WILDMEN FROM DUNLAND
Long time awaiting were the 16 wrestling figures I bought years ago to become Wildmen from Dunland.
I started making them now. Lots of fur, cloth, natural materials & dwarfish wild beards.

Saruman created the Uruk-hai by mixing orcs with these hillmen. So the muscular stature fitted perfectly, as well as their 6+ inch size. All of them will get black of brownish hair.
They are a driven out people, hating the Rohorrim for that. In the hills of Dunland they live on herding cattle, growing petty crops, having little forests for use. Iron is hard to come by. They consist of warlike clans.

Peter Jackson and Weta created these very shabby looking cavemen, all rags and wild hair. I wanted them to become more evolved than that. They needed to be ferocious like scottish highlanders, but without looking like them. So the round buckers I thought off were out. No quilts either...
I wanted facepaint like native Indians, or the Germanic warriors from Netflic, but without becoming Celts or Saxons. Finding the right paint and heraldry was tricky.
Also I wanted them to have shields, but anything made from wood would look like viking shields, and they aren't vikings. The shaven heads are cool, but I ignored doing that.

Tolkien mirrored the two peoples with historical ones: Rohirrim being Anglo-Saxon, the Dunlandings being more Celtic. Anything viking-like was therefor out of the picture, especially wit the weapons. No chainmail or helmets allowed here! For this reason, I picked out celtic names that are not so common anymore (I hope).

I remembered the Zulu shields made from cow-hide and leather! That would make for a totally different look. Also the oval shape was quite distinct from orcish shields. They are made from iron-wire with fake-leather glued onto it.

These guys are living of the land, so they bring poaches and watersacks with them. For inspiration I used the Larp catalogue from Epic Armory and Mytholon.
The weapons are totally made of wood this time. I looked up types from the Bauern Revolt in Germany, 16th century. Yes, one will carry a pitchfork!
The jug is Playmobil. The cloth I made myself. Funny detail: the pants are made from the same cloth as my larp pants are. He has brades made from fake-wool.
The shoulder pads are made from cardboard, covered with a sort of woven underlayer from plastic, which I painted over to look like woven reeds. It is attached on the upper-arm with a leather strap.

So here is the first one and a sneek-peek of the rest. I am doing four of them at a time. This one I named Marrek.