By Alan Harrison (Dagorlad)

 

Tools Used

Large Compass Protractor Steel Ruler Pencil Jig Saw Hobby Knife Hacksaw Razor saw Files Sculpting Tool Scriber

 

Materials Used

MDF – 3mm thick Balsa wood sheet – 25mm x 100mm x 1000mm Balsa wood sheet – 20mm x 100mm x 1000mm Balsa wood sheet – 5mm x 100mm x 1000mm Balsa wood sheet – 1mm x 100mm x 1000mm Balsa wood sheet – 12.5mm x 100mm x 1000mm Dowel rod – 5mm diameter Dowel rod – 9mm diameter Polyfilla Plaster of paris (or similar) Modelling putty (Milliput or Greenstuff) Sand Leaf scatter Fine leaf foliage Long static grass Matt varnish

 

Paints Used

Games Workshop Chaos Black spray paint Desert Yellow Bleached Bone Brown Ink Black InkVallejo Earth Khaki Stonewall Grey Skull White

 

“On the top they found, as Strider had said, a wide ring of ancient stonework, now crumbling or covered with age long grass.”
J R R Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Weathertop was the resting place of one of the Palantiri of the North and was the greatest of a line of watchtowers that crowned the Weather Hills along the border of the kingdom of Arthedain. Built in ancient times by the kings of Arnor to protect their lands from the forces of the Witch King, Amon Sul was the last to fall to siege in the great war that destroyed the Northern Kingdom. While the Palantir was rescued, the tower was left as a crumbling ruin and has kept a brooding watch over the East road ever since.

It is here that Strider brings the hobbits in their desperate race to reach Rivendell, hoping that the shadows cast by these ancient stones would be deep enough to hide them from the watchful gaze of the Enemy, at least for a while.

 

Step 1 – The Gathering

When planning a new terrain piece, I spend a lot of time gathering images from as many sources as possible, especially for a project as intricate as Amon Sul. The two most useful websites I found are http://www.theonering.net/scrapbook and http://www.framecaplib.com/lotrlib.htm . The following picture shows the sort of ‘mood’ I am trying to achieve with the model.

Forgeworld made an exquisite model of Weathertop (�200!) using the original movie set designs and is very accurate and beautifully detailed. They have several photographs of it on their website that proved useful in designing my own. Sideshow Weta also make a wonderful model of the site, but once again the price is prohibitive ($US100+) and sadly, both are out of my price range.

Naturally, the main source of inspiration is the Fellowship of the Ring movie. Watching this frame by frame reveals many details that were not immediately obvious in any of the source photographs I have gathered. Additionally, the special features of the Extended Edition have some useful views of the movie set.

I owe a massive debt of thanks to Mark Farr (Tobold Hornblower) and Andy Campbell (abbcampbell) for their patience and help with my requests for photographs of their Forgeworld models. Without their help, this project would probably have never been attempted, and it most certainly would not have resulted in the model you see here.

This model is not aimed at beginners, but rather intermediate to advanced modellers. It requires a great degree of patience and effort and will consume your spare time for several weeks. Many of the techniques I present are simple to do, but they are time consuming and tedious. But, at the end of the process, with some hard work and a little luck, you will have a model that will rival the best that you can buy off the shelf (for a fraction of the price).

So, if you’d rather be painting the latest Legolas figure than building a custom terrain piece that will make your opponents drool, then just quickly look at the pictures and head off again.

(are they gone yet?) Great, lets get started…

Step 2 – Planning and Design

After researching the terrain piece as much as I could, the time came to draw up the plans. I use Corel Draw as my preferred design tool, but a piece of graph paper and a pencil is just as effective! But I have saved you the bother – the plans are included as a part of this article.

The key design element in this project is incorporating a 12″ diameter circle. This measurement is crucial to GW’s Weathertop scenario and so I wanted to make it immediately recognisable on the model. The Forgeworld piece has that measurement as the outer diameter of the main structure, but I was reluctant to do the same. Since this was to be a piece for the gaming table and not the display cabinet, I wanted the players to be able to reach into the model without feeling cramped. Yet, if I set floor of the inner circle to be 12″ (like the Games Workshop model in the Fellowship of the Ring supplement) then the complete model would have been almost 24″ across and that was far too large.

