you got a previous thread about helms deep I posted many months ago with all the detail you need to know as well as pics of it...

I am sure it is interesting do you have a link?

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"the same as a duck you must be made of wood"

I'm looking forward to seeing how the Amon Hen board shapes up, I've always fancied making one of these myself. Most other attempts I've seen have missed out some of the important details like the stairs and the small bridge (apart from the one in the link).

Here's a template for the columns under the Helm's Deep keep facade:



...and here's my work in progress in building the master parts for the mold from evergreen styrene bits:



I also scribed some floor tiling detail to the main gate level floor:



I need to fit the tower in, so I started also work on that by cutting a wedge-shaped slice from a suitable cardboard tube and force-tapering the tube so that it's narrower at the top end.



I glued some foam inside near the bottom - I need to cut a section off to make the tower fit snugly against the Hornburg supports, and I fear that even with the foam glued inside, the tube will want to stretch back to its normal un-tapered form... we'll see.



@OMW, thanks for the great screen shot of the Great Hall, I've been meaning to get one but you spared me the trouble. I understand your hesitation with the curved Deeping Wall done with Hirst blocks, but if you do it long enough, the curvature should be mild enough for you to be able to build the wall from straight, regular blocks. At one point I also toyed with the idea of curving the wall builder mold just slightly when the plaster has hardened a bit - that should produce curved wall sections... but I've never tried that in practice.

My plans call for only one tower along the Deeping Wall, very near the stairs to Hornburg (I will roughly try to enlarge the Weta model of the movie Helm's Deep). Tolkien's own drawing seems to show four small towers - where did you see / read about the second tower at the far end? I could not find a reference to it in the novel.

I will have a room or two plus some corridor under the front part of the Great Hall, and a bit of Glittering Caves under the back end of the hall. It makes sense in my model, so I'm not overtly concerned about absolute reality. I doubt there are detailed reference models of Helm's Deep in existence with e.g. all the toilets mapped in

The battering ram in your pic is headed for the Great Hall door. I assume the stables have a door as well; I have not seen it in any gameplay video or in the film, but its existence makes sense and I will certainly build one for my model. The door & stables will be on the main gate floor, reachable if you take a right after entering via the main gate and passing the short passage between the gate towers. I will post regularly, so hopefully the plans will become clear once the model takes shape...

Looking Great! I am in awe and envy!

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My work in progress thread: viewtopic.php?f=50&t=27503

The Atlas of middle Earth shows it page 133. Some of the Role playing game references also show it. I need to find a link to another older article. I will post it later.


Just as soon as you finish one will turn up

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"the same as a duck you must be made of wood"

Ah, you are right - Atlas indeed has a tower at the far end, but do note that it is the only tower. The end note 13 also says Tolkien's drawing shows four towers, but text mentions only one. The Atlas map also reminded me of the correct location of the Glittering Caves - way, way behind the whole Helm's Deep. Makes me wonder what the movie makers intended, as the thudding of the Uruks could be clearly heard in the caves and everyone kept glancing upwards. In any case, I have plenty of empty space under the model, so I'll model a large cave there anyways, correct location or not...

The Hornburg is the only tower mentioned. JRRT may not have considered the other battlements on the walls towers.

A old pre movie scenario and discussion of modeling Helms Deep
http://larsen-family.us/~1066/helmsdeep.html
I have played this version with the WHFB yellow book addition and siege rules on the foam castle.

One of JRRT drawings of possible wooden wall with the Hornburg at the center.
http://larsen-family.us/~1066/jrrhelmsdeep.html

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"the same as a duck you must be made of wood"

Yeah, that's the pic Tolkien drew which is referenced in the Atlas of ME.

I took a little break from Amon Hen & Helm's Deep to put together and basecoated the Knight Models' Galadriel. Here are pics of the clampack & parts:





As with Gandalf, Galadriel comes with a recessed-surface slottabase a bit larger than the standard one, but the figure sits just as well on a standard 25mm base.

Quite a lot more work than with their Gandalf - mold lines to file, two large casting stubs in hand parts... and getting those hands to sit nicely was not easy. It seems that in the packet photo the right hand is only attached to the body at the shoulder. Fearing that the hands would very easily snap off later, I positioned both so that they contact hips, and are thus glued to the body in two spots. Since Galadriel's hair extends to the hand parts, a bit of green stuff was needed to fill the gaps:



The question everyone has: how does this compare with GW's Galadriels? Well, compared to the "farewell" Galadriel (31.9 mm tall) and the "protectress of Lothlorien" Galadriel (32.1 mm), the Knight Models Galadriel is actually shorter at only 31.2 mm. However, I was almost shocked by the difference in head sizes... the Knight Models one is obviously quite close to actual body dimensions, and slender Cate Blanchett's small head makes the GW Galadriel's look like some kind of bobble-head caricatures. Here's a line-up of usual suspects; the three Galadriels as well as Celeborn, and I added Tauriel just to compare a more modern GW female figure with a more proportionally correct head:





Once you get over with the shock of exaggerated GW features in comparison, the slender and very beautiful KM Galadriel is my favorite by far. Might be a tad difficult to switch between the models when photographing for battle reports, though - so I might end up using the KM one the most. Here are two more shots of the figure just by herself:

Wow, that Galadriel model looks fantastic!

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See my WIP thread here. viewtopic.php?f=50&t=25624

I have never looked into knight models before, might have to check them out now

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Backlog Oath taker 2014: 6 pts

WIP: Riders of Rohan
Backlog: 63

Elves: 210
Numenor: 392
Mordor: 524

The taper of the tower is not a detail that I had thought about. You could try to roll several different sized tubes and place one inside the other. Like a portable radio antenna. That is the best I could come up with other than turning it on a lathe.
Please more photos

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"the same as a duck you must be made of wood"

viewtopic.php?f=50&t=25227&p=324498&hilit=+helms+deep#p324498

and

viewtopic.php?f=50&t=25227&p=324519&hilit=+helms+deep#p324519

also

highly detail map

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2yzWaqTS18

Thanks links are always helpful!

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"the same as a duck you must be made of wood"

A quick update on the work done this weekend... here are the final master parts for the custom mold for Helm's Deep columns and various Seeing Seat parts:



One casting will give me four half-columns and three full columns for Helm's Deep. The courtyard needs twelve full columns, 10 half-columns and two quarter columns... I didn't bother doing master parts for quarter columns, so I have to carefully cut these from half-columns (or use the plastic master parts). I'll build a mold box from styrene soon, and check if my mold rubber is still good.

Here are the parts for Seeing Seat at the moment; some tile scribing is still needed, and I'll dig out the hot wire scroll table tomorrow for cutting stairs and other foam bits.



Finally, some early work for Parth Galen staircase walls & the crypt. I'll cut the stairs from 7cm / 5cm foam tomorrow.



Oh, and there's also a battle report to write

Yesss a battle report, so excited to see the return of the campaign!

Very nice progress.

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"the same as a duck you must be made of wood"

The second season of the campaign has kicked off, and the battle report for the Hounds of Sauron is now up in the campaign thread. Here's a behind-the-scenes pic of today's photo session with LED strip "moonlight":

The moon light photos are a nice idea.

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"the same as a duck you must be made of wood"

Thanks! I intend to use LED strips also in my model railroad room to simulate sunset and night lighting.