Marathon LOTR/TH WIP Custom Builds..Reaper/Rider Wraith Redone & Finished.

Well I grew up in Athens for the first 18 years of my life, my folks still live there, I speak street Greek not classical! This Dwarvish alphabet is pretty cool:



Have a look at Klingon and Ancient from SG1, really hard!!

shovelchop81 wrote:Well I grew up in Athens for the first 18 years of my life, my folks still live there, I speak street Greek not classical!  This Dwarvish alphabet is pretty cool

Oh I remember why you had a connection to Greece (heck, even your name is Greek -- no no the screen name, the real one). Besides, I was mostly teasing. I don't know it intimately enough to spot it by mere glance, but the Dwarvish alphabet conveys the look of Gothic or Futhark or runic. You want strange real-world alphabets proper? Take a look at Armenian and Georgian. And the weirdest thing about them is that although they look nothing like it, they are supposedly based on Greek.

GubernatorFan wrote:

shovelchop81 wrote:Well I grew up in Athens for the first 18 years of my life, my folks still live there, I speak street Greek not classical!  This Dwarvish alphabet is pretty cool

Oh I remember why you had a connection to Greece (heck, even your name is Greek -- no no the screen name, the real one). Besides, I was mostly teasing. I don't know it intimately enough to spot it by mere glance, but the Dwarvish alphabet conveys the look of Gothic or Futhark or runic. You want strange real-world alphabets proper? Take a look at Armenian and Georgian. And the weirdest thing about them is that although they look nothing like it, they are supposedly based on Greek.

I'll have to take a look!

Been concentrating on his weapons, mostly his bow. I love archery and figured at least one Wraith should have a long range weapon as they are essentially a fighting unit and tend to fight Elves often enough. Samurai are also famous archers, in fact it was their primary weapon before and after the introduction of horses, only the introduction of the Portuguese matchlock arquebus to Japan saw the decline of the use of archery in warfare. It was a nice surprise to discover the tips of the tails I used to make the bow limbs are actually metal so I could safely carve notches in them for the bow string. The limbs themselves aren't flexible but I've incorporated a cheat where the riser actually is flexible to give the illusion that the limbs bend when the string is pulled back, kind of arse backwards to reality but looks the part (not pictured yet); works with his wide grip hands too. He also has a large katana almost an odachi (field sword) and two wakizashi like swords that can connect together to form a glaive/short polearm.

How did you make that bow? That is awesome.

I second Stryker. It looks awesome.

Great looking weapons!

CHEERS!

Stryker2011 wrote:How did you make that bow? That is awesome.

GubernatorFan wrote:I second Stryker. It looks awesome.

Rogerbee wrote:Great looking weapons!

CHEERS!

Thanks guys! Thought I was going to get a lot of disapproval since even I haven't seen a Wraith with a bow in my extensive research of fan art etc... Which is odd as they ride Fell Beasts!





Great video by Shad musing what weapons would be practical for a dragon rider (he's an Australian Mormon preacher who specialises in medieval weapons and tactics training! Bonkers but fun!).



Stryker: I used some leftover parts from my Iron (Man) Samurai build, the limbs come from a rather odd Mafune(?) weapons kit as part of a strange buckler shield (I used the round shield part as tony's arc reactor). I just filed them down at their bases and notched the tips then joined them together with some stiff rubber hose to get the flexing limbs effect, used a very thin hair band to make the bowstring. It's a hybrid combination of a classic Samurai Yumi and a later style of laminated recurve they also used after fighting the Koreans who used a similar design to the Mongols.

Flying turret of death! LOL Made my day for the second time!
And, for a moment there I thought you discovered shazzdan's secret identity!

Cool. Thanks for all the info on the bow. It really is a cool looking weapon.

Stryker2011 wrote:Cool. Thanks for all the info on the bow. It really is a cool looking weapon.

Thanks! Look out for mafune (that's not quite the right name you might have to search 1/6 Asian weapons to find the correct name) weapons sets on ebay, they're great!

Just some lazy pre-photobooth pics of him drawing his bow, typically the 1/6 arrows are way too short so I'll have to order some wooden souvlaki sticks to make my own. The hand is open as you don't grip a bow, you allow it to rest against the palm of your hand to help eliminate torque (a bit like shooting a springer air rifle or a rifle with a non free-floating barrel, to allow barrel harmonics/vibrations to resonate out naturally), torque makes the bow twist or fall sideways whereas if it falls forwards like it wants to it won't affect the accuracy. You do have to catch it of course if you're not using a sling like most modern archers do.