So I compromised and increased the overall diameter of the main structure to 13″ which makes the outer edge of the circle of pillars and arches fit the crucial dimension of 12″. This opens up the centre of the model a little more, and also means that the gaps between the columns and arches are just slightly more than 25mm – just big enough for a model’s base.

It also means that the centre stage of the model is a little cramped and restricts the models’ movements for the scenario, which greatly adds to the atmosphere of the game.

 

Step 3 Making the Basic Elements

 

 

3a – The Floor

The floor is the easiest part of the whole model to make.

Using a draftsman’s compass, I drew in a 13″ circle on a piece of 3mm MDF and cut it out using a jigsaw. If you don’t have access to any drafting tools (and who does?) try this instead: mark where the centre of the model will be with a pencil and draw a 16 inch line through it (8 inches on each side). From the centre point, make a mark at every half inch along the line. At the centre mark, rule another 16 inch line at right angles to the first one and mark off each half inch again, so you will have a cross shape.

Now trace around a circular object with a 13″ diameter (dinner plate, bucket, frisbee, or whatever) positioned so that the edges of the object sit at exactly even distances from the centre mark. Trace around a 7″ diameter object (using the same technique to centre it).

Using a plate

A drafting compass

Cut out the large circle using a jigsaw and use sandpaper to smooth the edges off neatly. Be careful with the jigsaw because, like all power tools, it is dangerous and can cause serious injury if you don’t treat it with respect.

Next, we need to mark out the position of the five buttresses. These are spaced evenly around the whole structure and so the centre lines of each buttress are 72 degrees apart (see plan).

Smear a layer of Polyfilla over the central 7″ circle of the MDF to about 1mm maximum thickness. Try to ensure that there are no trowel marks (or in my case, finger marks) on the surface of the Polyfilla. If you are mixing your own filler, aim to get it to the consistency of toothpaste – any thinner and it tends to run and be sloppy and hard to work with.

Once the Polyfilla has thoroughly dried (a couple of hours at least), you can use a pencil to mark in the pattern of the floor tiles. The majority of the tiles are 1/2″ square, but some are 3/4″ long also. Follow the pattern in the floor plan above.

Mark the whole pattern in with pencil and then use a blunt hobby knife and steel ruler to scrape out the mortar joints between tiles. It’s a slow job, but the finished results look superb, so stick with it.

 

3b – The Buttresses

There are five buttresses in the structure and they are all very similar in design. You could probably build one, make a mould from it and then cast the other four. That would have been clever, so naturally I didn’t think to do it that way until after I had finished.

Use the buttress plans (see below) to cut a length of 25mm thick balsa wood to size. I found the 100mm wide planks to be about 12.5mm too narrow for a couple of the buttresses, so I glued a piece on the end to make up the required width.

Each end of the buttress tapers in slightly, so use a razor saw to cut the balsa wood to the required shape (see templates) and smooth it off with sand paper.

The statues stand on a raised pedestal at the front of each buttress. This is made from one inch lengths of 12.5 mm x 12.5 mm square balsa wood, shaped to curve up from the bottom (see plan above). You will need five of these, so you may as well make them all at the same time. Cut the balsa to the required length (1″ ) and then, with a sharp craft knife or jewellers saw, cut the curve out from the lower half. Use sandpaper to neaten up the workmanship a bit. Glue this to the front of the buttress.

The same approach is taken for the arch that hangs above the statues. Cut out the shape using the above plan as a template and glue it to the top of the buttress.

Roughly cut the top of the buttress to resemble ruined stonework. It doesn’t have to be particularly accurate because we are going to coat the whole thing with a thick layer of Polyfilla and sculpt it to look like smashed masonry.

Now, you have the basic assembly for the first of your five buttresses. We need to plaster it and scribe in the joints in the stone work. Grab the Polyfilla and coat the thing in about a 1mm thick layer. Its best not to try and do the whole thing in one go, so do it a bit at a time (say, do about a quarter of it and let it dry, then do the next quarter, and so on). I left some parts unplastered deliberately. These were where the stone steps will be positioned and you’ll get a better join if you have the balsa wood uncovered and nice and smooth.

