So…I had a dilemma. I like Gandalf the Gray in both SBG and WotR. I don’t use him exclusively as Saruman the White and Radagast are each alternatives that I’ve used in Good armies many times as well, but especially in WotR I’ve been fielding Gandalf a lot. As I’m building my Rohan force I really want to use him there as well, but here’s the issue. The only mounted version GW makes of Gandalf the Gray is pretty static (horse just standing, Gandalf looking around) and wouldn’t look good in a formation of charging Rohan models. Additionally, it only comes as a blister with a foot version and I already own a couple poses of him on foot, including this one. As with a lot of players I’m on a hobby budget and hate to spend money on a blister for one model I’m not really interested in while I’d rather add a couple more Royal Knights to my army for the same cost. I got a mounted Gandalf the White from a friend’s backlog, but have not yet painted it up. I don’t play Gandalf the White very often (never have yet, to be honest
) as I don’t think he’s worth the extra points in most games. Maybe when I get to 2000 points, but I’m not there yet. But I like the pose. Very dynamic. So I was going to paint him up White and just proxy him for his earlier incarnation when I had a little revelation.
I had a plastic Gandalf from the MoM set when I first got into the hobby a few years ago. I had base coated him but never did anything more as I got a nice metal one early on. The outfits are close enough, so I figured I’d give a conversion a try.
I initially only intended to work on the staff and give him a pouch at his side from GS. So I snipped the ends of both staves, trimmed a notch in each for some more surface area and glued them together. I added some basic texture to the metal staff with GS (his original staff was a much rougher wood), made a little pouch and strap and was going to be done with it. My wife took a look, said it was nice but asked where was his hat. I love her.
Though she doesn’t play she’s very supportive, artistic herself, likes the films (“Can we just skip the battles though”
) and really likes the character of Gandalf. I told her that since he's charging he probably lost his hat...so she’s asking if there are any scenes of him "Gray" without his hat except when he’s in Moria. Well…she’s right. Even when he’s speeding to Minas Tirith and Isengard in Fellowship he has his hat on. So back to the plastic donor, I sniped off his hat (effectively decapitated him) and started flattening it and hallowing it out as best as I could. I needed to take the knife to the metal Gandalf as well to bring his head down a bit to get the hat to fit at the level he usually wears it.
I was pretty happy with the results considering I only classify myself as an average converter. After basecoating him yesterday I think he looks even better. It will probably be a week or two before I start painting him. Though I have a nice Gandalf scheme I like I have never painted a white horse before so I want to do one for a RoR first as a test. I’ll try to get another few pics up here when that time comes.
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But that's what happens when old men have to run 