Sweeeeeeeet!
I have ( finally ) arrived at a point where family and friends compliment my "custom" work.
Then I will say " Naw Bro, THIS is what a real custome looks like...." and show them a little Shovelchop magic.
They kinda lose interest in my stuff after that.....
I'm not allowed to watch any of the Rings movies, my wife does not get "questing", but I love the job you have done!
I was wondering ( from a linguistic perspective ) what your opinion is on the idea that hieroglyphs might be acronyms similar to modern LOL, OMG, WTF, BTW, CIA, STFU...( you get the idea )
Is this a current working theory, or just a hairbrained assumption by pseudo-researchers?

Impressive, as always. Your builds are always amazing to watch, but then educational to boot. I took archery in school (yeah, back then you could even bring shotguns to school), but I honestly never learned the open-handed technique. This guy turned out so cool.

Pontiacivan wrote:Sweeeeeeeet!
I have ( finally ) arrived at a point where family and friends compliment my "custom" work.
Then I will say " Naw Bro, THIS is what a real custome looks like...." and show them a little Shovelchop magic.
They kinda lose interest in my stuff after that.....
I'm not allowed to watch any of the Rings movies, my wife does not get "questing", but I love the job you have done!
I was wondering ( from a linguistic perspective ) what your opinion is on the idea that hieroglyphs might be acronyms similar to modern LOL, OMG, WTF, BTW, CIA, STFU...( you get the idea )
Is this a current working theory, or just a hairbrained assumption by pseudo-researchers?

Thank you very much Ponti! We all do our own thing with builds, it's art and just open to interpretation that's all. The wife won't allow you to watch LOTR?! Damn, so glad I'm single now a days for so many reason! . As for hieroglyphs I'm no linguist and my knowledge of Ancient Egyptian history sporadic and probably not helped by being a huge Stargate fan! But I do watch lots of documentaries on it, most recently on their stone and bronze age weapons, amazingly sharp and durable! However I remember even from school history lessons that the Rosetta Stone was supposed to have cleared most of the translations up since it was hieroglyphs translated into Ancient Greek? I guess there's a lot it didn't cover too as aren't most glyphs an actual word that changes depending on where it's positioned in context or something like that? No idea mate just guessing really but I'll look out for any documentaries on it though!

Stryker2011 wrote:Impressive, as always. Your builds are always amazing to watch, but then educational to boot. I took archery in school (yeah, back then you could even bring shotguns to school), but I honestly never learned the open-handed technique. This guy turned out so cool.

You were allowed to bring shotguns to school? And they think they have a gun problem now?...LOL. Of course being an avid shooter myself I completely understand that kids should be shown how to safely operate and respect weapons/tools of any kind (okay, not explosives! ) to try and ensure there is as little misuse as possible further down the line through ignorance or lack of safety awareness. It won't stop the odd person going nuts with access to a gun but ironically a gun usually ends up doing that... I think the most dangerous thing we had at school was rocks! Small ones...
Thanks for liking the figure! I'll take better pics in the booth when the arrows are made.

Shovelchop is absolutely right. If by hieroglyphs you mean Egyptian writing, it has been deciphered almost completely. While a single sign could convey a whole word and a group of signs could abbreviate an entire phrase (but only because each of the signs could convey a whole word), they did not function like our abbreviations proper.

I've never been an LOTR junkie, but, I think the wraith with the bow looks really cool! Keep up the good work!

CHEERS!

GubernatorFan wrote:Shovelchop is absolutely right. If by hieroglyphs you mean Egyptian writing, it has been deciphered almost completely. While a single sign could convey a whole word and a group of signs could abbreviate an entire phrase (but only because each of the signs could convey a whole word), they did not function like our abbreviations proper.

Wow, I was right about something! Mostly...

Rogerbee wrote:I've never been an LOTR junkie, but, I think the wraith with the bow looks really cool! Keep up the good work!

CHEERS!

Thanks Roger! I know it's unheard of but also "why not?", everyone else uses bows except Dwarves which is kind of funny as they would be the perfect weapon for Dwarves given their strength and height disadvantages! Here are a couple of fun videos on the subject and how I discovered Shadiversity's channel, been watching Skallagrim's for years now.

I have to give this to you, too, Shovelchop. You do find the most entertaining things on Youtube.

Interesting videos. I really like that first one, entertaining and his explanations made sense.