Once the whole thing is plastered and the Polyfilla is dry (takes about two hours), draw in some horizontal pencil lines approximately half an inch apart. Scrape out the lines with a blunt craft knife and steel ruler. I put the knife against the ruler sideways, so I’m scraping, not cutting.

We need to make the top of the buttress look like smashed and broken stone, so… lay a thick layer of Polyfilla on the top part of the wall. Grab a rough-shaped rock (or piece of tree bark, or whatever) and gently push it into the plaster giving it an uneven and natural texture. It may be a good idea to let the Polyfilla dry a little so that it doesn’t stick to the rock. Don’t go overboard with this technique, the stonework just needs to look a little rough.

Now, you have a choice! You can continue on to make the remaining buttresses one at a time, or you can make a mould of this one and cast it in plaster four more times (I know what I would do if I were to make this again).

If you wish to cast the buttress, then see below for instructions on casting the statues and adapt the instructions accordingly.

To make the other buttresses by hand (like I did), then repeat the process above four more times. But for two of them, there is a one inch wide flight of stairs that rise through the middle of the buttress (we’ll make the stairs later).

 

3c – The Ring of Steps

The low steps that rise up to the encircling columns was made from 5mm balsa (you could use foamcore if you prefer). You will need to make four identical sets of steps – sounds like another casting job to me. I will explain how I made the one and you can choose to either cast the remaining three, or repeat the process.

Use the templates provided to cut out the three lower steps and the larger one at the rear (the one the columns and arches stand on). The angles at each end of the steps are designed to fit nicely with the shape of the buttresses, so pay close attention as you are cutting them, and check them against the buttress to see if they fit.

Glue the steps together and leave the glue to set. Coat the top and front of the steps with Polyfilla, filling in any gaps, and carve out the mortar joints. On each of the three lower steps, mark out the joints about 1cm apart and carve them in using the same technique we used for the floor and buttresses. The top step is made up of four huge stone slabs, so mark out three joints equally spaced and carve them out. NOTE: two of the joints are modelled as being significantly damaged in the Forgeworld version and I have reproduced that in my own version, but this is optional of course.

Make four sets of these steps. The fifth section is significantly different to the others and we’ll tackle that one separately.

 

3d – The Entrance

A curved flight of steps leads up into the structure from the cave mouth below and these emerge near the outer ring (position X on the plan).

This piece is an awkward shape to make and even more awkward to paint, so is best done in small stages and painted before the rest of the model is put in place.

Use the template to mark out the shape for the main section on a piece of 20mm balsa wood and cut it out. If you cut it slightly larger than you need, you can sand it back neatly to the required shape. Cut the individual steps out and glue them together, checking against the main piece for fit. Once the glue has dried, sand the sides of the steps so they are smooth and fit well into the appropriate spots.

The above two images show the piece already coated with Polyfilla, reading for smoothing down and the stone pattern scribing in. You can do this now or when the assembly is completed, but make sure you do it before you glue the whole thing into place.

 

3e – The Statues

There are statues overlooking the central chamber and thankfully, Games Workshop have provided a perfect model to use for them – the statue in the Ruins of Middle-earth boxed set (also provided in the Return of the King boxed set). Rather than buy 5 sets of the model, I used one that I had and made a cast of it. But if you plan on buying 5 of these statues, you can obviously skip the section on casting them. The movie set had several different statues, but since sculpting something like this is beyond my skills, I used 5 identical ones.

First, assemble the model by gluing the two halves together with plastic cement. Clean off any flash with a craft knife and use modelling putty to fill any of the cracks and chips in the model. We want to use this as the “master” and so each of the statues will be weathered differently.

 

Author’s Note
Casting of copyrighted material is illegal and is not condoned or encouraged by this website. The author does not intend any challenge to Games Workshop’s or New Line Cinema’s intellectual property.

Once all the cracks have been filled and the modelling putty has set, use a razor saw to cut through the base of the model. We want to remove the rubble from the base and just have the statue and its pedestal remaining. File the bottom of the statue flat so that it will stand up on its own.

