#1 The Dwimmerlaik

The Nazgul are probably my favorites among Tolkien's creations. In the book they are described as wraiths who were powerful men in the past but succumbed to Sauron's power and become forever bound to his will. They were body less creatures that inspired fear in their enemies who called them "the Dark Riders" or even preferred not to mention their names. Really great fluff :)
Painting them isn't easy though. I find it challenging to find the right balance while highlighting their robes. The trick is to avoid making them grey and keeping them black, while still adding enough highlights to make them look three dimensional. Andrea Black set is great help here.



I will be painting all of the Nine in the nearest future. The first one I finished is the Dwimmerlaik. As far as I remember they were not given names in Tolkien's work (with the exception of Witch King). My guess is that GW designers gave them names that highlight their unique features as characters in the game.
I enjoyed working on the Dwimmerlaik. It's a great sculpt with the robe seeming to fly around him in all directions. I followed the codex's painting (hence the brighter highlights on the inner robe) but tried to keep the highlights smoother. I also used different shades of black for the cloth on the mount and for the rider - something that I want to stick to while working on the remaining eight.



Taking pictures of dark models is very difficult as you want to get perfect lighting first. I took the pics in pretty much the same way as usual, only I added a while sheet of paper over the model to dull down the light. Without it the light hit the model too strongly and it looked as if it was covered with gloss varnish.
Choosing music for the next blog entries will be challenging since Haldir's already used some of the great classics that have 'black' in their title but I'll try to find some more. To begin with, here's one of my favorite songs by Type O Negative.



Check for more soon, I'll post an update or two more this week ;)
Viruk