After FINALLY receiving my limited edition Escape from Goblin Town today (thanks, greendragongames.co.uk!) I could FINALLY get started on a few conversions I had been planning ever since I caught a look at a pic of the Dwarves/Gandalf/Bilbo sprue...

BILBO:


Seeing as GW gave us the option of having either a Bilbo with Sting OR a Bilbo with staff, I can understand how a lot of people have been scouring ebay for an extra Bilbo model so they can have both options. However, it's also possible to easily give Bilbo both a staff and Sting with minimal effort!

I attached Bilbo's Sting arm as normal but cut off his left arm at the shoulder, replacing it parallel to the ground. With a bit of greenstuff, I hid the joint, then I cut off the staff from Bilbo's other arm and attached it to his repositioned left arm. Simples!



I'm thinking of giving him a greenstuff backpack, too, as the one in the movies is pretty awesome and would give him a nice traveler look.

THORIN OAKENSHIELD:


I'm pretty proud of this (quite simple) conversion. GW has given us even more possibilities with this sculpt but I thought it was a pity that Thorin can't have Orcrist and his oak shield together. So I changed it! First, I took Thorin's set of arms with the oak shield and the dwarven sword and separated the sword from the shield with a small cut. I then added a bit of GS to the edge of the oakenshield to make it look complete. The rest was a simple weapon swap: remove Orcrist's blade from the other set of arms and glue it to Thorin's right arm - cut away his shorter dwarven sword first, though! After that, just glue the arms to Thorin's body - I went for a heroic pose.



GANDALF:


I wasn't much of a fan of this model of Gandalf - the outstretched arm looked kinda... weird. So I cut off the joint and some of Gandalf's left arm and attached it to his staff, then joined the two with a bit of sculptwork. I'm not entirely satisfied with the folds so I will play around with that in a bit. I think the pose is pretty cool, though.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed my first few Hobbit conversions (I plan on trying to convert as many of Thorin's company as possible) and hopefully I could give you some ideas and inspiration to make a few Hobbit conversions of your own!

Happy new year and thanks for reading!

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Manners maketh man

Wow! Very cool conversions.

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Wait ye the finish! The fight is not yours.
Beowulf

http://TacticsInMiniature.com

Very nice! I may feel a bit inspired myself after seeing your Thorin- I considered doing something to that effect, passed on the idea, and am now considering it again.

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"...in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”

Absolouetly excellent as per usual

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'Though my memory's fading, I remember two things very clearly: I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior'
-John Newton

Nicely and neatly done. Very good!

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You don't have to be great to start. But you do have to start to be great.

Very good, especially the Gandalf, original thinking!

Indeed, these look really good. I look forward to your next figures.

Very cool, just reposed my Goblin King last night, hadnt thought to redo the company as well, so thanks for the ideas!

Thanks Beowulf, glad you liked them! Happy new year!



Glad I could inspire you, Valamir, would love to see how your Thorin turns out! Have a great 2013!



That's very high praise from you, Sid, thanks a lot for the kind words and the continued interest! Happy new year to you!



Some high praise from you too, Dave, thanks and Happy new year!



Thanks, I like to think outside the box when it comes to conversions - I'm glad it didn't prove too challenging this time! Have a great new year!



I'll be sure to post some, soon. I've almost finished Bilbo's backpack and then I'll move on to some more Dwarves! Happy new year!



Is there a pic in your WIP thread, RangeroftheNorth? Would be interested to see what you did with the Great Goblin! Happy new year!

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Manners maketh man

Seriously though, you and your WiP's area constant inspiration to me... you have persuaded me to do some conversions on my dwarves too. Happy new year!

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'Though my memory's fading, I remember two things very clearly: I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior'
-John Newton

Really like the gandalf (re)pose!
Bilbo and Thorin looking nice aswell

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My WIP: http://www.one-ring.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=22962

Yeah its my last post in that thread viewtopic.php?f=50&t=24550, got the major resculpt work cut out for me, gotta finish before the monthly competition deadline. Happy New Year!

Looking really good, I like the relative simplicity of the work and how effective the results are, particularly with Gandalf (I think they're just running out of new poses to try)

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QOTN: "Bronzed flesh is a terrible name, it should never be used for painting flesh or bronze" - at the local GW

These conversions are ingenious, well executed and I look forward to seeing the final versions painted and based. This is the sort of work that BotWT enjoyed so it is really great to see people carrying on that tradition with such excellent results.

