which we know he talked to regularly) has spotted what could be evidence of Entwives and so, naturally, he endeavours to follow up on the lead with some of his Entish friends. That sounds like a distraction that involves both animals and plants and perhaps is why Radagast did not fulfill his other mission the way he should have.

Letting it all dry tonight, hopefully will undercoat it tomorrow and then the day after might see if I can coax some paint onto it. Otherwise I'll get to it sometime next week.

Please don't flame me for putting Radagast on a stag instead of a horse, just get out photoshop and change it for yourself if you don't like it =)

10 comments:

  1. Love the idea with Radagast on a stag.
    Could you send one to Norway?

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  2. The Stag mount is an interesting concept, and you have done it very well.
    I liked your earlier reference to bears, and might have instead gone with a bear as a mount, based on the fact that Radagasts 'home' of Rosgobel was on the western eaves of Mirkwood, near where the Beorn and his Beornings lived, hence the bear connection to Beorn.

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    1. Believe it or not, the pack of animals I got for him was bought for the bear! But then I saw that there are lots of fantasy minis riding bears already, so I went with the stag that was also in the pack just to do something really different. Also that way it's not funny rules wise as riding a bear would probably be like riding a warg in terms of rules rather than using the horse stats. And Radagast is in quite a tranquil pose, so it just turned out to fit nicely with the stag.

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  3. Dear Sir
    From where did you get the stag? I've been trying to find plastic animals on good quality and 1:60 scale but couldn't find anything

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    1. It's a part of a pack of four animals ANI 01 from http://fenryll.fr
      They have lots of other stuff there too that's worth a look if you're interested.

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  4. That is truly the greatest conversion idea I've ever seen!! :)

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  5. Thanks for the kind words, hopefully my painting will do the idea justice!

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  6. nice work with radagast....if i may ask where did you find the elk?

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    1. Thanks, comment about three up has details on where I got the elk =)

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