Making a Mould of the Statue
Glue the statue onto a small piece of MDF – about 8cm square, using PVA glue. The PVA will hold the statue in place while we do the casting, but since it doesn’t permanently bond with the plastic it can be removed later on.

Build a small box out of scraps of MDF – this will be the formwork for containing the mould itself. The box must be deep enough and wide enough to hold the entire statue without it touching the sides or bottom – approximately 4cm x 4cm x 10cm. The box will have four sides and a base, but no lid (refer to the diagram below). It is suggested that you use a waterproof glue, such as liquid nails for holding the box together, rather than PVA. The box doesn’t have to be a masterpiece, but it does need to be sealed so that the mould mixture doesn’t all run out. Fill the box with water and look to see where it leaks and then tip out the water again. If you have some gaps, then plug them with waterproof silicone sealant (or even plasticine).

Mix up some moulding compound following the directions on the packet (wear gloves and protective clothing too, its pretty messy stuff), and paint the finer details of the statue with it. Pour the rest of the mixture into the formwork box leaving a gap of about 2 mm at the top. Gently insert the statue model into the mixture making sure it does not touch the sides of the box. The base to which you glued the model will sit neatly on the top of the box and you can hold it in place with something heavy if needed.

Leave it to set for at least 24 hours.

Remove the mould and statue from the formwork box once the moulding compound has fully set and gently remove the statue from the mould itself. It should come away with a little persuasion, but you’re having difficulty slice into the mould itself with a sharp knife (being careful not to actually cut out any chunks of mould).

Place the mould back inside the formwork box and now its ready for use!

Casting the Statues
Add a drop or two of dishwashing detergent to a cup of water but don’t let it form any soap bubbles. Gradually mix in small amounts of plaster of paris or similar (e.g. Woodland Scenic’s Hydrocal) until it starts to thicken ever so slightly – it should still be quite liquid though. Pour a small amount into the mould, tapping the box so that air bubbles aren’t trapped. Add a little more plaster mixture tapping the box all the while. Repeat this until the mould is full to the top. Add a sprinkle of plaster powder onto the surface of the liquid and tap the box (careful not to spill it). Keep adding a little powder at a time until no more dissolves.

Leave it to set for several hours.

Carefully remove the mould from the box and then gently remove the statue from the mould itself. The part of the statue that is most likely to trap air bubbles is the hands. It’s the deepest part of the mould and air can get trapped there easily. Thankfully, bubbles aren’t too hard to fix with a little milliput.

Repeat the casting process four more times.

 

3e – The Columns

The details on this column add a feeling of authenticity to the model and just the right character that I was looking for. But be aware that this is probably the trickiest part of the whole model.

Cut a block of 1/2″ (12mm) balsa wood to 5/8″ x 2.0″ (16mm x 50mm) and trim the sides to make them taper in to 3/8″ (9mm) at the front – sort of wedge shaped (technically known as a trapezoid! You wanted to know that didn’t you?). Glue on some 1/4″ (6mm) strips of thin balsa around the base to build up the plinth and sand it all smooth once the glue has dried.

Now cut a length of 6mm dowel to 2.0″ (50mm) long. Sand the dowel along one side until it is flat and forms a half circle (or if you can find it, use half-dowel pieces). Glue the dowel to the thin face of the block. Now cut a 1/4″ length of 9mm half-dowel. Glue the dowel to one face of the balsa plinth. The following photographs will show the process more clearly.

The basic column taking shape. The wedge shape of the column was cut from balsa and the plinth glued on in pieces.

Cut a length of 6mm dowel and another of 9mm dowel, and sand them flat. Glue them to the front of the column.

Use milliput (or similar) to smooth the flare out to the plinth and make some thin ridges extending around the column (you could use plastic or wooden strips if you wish).

Finally, coat the entire surface of column with a thin layer of polyfilla and when its dry, carve in the mortar joint along each side and across the face of the column.

Follow the same process as the statues to make castings of this column – you will need 12 of them (some of which, we’ll cut in half).