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Published ebooks:
Instrument of the Empire
A Note of Defiance
Phantom Ships, Ghost Flotilla
More to come!

A quick update for you guys - two more dwarves!

KILI:


I thought it was a bit of a shame that the only member of Thorin's company that has a bow was sculpted without it, so I removed Kili's left hand and replaced it with Bofur's left hand - more on that later. Then I repositioned his sword arm into a block/slash and fastened it with greenstuff. The bow is from the Warg rider set.



The bow was cut away from the quiver and attached to his back. I tried to fill the gaps with GS but it's a bit rough atm.

BOFUR:


The pose is quite similar to the original, but my Bofur has his mattock raised higher and at a steeper angle. In addition, his left hand was replaced with Kili's (with the outstretched fingers), which makes it look like he's guiding the stroke with his left, as you can see in the next pic.



To finish off, I cut off a chunk from an old Uruk pike and glued it to the end of the mattock.

And finally Bilbo is ready for painting, he now has a brand spanking new rucksack to go along with his Elven letter-opener and walking stick:



Three dwarves down, nine to go! I'm not entirely sure how I'm gonna be able to convert some of the single-piece figures (I'm looking at you, Balin), but it will be fun to see how things turn out! Thanks for reading!

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Manners maketh man

Great conversions. The back pack looks very professional. Love it!

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You don't have to be great to start. But you do have to start to be great.

Love it!! If you have the new hardback rule book, check for pictures of the finecast Dwarves coming, you're getting closer to some of them, I believe I really want that set just for Fili and Dwalin

These look awesome and makes me want to try some myself. Are you converting so yours are different or because you dislike some of the sculpts? I'm especially awaiting your Fili and Dwalin.



That's high praise from a professional!



I've noticed that many of them are quite similar to the EFGT set. Oin, Gloin, Bombur, Balin, Bifur and even Thorin being near enough the same (finecast Thorin would lose out due to his lack of Oakenshield option.) Fili and Kili I like more (a LOT more in Fili's case!) Dwalin I like as much but want in addition to the plastic sculpt, because I have a newfound love for alternate weapon sculpts. The mini rule book doesn't have any pics that I could discern of FC Ori, Nori and Bofur.

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Gondor: 2339pts
Rohan: 1318pts
Dwarves: 2482pts
Elves: 1091pts
Mordor: 2305pts
Isengard: 1762pts
Moria: 1463pts
Evil Men: 381pts

Top notch there Matt!

A bit of constructive critisicm: might I suggest that you perhaps wet your tools a little more and really work on getting the GS really, really smooth and even (unless you mean for it to be rough of course). I reckon this would make it look even more realistic

But very very good though

I am really looking forward to seeing how you do Fili, Dwalin and Nori

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'Though my memory's fading, I remember two things very clearly: I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior'
-John Newton

Hello everyone - thanks for the nice, helpful comments!

Bilbo is finished and now only needs basing:






I strongly dislike GW's paint scheme for Bilbo because of the colour of his jacket (red? It's clearly purple in the film) and hair (since when is Bilbo ginger?!), so I tried to make my version look more like the film Bilbo. I'm pretty pleased with how it ended up - I used Screamer Pink for the jacket if anyone is interested. I must say, the quality of the sculpt is mind-blowing, it really looks like you're painting a miniature Martin Freeman! Great work, GW!



Awww thanks, Sid. And thanks for the constructive criticism re wetting my sculpting tools. I guess I'm just lazy, I know I should, really



Thanks, Lord H! Well seeing as I had a two week wait for my set to arrive, I toyed about with some ideas for the 'big heroes', i.e Gandalf, Bilbo, Thorin... but when the set arrived I thought: Why not try and convert/mod all of them? It's just something to keep me occupied, really, and to hone my skills on!



High praise indeed from a professional, thanks a lot Dave! Your comments mean a lot!



Alas, I don't have the hardback rulebook, so I don't actually know which models you mean. However, I'll be sure to besiege my nearest supplier asap and sneak a peek in their rulebook - it's a bit too expensive for me to buy atm! Thanks for reading! Also: I love your Goblin King!



Thanks a lot, Dorth! BotWT was always very supportive and I miss his regular comments, even though I didn't have the pleasure of 'knowing' him for very long. It's nice that we can 'keep his work alive', though, if you know what I mean.



I agree, Gandalf has a ton of poses! What's your favourite? I'd love to see GW release a Gandalf with an Eagle mount!

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Manners maketh man