Hi, Guys !

I've just completed my second custom-figure ever. Since I’m at the very beginning of this art-form, with only a tiny amount of experience from my first figure, almost every step; every use of unknown material or products is a trial-error-discovery-experience, with the constant thrill to mess the whole thing up next minute, haha.

The base-figure for Thranduil : Torso and head from a Hellboy2/Prince Nuada-Figure; the extremities from a Chronicles of Riddick/Lord Marshal-figure.
I know, the face has not thaaat much likeness to Lee Pace, but sculpting faces is way beyond my skills yet, and I chose this over a Legolas-head, because his face would have been to slim, in my opinion. I had to cut off the upper half of Nuada’s crown, to make it more slender/sit lower on the head, sculp the front- and back-part of it and also resculp the hair above the crown.

The biggest challenge for me, was to paint the face. Never used a fleshtone before and it was way more difficult, than expected. The citadel-color, I was totally sure of, would be perfect, made him look like he’s sea sick of all the swinging on his deer and he’s about to puke the next moment, haha. So I had to remove the paint. Repainted it with a mat (!) tone, which looked highly glossy after drying. Sweaty Elv riding home from the gym?! Remove/repaint it AGAIN ! Lately I ended up with two different layer- and a dry-brush-tone. The eyes are blue actually. The camera didn’t catch that.

All armor-parts are made of aluminum, embossed from the flip side; painted with a black-transparent nail-polish. Cut the feather-applications out of a rubber-glove, painted with grey and a sparkle-nail-varnish. Black/sparkle-fabric for shirt and skirt (triple layerd to get the stiffness)., pinstriped with silver fine-liner first…was too poppy…shaded with a black marker;

As most guys, I have no clue about fabric, so I thought the only thing to do is to order a silver and a red one, cut it in size and glue it on top of one another…done in 10 minutes… Nope ! Frayed and frazzled like hell…had to cut a few parts. Glue seeped through…so I had to sew it together. The advice from my aunt, to do this from the flipside for a hidden seam was gold, but didn’t made it easier. It’s not perfect… you see it !...but…I SEEWEEED ! HOU, HOU, HOU !

The deer/moose (now 9,8" height) was a christmas home-deco figure, covered with heavily sticking sparkle-particles, I’ve found on Ebay. Perfect in scale ! Removed the glitter; sculpted around the neck; above the eyes, to get rid of it’s infantile glance; repositioned ears and extended the tiny horns to get some mighty antlers. Oliv fabric with floral ranks-pattern for the saddle-blanket. To get the tack in the right scale wasn’t easy…had to order a few saddles and harnesses from Barbie-horses, which sizes vary a lot, obviously.
Since Thranduil is the most skilled sword-fighter in whole middle-earth, it would have been unthinkable to give him a plastic-sword… hähä. So I treat him to one made of real metal. It's an "roronoa zoro-anime"-keychain-pentant. The product-pictures showed a clean blade, no wave pattern. Was not happy about that pattern, but it would have been a.p.I.t.a. to file it of, so I kept it and added some fine black lines to it. I've cut off about an inch, removed the original red handle, sculpted the new handle with black sculpy; painted it silver and scratched the pattern into it, so the dark sculpy underneath came through.

I hope you guys like my interpretation of the grumpily elven king. I'll come up with one or two more figures from the Hobbit -movies.

Again, please excuse my flawed english ! Best regards from Bavaria, Germany !