Ender's Crafts: Painting Aragorn

Introduction

"This is no mere ranger. He is Aragorn, son of Arathorn. You owe him your allegiance." - Legolas

I started painting this miniature by happenstance. I just finished my previous project, and the next one was still being primed. I had bought it some time ago already primed black, so it was perfectly ready to starting painting immediately.

I then got way too excited about it, and looked up the movies so as to replicate as faithfully as possible the awesome looks of the character. He wears very dark colors, and most of them look black. If you look closely, there are flashes of color - so I noted everything down, and went with it.

Painting

The miniature before I started work on it.

Dark green cloak

I don't have more pictures of this, as the effect was very subtly built up. The camera barely shows it even after finishing. I mixed black into Dark Green (2:1) and painted most of the cloak, leaving only the recesses black. Then mixed more Dark Green (to about 1:1) and painted less of the cloak, concentrating on the upper folds. Then mixed more and more Dark Green, painting less and less surface each time. It looks pretty close to the almost-black-but-sometimes-flashing-green garment in the movie. Still, at a distance it already looks almost black, so I brought it up by mixing Dead Flesh into Dark Green and doing a little edge highlight.

In fact it looks more greenish in the photos below.

Unfortunately shortly after this I lost most interest in the miniature, as I observed that it isn't as detailed as I expected. The head is most certainly not a separate component, leading to some funny parts around the flowing hair. I expected such an important character to have a better miniature. Still, I don't want to leave projects unfinished. I just continued with simpler approaches.

Browns

His coat is a really dark brown. I basecoated it by mixing black into Charred Brown (1:1).

Then broad highlights using Charred Brown.

Finally edge highlight with Heavy Brown. At this point I also basecoated every other brownish detail with the same Heavy Brown.

All strips and straps of leather get a Beasty Brown basecoat: belt, sheath, strips around the boots, details around the quiver.

His bow is also a dark brown, but I opted for a reddish tint for color variation purposes. Charred Brown.

Bonewhite basecoat on the bedroll, arrow fletching and the scroll on the belt.

Khaki on the quiver. It looks funny now, but bear with me.

Wash these details in Agrax Earthshade. Except the fletching and the boots, which get washed in black. In fact, the boots get several layers, to bring them down to the dark colors in the movie.

Then start highlighting. Edge the leathers in Beasty Brown, then Leather Brown. Edge the fletching and the bedroll in Bonewhite. I also added some Bonewhite chips to the leather, to make it seem old and worn.

Mix 1:1 Charred Brown and Bonewhite to edge highlight the bow. I find that Bonewhite mixes very well with dark colors, and lights them up without making them of a much different hue to the original shade.

We interrupt the browns to paint the skin

Heavy Skintone basecoat. This was the first time I used this color, and I find it gives a much more realistic result than Elf Skintone - the skin looks weather worn, more appropriate for a ranger.

Wash in Reikland Fleshshade.

Highlight in Heavy Skintone.

I initially did a second highlight with Pale Flesh, but that is a pinkish color and the contrast was way too much. So I mixed 1:1 Heavy Skintone and Pale Flesh and painted the highlights over. The result looks much better.

All right, back to the browns

Mixed 1:1 black and Heavy Brown to edge highlight the boots. Barely visible.

So I highlighted the highlights with Heavy Brown.

Black pants

I usually highlight black like this, but a) this is a small surface b) in shadow c) and should be dark to complement the rest of the character. So I eschewed the bright grey highlights. First a solid basecoat of black.

Then highlight with Heavy Charcoal. This gives some semblance of shadows, but still keeping the area black.

Other details

Black wash on the sword and continue as per the metallic painting tip. No ornaments for the sword in the movie, and I did not want to digress, so no gold or bronze crossguard as I usually do.

Also black wash on the hair.

As this miniature is not heroic scale, the eyes are tiny. I had painted them white before the previous step, and wanted to continue as per the painting tip, but I realized they are way to small for so many steps. So I just dotted the middle of the eyes with black wash - and it came out perfectly. Solid black would look way too strong.

Line highlight the hair in Heavy Brown.

Highlight the top with Beasty Brown - simulating the light passing through the strands and making them look lighter.

Basing

I wanted to place the mini at the battle of Amon-Hen, so I decided on some elven-looking ruins.

Prepare

I have a basing kit of ruined statues and such, but they are rather large pieces and don't fit on a 25mm base. My heart would break if I would chop them up :( So I cloned some using Blue Stuff and Milliput. Not the whole item, mind you, as I intend on breaking them apart anyway. Just a corner here, a bit there.

I decided on this piece of statue right here.

I scraped the flocking off the base where I intended to place the ruined statue.

Paint the ruined statue

First, glue it to a pin and stick in a cork for better handling.

Then paint according to the painting tip. This was inspired by the cobblestone on the mimic. I really liked the result, although the ruins at Amon-Hen were lighter in color.