Shepherd of the Forest

This is a rather special Ent. After building the plastic kit I had a head and a couple of right hands left. That's obviously the basis of another Ent but how to make the rest of it?

Basically, every time we went for a walk over the year, I collected some sticks. Always deadfalls - after all, Treebeard would not approve of me cutting  healthy trees down. 

Walks in Yorkshire, Wales, the highlands of Scotland - every part of  the countryside of mainland Britain contributed some elements. 

Then it was a matter of construction. Some drilling and pinning and a lot of Gorilla Gel.

I added a couple of branches from Dryads to break up the outline.

Almost by accident it appears that I made an Ent with attitude. Just looking at him you can hear the Beegees.

I then fastened him to the base and green stuffed the root structure round the feet.

I painted him using the one of the greatest strengths of contrast paints, I think - the ability to easily blend them to get natural colours. 

The leaves were painted in the traditional way and then I added some foliage from my stash.  

And so here is the current army of Fangorn Forest. 

Very happy with this one and obviously it has a lot of sentimental meaning to the family as it represents our travels in the countryside - something I think Professor Tolkien would have approved of.