Since they are out of stock and are impossible to buy at a reasonable price on ebay, i decided to provide myself with 24 custom Goblin Black Shields, I will use them to boost my Misty Mountains army for War of the Ring games. I’m not the best at sculpting, but I am quite happy with the final result, I hope you too will appreciate.





I started this project buying a bunch of cheap mordor orcs (less than 1 euro per model), selecting the following poses to start converting:



Then I cut the heads and modified arms and hands. Some of the original orc arms were replaced by other spare bits I had (mostly fireforge kits). I decided to clone the helmet of a goblin by using blue stuff: I made a bunch of molds with blue stuff but instead of filling them with the standard mix of 50% green stuff 50% milliput I used the "Acrylic Resin" from Greenstuff World. This stuff is more like plaster than resin and once mixed with water it cures without melting the bluestuff. The advantage of acrylic resin is that I can pour that within the mould to catch all the small detail as with liquid resins, without melting the bluestuff mould. However Acrylic Resin has its downside: it is hard to work and clean after cured and it is less flexible compared to green stuff, it also tends to break quite easily and the process of casting I used sometimes produced annoying air bubbles. But after many attempts I managed to work this stuff and get good casts that I used for this project as you can see.




Using green stuff/milliput, I sculpted the fur around the neck and glued the heads. Since i didn’t like the cloaks of the GW originals I didn’t sculpted that part, but instead I added more fur on the back of the models. To some models I glued some fake pieces of scalemail obtained by casting greenstuff into a mould I previously made. The mould was made of bluestuff used to copy the pattern of my x-acto knife. I let the greenstuff curing into the mould more than 3 hours, waiting for the perfect consistency: it has to be hard enough to maintain the details and shape but still flexible to be bended and adjusted to fit the miniature.






Lastly I created their iconic big shields: using bluestuff moulds i have replicated 3 goblin shields with green stuff, then I cut the bigger spike (almost cut the shield in half) on each shield and glued them toghether. Then I filled the gaps using the melted milliput technique (basically watering down the milliput so it acts like liquid greenstuff). These bigger shields have been replicated with blue stuff and fit perfectly with the greater size of the orc models.



The models are not yet finished: they need to be painted and the helmets miss the horns due to air bubbles but I think I’m going to sculpt these details over the next month. I like to see how imposing they are compared with their other goblin comrades. This project has required lot of time but it was much cheaper than buying the originals from ebay or from any future GW release/recast. Leave a comment if you liked or if u have any suggestion to improve these little boys.

Its just one week ago or so that GW announced that Moria receives the full range Back - so also the black shields

https://www.warhammer-community.com/202 ... ttle-game/

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https://castellan-of-the-ring.blogspot.com/

I think the variation and conversions were done very nicely. While not the same as GW's, I would rather have these than the standard GW Black shields. You made them your own. Well done.

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"Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer."

Very good conversions and a nicely detailed work through of the materials and techniques. Great post.

Update: i've sculpted the miscasted details on the elmets. Since i bought some GW blackshields i added capes and furs to the custom minis, so they can better merge toghether with the originals. Here are some of the models i've painted:






As you can see i've also created a custom Groblog, King of the Deep, converting the body of a Uruk-Hai engineer with a goblin head. I then sculpted the crown and the fur over the cape with Green Stuff. Both the cape and the goblin head are resin re-cast. I found a new technique that you may find interesting: what if i tell you that Blue Stuff does not melt with resin? Exactly. If you use slow-curing resin you can create very accurate copies of your minis with Blue Stuff molds without melting them. Slow-curing resins (mine cures in 24-48 hours) does not release heat and so it is safe to use on Blue Stuff. It is far better and cleaner than using Green Stuff+Milliput to cast the molds. However you have to avoid air bubbles by creating the mould properly. To cast the capes i've created a two-part moulds, poured the resin on each part, waited a couple of hours (waited for the resin to become jelly), then attached both parts togheter so they melted toghether, in order to avoid air bubbles and to make sure the resin gets into all the details of both parts. Here is the resin i've used (Resin Pro, you can find many similar products on amazon):



Bonus: i've also converted some Goblin Prowlers by sculpting some hoods, furs and capes onto Moria Goblin archers and spearmen. That was very easy and effective. The weapons are made from thin cardboard glued on a brass rod (the same tecqnique used for Banners). I've created about 48 prowlers this way and they cost me less than 0,50 euros each!





Hope you like it!