 

3f – The Arches

The arches caused me the greatest difficulty with the whole model. How could I shape the curved walls with semi-circular arches cut out? After a bit of thought, I decided to use a thick plank of balsa wood and cut the arches through with a hole-drill, then sand back each section to match the required curvature. (huh what?)

Ok, step-by-step…

Take a piece of 12mm thick balsa wood and draw a 225mm line down one face, approximately 40mm from one edge. At 45mm apart, draw four marks on the line – these will be the centre points of the arches.

Use a hole-drill to cut a neat circle through the balsa at each mark.

Using a razor saw, cut the balsa wood in half along the centre line, giving you two arched lengths of wood.

Now cut the arches apart so that we have four separate arched sections.

Cut the ends of each arch section at an angle so they fit together in a segmented arc. Check for a good fit with the columns and glue in place.

Use sandpaper to shape the back of the arches into an even curve, and roughly cut the tops of the arches to represent rough stonework. Coat the whole thing in Polyfilla and wait for it to dry. Now carve in the masonry joins and sculpt the top of the stonework to look more like broken masonry.

The vaulted details on the inner side were cast in plaster using a simple, but very effective technique. I took one of the pieces of the Ruins of Middle-earth sprues and pressed it into some soft plasticine (kids modelling clay) to make a simple mould, then I filled the mould with plaster. Instant ruined vault details.

 

3g – The Walls and Stairs

If you use styrofoam as your building material of choice, the outer walls are really simple. Just carve them out of foam and scribe in the stonework. But styrofoam is hard to come by and I didn’t have any to hand, so here’s how I made the outer walls out of balsa wood.

The walls are made from two thin sheets of balsa wood glued onto a framework and bent into the correct curvature. Thin Balsa is easily bent, and yet gives a solid foundation over which you can lay texturing (such as Polyfilla). Build the inner wall first and coat it with Polyfilla – its much easier to do it at this stage rather than later when everything tends to get in the way.

Take a sheet of 2mm balsa wood and cut it to the right shape for the wall (suitably craggy and damaged). Glue to the back of it a strip of 6mm balsa cut to the same height as the wall. Glue the wall assembly into position against the buttress. The following image shows the outer wall under construction using this method.

Now glue on one or more additional strips of 6mm balsa and gently bend the wall to the correct curvature. Glue it and clamp it into position. Once the PVA has set, glue another sheet of 2mm balsa to the back of it, forming the inner wall. Clamp that into position and leave it to dry thoroughly.

Along the top of the wall, fill the cavity with Polyfilla and wait for it to dry slightly before sculpting it to represent broken masonry. The slight drying will make it crack and chip as you sculpt it, giving it an extra realism. Don’t try to shape the broken walls to neatly match up with the masonry joints – it just ends up looking like a Lego building and not very realistic.

The steps are made from pieces 5mm balsa and glued into position following the curvature of the wall, right through the entre of the buttress and out the other side. You may need some supports under the stairs while waiting for the glue to dry. Coat them with Polyfilla and scribe in the stone work now – its nigh on impossible to do it later.

The outer wall is built in precisely the same manner as the inner wall.

 

Step 4 – Putting it Together

With the pillars and arches in place, the model is starting to look very close to completed. We need to start adding rubble and broken stonework around the place to tie the whole model together. There should be a substantial amount of rubble scattered about the model to represent the detritus of a 1000 years, but mindful of the need to place and move model figures during games.

The first thing to do is to take the last stone statue and snap it into three pieces. Keep all of the small shards that come off when you break it; we can glue them down as well. Lay the main pieces on the model and arrange them so they look like they have fallen from the statue’s pedestal (i.e. not too far away) and cracked on impact with the ground. When you have the pieces of the statue arranged in an authentic way, glue them down with PVA.

 

Modelling Tip
Sand or file the back of the statue so that it is flat and then it will lie better on the floor of your Weathertop model.

At the base of the smashed columns, lay some PVA glue down and strategically place pieces of broken masonry, scattering sand about it. Place the larger pieces of masonry closer to the base than the smaller pieces – the heavier blocks won’t have fallen very far from where they originally stood.

