Games Workshop’s Hobbit Range Expands With Eagles & Riddles
January 7, 2013 by brennon
Games Workshop might be going Dark Angels crazy at the moment but they haven't forgotten their other fantasy arm. The Hobbit is expanding with more models in both plastic and finecast. Check out the selection below...
First up we have the Great Eagles which are a multi-part plastic kit and Gwaihir arriving as a finecast one. They are certainly an improvement over the original eagles from Lord of the Rings as they have a lot more movement and character in their sculpts.
It sounds silly but I really like that they have added that extra flick to the feathers at the tips of each wing. Away from the models we didn't see much of them in The Hobbit but we'll hopefully see Gwaihir talk at some point! It was always fun hearing him talk in the radio plays.
Next up are the Fell Wargs, the beasts that pursued Thorin and Company across the land. They are a lot better looking that the jackal style Wargs we saw before and certainly a lot more like what I imagined them to be. This was probably a remnant of the time when Guillermo Del Toro was part of the team.
As models they look nice and serviceable and could be used across the different ranges as wolves in Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000. I always like using Middle-Earth models as Role-Playing miniatures too and these fit the bill.
Last but not least is the Riddles In The Dark vignette which shows the moment when Bilbo meets Gollum deep in the caves of the mountains.
This was one of the best scenes in the film and it looks like both models have been sculpted pretty well too. The likenesses are good and the models have plenty of movement too them too.
It would have been easy to make them quite static pieces but it looks like Gollum is leaning in for the pounce and Bilbo is wary of his foe!
Will you be buying more from The Hobbit?
Let me know below.
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The models for the Hobbit range are turning out quite nicely. Anything plastic from GW is great. I do miss the Perry brother’s doing a lot of the realistic style models. Their work on Lord of the Rings was quite amazing! They have a knack for sculpting such incredible likenesses.
Has anyone played the game? I tried to enjoy Lord of the Rings, but it was so convoluted with factions, different games, and I never could get anyone else excited about it.
The eagles do not look right to me. Sorry, they look anything but majestic.
The other models are okay without being spectacular. Though Gollum’s pose is very good and actually I quite like Bilbo too.
I think it’s the paint jobs mostly. The sculpts look ok, but the paint just looks like it was applied to heavily. It looks like some kind of soft plastic. I’ve noticed the GW studio paint jobs taking a serious nosedive in quality lately. I wonder if it has something to do with the new paint line, or if there’s a new directive that says everything must be painted like it came out of a beginners’ tutorial. It just seems like all of GW’s studio work lately is less impressive than it used to be.
are those fellwargs or fenrisian wolves?;)
I need to be honest, looking at Gollum and Bilbo especially, I feel that GW’s sculpting and painting standards have plummeted.
The prices are also way too high to cash in on any Hobbit impulse buyers.
I really like the overall aesthetic of the wolves and eagles but I don’t like Bilbo or Golum at all, I agree with you jgar77, something seems a bit off about them.
With Bilbo, I think the problem is the paintjob.
Its awful. The face is done well, if the colour is a bit odd, but the rest of him, I havent seen a promo mini painted that badly for a very long time indeed, given that all the in house painters are very talented indeed, I have no idea what went on with that mini to be honest, but it really shouldnt have got as far as white dwarf looking like that.
I personally think the problem with Bilbo is the sculpt itself. That model looks nothing like Martin Freeman, the hair looks like a wig, the hands are massive, the contorting position is awkward. But the paint job is definitely poor and makes the model look more blocky than it probably is. Gollum’s in a great pose but his face is much more off the mark than previous iterations of the character.
If they wanted to throw in a boat and charge US$35, they should have just made it a vignette a la “Fall of the Witch King” and “Death of Gothmog.”
Well, none of the models bear too striking a resemblance to the actors from the movies. There are legal reasons for that. They can get away with it for Gollum because his isn’t a real likeness, but the licensing costs of the minis would be a lot higher if they had to get rights to the actors’ likenesses as well as the rights for the character and costume designs (which are already licensed from two separate legal entities, Tokien’s estate and Jackson’s production company).
The Bilbo sculpt isn’t fantastic. The hands look pretty bad and the feet are… honestly how do you sculpt hairy hobbit feet? I don’t want to accept the challenge of doing that successfully. The hair looks like a wig, but the actors are all wearing wigs (some more obvious than others) so… Mostly though, I think the pose just looks kind of wooden.
The licencing is through New Line so would already be covered as with LoTR
To be fair getting an exact likeness in 28mm is not easy, though the Perrys did a pretty darn good job of it.
