Ok last update on this, I resculpted the pauldrons entirely now. Using miliput I copied the exact design of overlapping plates and added the decorative middle. He is now done and is better for it giving me a highly detailed figure with very accurate armour look etc including chainmail etc. Point is I'm happy with where he is. So I have just conpletely repainted him remodelled parts of him swapped the single joiner elbows I had with gimli double joint and redid the helmets colour scheme and changed the Mohawk decoration at the top and added chainmail under his robes as well as leaf mail taken from an Eomer to fit under the helmet as it drapes outward. More pics to follow notibly the painting as it took a lot of work and washes dry brushing getting the right blue watching the extended cut and behind the scenes of before the changed Dain into a CGI dwarf and had billy in full armour and make up to get everything right etc bla bla. Been planning this for ages and finished today so thought I'd share before completely reshooting the photos.


'Good morning, how are we all?' When you undertake something like this there is so much planning. I had the idea of doing a Dain custom and thought, yeah I can do this, so I drew some sketches and left the project until after my exams. I will divide this into sections as a lot went into this custom mainly blood sweat and milliput. To start a description for this contest and why I entered him:

'Have you learnt nothing of the stubborness of dwarves?' because this one brings a whole new meaning to the word warhammer. Dain II Ironfoot, what can you say about a Dwarf who will 'water the ground' with his enemies blood. Besides being portrayed brilliantly by Billy Conelly adding that Scottish warrior blood, he wields a ridicculously heavy looking double headed hammer to skull crush orcs, and those who mess with his kin. This tougher than mithril Dwarf entered battle on a War-Boar which was killed and sent him flying off and what did he do? he said 'ya bastards' and proceeded to backwards headbutt an orc with a nasty looking helmet with no head protection likely giving the orc more than just serious headache. Surrounded on the battlefield this dwarf refused to give in even when the odds looked more than unfavourable. Taking up the throne in Erebor after th death of Thorin II Oakenshield and his heirs Fili and Kili, the great dwarf lord, now king, fought in the north against the forces of Mordor. In Tolkiens book its actually Dain who kills Azog in his 30s and became renound as a formidible warrior. Refusing to ally his people with the enemy after an emersery (likely the Mouth of Sauron or a Nazgul) the king died defending Dale once more, in fact he died fighting alone against orcs before the doors of Erebor defending the body of the King of Dale. Dain was the sought of guy who jumped on orcs backs crashing them into others and then splattering their heads with his hammer and brute strength, dwarves are supposed to be like mini tanks after all, armoured and ready to kick some orc butt! This killing machine doesn't need a personal guard, he has strenght agility and speed and a unique fashion sense. You have to see the similarities betweeen this design and the dwarves in Warhammer and WOW as well as in other media with the red hair, massive beard and mohawk-like hair do with Tattos similar to celtic warriors. Speaking of Warhammer as he is depicted in the Gamesworkshop he is said to carry an axe called Barazantathul, which is why the axe I have included is there. The axe is actually a design used for Thror who is said to have a red axe, but in early concept art they decided to give it to Dain then changed his weapon to the massive hammer with spikes, so I included it for fun He also has a set of attractive scars across his face from lacerations off his foes, but if you think he looks bad, you should see the other guy. He's definately got that Warhammer type look the sort of punk dwarf that is often used as a design, so some might see him as a definitive dwarf, especiall with his actual warhammer! Dain Ironfoot is one fearsome dwarf, don't judge him by his size or his hammer will offer the appropriate response.

Next the creation of this custom: Sure enough I start doing the hammer and it falls to pieces. That's just obsticle 1. I get a little further then fall into despair at the thought of the undertaking (obsticle 2). Then make a great sculpt of the head and think 'how on Earth am I going to make the body' (obsticle 3). I finally get round to it and reach obsticle 4 Gimli's body has limited armiculation. I decide to hack at it with a saw and get the parts I want to scale and then cut up some aragorn legs to continue this,which brings us to obsticle 5 the elbows. Finally after getting the legs attached and
the body to the right size accepting the upper arms are fine I go 'oh he doesn't have any lower arms suitable in this scale for his upper arm and wrists' (obsticle 6). I go through fodder bits take Kit-Fisto's arms and make the hands fit and everythings working. I begin the sculpt, get a beautiful job done and obsticle 7 strikes I was sculpting concept art not the final thing. So I remove the work carefully to preserve what I had and start over and from that point there were no issues, jsut sculpting with plastic, cutting out bits and shapes and then finishing the desing and painting him. So issue 10 arrives (yes 10 I know I didn't write 9 but I listed 9 issues) which is the belt I carved inhibits the movement of the plate skirt. So thats scrapt and I get some rubber parts from that Mystique movie Wolverine disguise and make the plate skirt movable. Then I buy some fur and can't get the cape right and sure enough the neck is too short now. So I left it for months on end thinking this is never going to be finished, but 2 days ago I said I HAVE TO FINISH DAIN THEN FINISH THE OTHER SECRET HOBBIT CUSTOM. I get to work on the helmet (made by putting cling film on his head and sculpting from scratch then gluing red material then strands of redmaterial to simulate the mane on his helm and using a sharpy to colour black areas. The Axe was based off concept art, I will upload the armour I made for Dain that was wrong for the finished movie (typical PJ redesigning stuff), but the axe was another axehead from a Gimli walking axe attached to another walking axe and resculpted with Milliput. Thats it really, I made the neck longer with another Gimli neck part I had to do a lot of sawing in this custom and don't advise making it as it was a pain, but glad with results. I made sure this was a decent depiction of the on screen character, read up more about him, watched him fight for hours and made him a reality, sadly theres no war-hog, but if I find a suitable pig toy or boar I will make one for him 2 ride as I bult the articulation so that he had the ability to pose and ride creatures. (Ball jointed kneck, swivel hinged arms, legs and elbows, swivel wrists, hinged knees and toes I think roughly 21 points of articulation with loads of posability because of that unless I am counting it wrong, does a arm joint that rotates and hinges count as 2 or 1? LIFES MYSTERIES). That's it really, jsut Gimli council of Elrond with new arms legs weist and armour and new face sculpt, enjoyed doinf the details like scars, over the top hair, eyebrows beard rings and jewlery.

AND LASTLY THE PHOTOS RELEVANCE: I love taking pics of scenes so I have Dain close up pointing his hammer (where he says to Gnadlaf to tell this rabble to leave or I will water the ground with their blood; him fighting; CRUSHING AND ORCS SKULL; having an embrace with Thorin on the battlefield of the Battle of the 5 Armies; Being offered a ring of power by Saurons emersery and lastly rejecting peace and attacking the Mouth of Sauron (also a custom as I repainted his mouth as it comes green zombie flesh clour with little detail and he has a pale dead skin look in film and more cuts in mouth so did that. The Ring here was taken from the inside of a Shaaku's leg as the interlckign mechanism has a ring part you can cut off and theres another custom coming to explain that). ANYWAY I hope this is appreciated, shame BridgeDirect stopped Hobbit figures, but here we are a Dain custom who is one tough customer.