Glue down sand and more smashed rubble piles in various places around the model, but try to keep the centre of the floor clear. This is where most gaming action will take place and so we want to allow the models to be positioned without tipping over.

 

Step 5 – Painting The Stonework

Most people seem to paint Weathertop a bluish-grey colour to match the scene in the film, but the unedited pre-production photographs seem to indicate that the stone was a deep brown colour and the bluish tint was added afterwards to give the scene a spooky moonlit look. I decided to paint mine brown and then apply a similar special effect in any photography I do.

I’ve never painted brown masonry before and I thought it would be wise to practice on some test pieces before tackling the actual project. So I built some simple ruined wall sections and made careful note of the paints used and the sequence of layers. I first tried the standard ferro-concrete approach – Codex Grey and Fortress Grey, but decided I really wanted a brownish colour.

My first idea was to undercoat the stonework with a deep earthy brown (raw umber) and then progressively lighten the colour with Graveyard Earth and Kommando Khaki, but this was not very satisfactory. Undercoating the model by hand was taking ages, so out came the spray can! A thorough spray with Chaos Black covered the whole model in seconds and unified it wonderfully.

Almost a whole can of Chaos Black!

Painting the model is remarkably easy from now on – takes a bit of time, but is still very quick. Heavily drybrush the stonework with Graveyard Earth trying to get a consistent coverage over the whole model. Another drybrushing of Kommando Khaki will see the model starting to look very nice indeed.

Once the Khaki is thoroughly dried, give the floor and the lower parts of the stonework a wash of Brown Ink to tie it all together and add a nice earthy tone to the masonry. Let this dry fully and then lightly drybrush the raised surfaces of the rubble and the statues, and the edges of the steps and buttresses.

The sand and polyfilla piled in the corners of the steps and other masonry were painted with a wash of 50:50 Graveyard Earth and Bestial Brown and then drybrushed with Desert Yellow and again with Bleached Bone. This gives them a look of dirt that has blown into the ruin and adds a subtle variation to the overall earthy tones of the model.

Coat the whole thing with a spray of Matt Varnish.

 

Step 6 – Dressing the Set

Now, where did I put that little campfire model?

I used some of Woodland Scenics fine leaf foliage (dead foliage) to represent the thorny bushes that have invaded the ruin, but these are extremely fragile and will break the first time you use the piece in a game, so they aren’t recommended for gamers. But if you want to (and are prepared to take the risk) glue some clumps of foliage in strategic positions around the ruin – poking out of piles of rubble, poking through cracks in the stonework, etc. I find its best to work with small amounts of this material at a time and let the glue dry thoroughly before attempting to glue another piece in the same vicinity – otherwise, you end up bumping the original piece out of position (well, I do anyway).

Woodland Scenics also make some dry grass which is very useful for modelling, well, dry grass. Its fairly expensive, but looks ideal and doesn’t need painting at all. Hold a small bunch of fibres between your forefinger and thumb and cut them using sharp scissors to about 1cm in length. Dip the cut end in a small amount of PVA glue and then carefully place the fibres into position on your model. Again, try to place them so they are poking out from between cracks in the stonework; grass doesn’t grow straight out of stone!

Antenociti Workshops distribute a line of miniature leaves that are wonderful (if slightly oversized). They are perfect for modelling forest mould and dead foliage. Dab some patches of PVA onto the model around the rubble and broken statues, and anywhere that leaves may get blown into. Sprinkle the glue patches with the dried leaves and let it all dry.

 

Afterword

The tools and materials used in this project may take some explaining. I have included a photograph of the basic toolkit I used, as well as the mould-making compound and scenic materials, if that helps.

The Basic Toolkit

Mould-Making Compound

Scenic Materials

Most of these tools can be purchased from hardware stores or good hobby stores and are an excellent investment if you wish to make more terrain pieces.
The silicone compound can be purchased from specialist suppliers of resin casting equipment. Look them up on the internet or yellow pages for a supplier near you.
I bought most of the scenic material from a couple of model railway specialist shops in my home town, but you can find them online easily enough and order them that way. Antenociti, for example, ship their products worldwide and the postage costs are quite reasonable.