I agree about the hands. The first releases made me wonder if they had rushed the sculpts as there is a lack of finesse
I remain sceptical Mpoke, with respect, There is plenty of movie merchandise with very realistic portraits of actors including that of the LoTR franchise. It is in the interests of the movie companies that their stars are well represented.
Sculpting 28mm likenesses is not going to be easy. I find it harsh to be overly critical that the likeness of sculpts lack 100% verisimilitude. Sausage fingers is less forgiveable imho
We don’t know what pressures/time constraints the team had.
Sorry to break this to you but the game isn’t in 28mm scale. Its in 25mm true scale, so it’s real small. Always wished it was 32mm scale so you can get good detail.
@manpug
My bad. Had a brain freeze as it is GW which made me think 28mm heroic scale.
Herp derp.
25mm true scale makes it even harder to sculpt a likeness.
The Hobbits are really tiny.
@manpug, actually the Lord of the Rings is advertised as 28mm, and fits in nicely with numerous historical-based 28mm ranges. But you’re right, it is true scale, and thus is smaller than the fantastical 28mm Heroic scale.
The LotR models definitely could have been larger while retaining the correct proportions, but like I said, there is a consistency with other 28mm true scale models on the market.
This is a legitimate question: if there’s a licensing issue, why do some of the models look so much like the actors, while some don’t? All of the original LotR models (and since then, certain releases scattered throughout the range) bare a striking resemblence to their actor and actress counterparts, so I just assumed that was part of the license through New Line for the movie deals. Is it not–why wouldn’t it be? In more recent times, the “resemblence factor” has fallen off sharply–though in that category it has always been a bit more of a hit and a miss.
But many of the last of the LotR models and some of the new Hobbit models are the worst misses in the range. While the newest Theoden looks a lot like Bernard Hill, the newest Faramir looks nothing like David Wenhem. Imo, while some of the dwarves look a lot like their actors, most of the Hobbit releases just look like models in their character’s costume. It seems less like they have lost a license to portray actors and more like the sculptors are growing lazy/lowering their standards.
None of the figures I’ve seen so far really look much like the actors. Maybe my standards are too high. Not a single Aragorn sculpt from GW looks anything like Vigo Mortenson, for instance. It’s just a miscellaneous guy with a beard and long hair in most cases.
@chibi, that’s not how licensing works. New Line has the rights to license original designs, and some limited freedom when it comes to licensing overall Tolkienesque things (though the estate still has a lot of veto power there). They do not have the right to license the actors’ individual likenesses though. That’s a right that the actors have themselves and you have to negotiate with them to take advantage of it. It’s why toys based on movies almost never bear more than a passing resemblance to the actors they’re based on.
I don’t know what the UK (or NZ or AU) equivalent is, but in the US it’s called the Right of Publicity. The only way New Line could possibly license the actors’ likenesses was if they signed their Right of Publicity in relation to the movies over to New Line in their original contracts, which no actor does anymore since George Lucas made a killing selling Star Wars toys in the 80s. Their likenesses, as taken directly from the film in stills or video, can be used in promotional materials for the films and products related to the films, but beyond that they get to negotiate every other single use of their own face. The only way GW could use their likenesses is if New Line negotiated a blanket term with the actors, which would inevitably have to cut them in on any and all merchandising deals. So you can see Ian Mckellan’s face, taken directly from a movie still, on the cover of a White Dwarf promoting LoTR minis, but the mini itself isn’t sculpted to look like his face.
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat980016a&prodId=prod1830034a
Just look at each of those minis (the Fellowship from the original LoTR line of minis). Not one of them resembles the actors. Boromir is particularly off.
£30 for 2 eagles or £25 for one eagle just because he has a name – go figure 😕
Many of GW’s sculptors are to blame. There isn’t a legal reason, GW has everything covered and wants the minis to be just like the movie. In fact, when I chatted with one of the sculptors who did some of the Lord of the Rings work, he mentioned they were obligated to use the correct outfits, swords, and all things correctly from the movie. Any variance in the minis was always in figures not in the movie (e.g. Radagasht).
Now that everyone’s favorite Brown Wizard made the movie, he’s taken on his movie likeness. Therefore, the poor sculpting job in Bilbo is because of a poor sculptor.
Perhaps Games Workshop’s poor policies and greater competition are making an impact on the quality of workers? Now there are options for sculptors who want into the hobby. Not just working for the Empire.