Great work, good sir.

I grew up shooting bows and developed a healthy respect for what one can do with one. Modern bows are even more powerful, but I still choose a long recurve bow.

You've done the archery world proud.

You've also done the Wraith world a service by creating one that shoots a bow. The others should look upon him in awe...before he shoots them.

GubernatorFan wrote:I have to give this to you, too, Shovelchop. You do find the most entertaining things on Youtube.

It's just fun nonsense but well thought out too   .

Stryker2011 wrote:Interesting videos. I really like that first one, entertaining and his explanations made sense.

Except for Dwarves tripping over their scabbards all the time!    I dressed up a the Witch King once, custom made helmet and all (no mace though) for a Halloween party down the local rock pub and everyone spent the night tripping over my scabbard since I was wearing a full size replica Witch King sword. Won first place and 50quid though!  

dadrab wrote:Great work, good sir.

I grew up shooting bows and developed a healthy respect for what one can do with one. Modern bows are even more powerful, but I still choose a long recurve bow.

You've done the archery world proud.

You've also done the Wraith world a service by creating one that shoots a bow. The others should look upon him in awe...before he shoots them.

Thank you dadrab! I use a compound, a Mongolian recurve and a sporting recurve. The compound is insanely accurate! I did this double bullseye by mistake a year or so ago! LOL. I was just trying out some new whistling arrow heads, they sound like an eagle's/hawk's cry!





I don't think the wraith have too much to fear from their archer since only fire and magic seem to bother them....

Just started the ninth today, need to do a lot of sanding to get paint to stick to the super slick armour...I'm going for an evil Gondorian knight look right now...

Some of many examples of wraith fan art and concept designs as well as random stuff that looks wraith knight like to give ideas or just back up my own wacky ones!

You’re as bad as me. I research and examine hundreds, sometimes thousands, of images to find elements and bits and pieces that I like. Some very cool looking Wraiths. Most of them reminiscent of the Witch-King himself.

Stryker2011 wrote:You’re as bad as me. I research and examine hundreds, sometimes thousands, of images to find elements and bits and pieces that I like. Some very cool looking Wraiths. Most of them reminiscent of the Witch-King himself.

Yeah I like to do my research, I normally already have an idea of a design in my head but look for images that can justify my design to ardent fans by going "look, they did it like this too!" . Funnily enough I've had a very fixed idea about how I want my 18" Sauron to look since the very beginning of the Marathon thread nearly 30 long pages ago and have been toying recently with the idea of a throne too. Then just a few days ago I saw this painting which is an exact match to what has been in my head all this time and no, I'd never seen this artwork or anything similar before which is what makes finding it so cool and weird at the same time! Look back at my 1st LOTR marathon post on OSW to see the comparison!

That would indeed be a cool looking Sauron. Wicked and imposing.

You are encouragingly unstoppable. A quest worthy for the lords of the rings themselves! Looking forward to the last wraith and Sauron.

Stryker2011 wrote:That would indeed be a cool looking Sauron. Wicked and imposing.

GubernatorFan wrote:You are encouragingly unstoppable. A quest worthy for the lords of the rings themselves! Looking forward to the last wraith and Sauron.

Cheers! Looking forward to finishing them now. As for a quest... well I don't leave the house! I think that's cheating!
Here are the original Sauron design idea/parts pics from the beginning of this thread back on OSW (I'm still locked out even after sending the admins a message asking for help, the acoustic option on that anti-spam checker actually works even if the visual one doesn't).









Ughh.. got loads of sanding to do, taking forever! Even my gun build needs loads of sanding... I can;t escape it!

Love the rib-cage chest armor. Very cool idea.

I agree. It does look very promising. How sad that you of all people should be locked out and unattended to. But let's not digress.

Stryker2011 wrote:Love the rib-cage chest armor. Very cool idea.

GubernatorFan wrote:I agree. It does look very promising. How sad that you of all people should be locked out and unattended to. But let's not digress.

I'm looking forward to building him although I'm sure his weight and size will drive me nuts soon enough!
Finished all that intricate sanding on the armour pieces, took forever to get into all the nooks and crannies to do it properly and not loose too much detail. All painted with black primer, even the mail suit got a coat to dull the blingy silver. Got loads of hard goods to go through for weapons (I'm thinking  a Great Sword or zweihander) and mace etc.. then the all important helmet design, gauntlets, armour details, perhaps a heater shield? then the soft goods of course like a cloak etc..