Lord of the Rings Nazgul

I've finished seven of the Games Workshop Nazgul on foot. Seven because that's all I can find at the moment*, though I should have more somewhere. These are all metal minis and were originally in the Attack On Weathertop set, along with the four Hobbits and a nice Strider mini with him swinging a lit torch.

Both of the Nazgul at each end of the line had broken sword blades, so I glued a short wire into a hole drilled into the stump that remained and then tried to sculpt a replacement blade. The resultant swords are a little thicker than they should be, and don't match, but I'm pleased to have got them to a useable state.

Seven of Nine

Painting black should be easy, but it took several goes to get to a point where I was happy with them. All these minis had been painted previously, but I wanted them to match, and the previous paint jobs weren't very good, many were chipped or scratched so I started afresh.

Here's how I painted them. A black undercoat followed by a base coat of a mix of Vallejo Game Colour Charcoal mixed with equal parts black. This was then drybrushed with the charcoal, then washed with black wash. Then it's a case of more drybrushing, with lighter highlights, and more washing. I gave the inner robes a dark brown wash before the final black wash to add some differentiation between the various layers of cloth. The final highlights were quiet light, especially around the hood to draw attention to the face (or lack of it). 

The swords, gauntlets and boots were painted as normal for aged metal.

I'm on the lookout for two more, ideally the ones I don't have duplicates of. Judging by the number of Witch King models I have, and the fact that I have some duplicates, I probably had two Attack on Weathertop sets, so I hope to find the missing Nazgul somewhere in the lead pile. I'll also keep an eye out at Wargames shows and on eBay, but a quick check suggests that it won't be cheap.

Games Workshop have done a newer set with nine different Nazgul, the five sculpts above and four new ones. These look nice, but I suspect I could only get them in resin. I also have the Witch King on foot with fancy helm and morning star from the time of the Battle of Pelennor Fields, which I'll paint up in a similar manner to the above someday.

I also have five Black Riders which I'll paint, hopefully I'll be able to bulk them out to nine at some point, I'll need them all for the Flight to the Ford of Bruinen.

If I want a big project, I've even got three of the Nazgul on Fellbeasts, two plastic models and one of the original metal ones.

You'll note I'm avoiding the 'characterised' Nazgul. There's no evidence for them in the source material and they don't fit my personal vision of Middle Earth.

*O.K. not quite true, I have a third copy of the model at either end of the line, with sword intact, but I didn't want three the same. He can go on eBay to offset some of the cost of the other two, if I can't find them.