@mpopke, those are not the original Fellowship models, those are the models released with the Mines of Moria boxed set. They do look waaay off, imo, but compare them to this:
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?prodId=prod1090949
Much better. If you don’t think they look like the actors either, would it at least be safe to say they each look a lot more like the actors than the MoM set, as if someone was trying at a resemblance? I remember reading somewhere that the actors were approached about these models and each one was approved. I don’t know if that was required as per the license you mentioned or if it was purey courteous. An even better Fellowship set:
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?prodId=prod1060227
Ian Holm as Bilbo:
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?prodId=prod1500447a
Bernard Hill as Theoden:
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?prodId=prod1500355a
There are models throughout the range that look strikingly similar to the actors that played them. Then there are generic models dressed in that film character’s clothing. One stark example might be Gamling:
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?prodId=prod1500349a
The foot model looks a lot like Bruce Hopkins–maybe as close as you can get in 28mm. But the mounted model looks literally nothing like him. That’s just one example, and because of that pattern, I think it has less to do with licensing and more to do with sculpting quality. To me it seems like on the foot model someone was definitely trying to make it look like Hopkins. Then again, it could be that the models that bear a resemblance to the actors were licensed, but the ones that don’t were not.
@mpopke, I tried to post a comment earlier, but for some reason it was flagged as “awaiting moderation,” likely because I had a significant number of links to the GW website.
The Fellowship set you linked to was originally included in the Mines of Moria boxed set. Not only do the models bear little resemblance to their respective actors, but they are also considered fairly poor all around. The original Fellowship of the Ring boxed set looks a lot more like the actors. Each model was approved by the actors as well–I’m not sure if that was as per licensing or because of courtesy.
There are models throughout the range that look strikingly similar to the actors that played them. Then there are generic models dressed in that film character’s clothing. Looking at the timetables for many of the releases, I’d say it has less to do with licensing and more to do with sculpting quality. Many models released long after the films look far more like the actor than an older model does. As far as Aragorn goes, I do agree that a lot of his models are subpar are bare no resemblance to Viggo Mortensen. However, I do think the Weathertop, Heroes of Helm’s Deep, and Breaking of the Fellowship models look a lot like him–or more like him than other models, as if someone was actually trying to sculpt him specifically.
One stark example of a contrasting character portrayal is “Gamling with Royal Standard.” Let’s be honest–the foot model looks exactly like Bruce Hopkins. Even if you don’t agree, you have to at least concede that the sculptor was definitely trying to portray Hopkins. The mounted model, however, looks literally nothing at all like him. If your info on Rights of Publicity is correct in this situation, we have to assume that Hopkins licensed his likeness to GW based on the uncanny resemblance of the foot model. So why the disparate quality in the mounted version?
License or not, I think it comes down to the quality of sculpting.
In US WD365, the original Bilbo Baggins miniature was inducted into the “Citadel Hall of Fame.” In the article, there is mention of the model being based on Ian Holm. The paint job is to a higher standard than now (even if the original photography was not) and the sculpt looks more like Ian Holm than either of the new Bilbos look like Martin Freeman. Likewise, all of the older Gollum models look much more like Andy Serkis’s Gollum than the new model.
There is a lot of evidence that at least some of the figures are intentionally based on the actors, whether by their appearance or by actual flat-out statements, such as with the original Fellowship and Bilbo. And besides all that, there is no reason the Escape from Goblin Town Bilbo should look more like Freeman than the Riddles in the Dark Bilbo, if neither are supposed to be based on the actor.
Keep in mind that 1) Games Workshop claims to make the best models in the world, 2) went out of their way for both the LotR and Hobbit licenses, and 3) has demonstrated they can sculpt figures that look exactly like the actors, even on such small models. There’s just no excuse for them releasing these Gollum and Bilbo miniatures that look so crappy and charging so much for them. The entire Hobbit range so far has been an overpriced disappointment.
How GW sells anything with those prices ill never know … 250 swedish for badly sculpted Bilbo and Gollum …dont know what to say, GW has a vivid imagination concerning price tags and their own ability to create the bes minis in the world.
I don’t know about the Hobbit licence as I’m rather out of touch these days, but the LotR movie licence actually stipulated that GW had to get the actual actors to sign off on the sculpts before production to approve their likeness. I guess New Line had got an agreement with the actors to use their licences to promote the film in this way. One amusing anecdote was that apparently Liv Tyler was reduced to tears by Gary Morley’s original sculpt of Arwen it was so bad. The man never really got the hang of human (or for that matter, elven) anatomy!