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As Salkyre stood overlooking the amassed troops, one thing was clear. The coming battles would be the Harad warlord's greatest test. Salkyre was determined that this venture into Gondor would yield him more than treasure and riches. It would bring the captain of Harad glory and fame to rival the kings of old.

He had gathered the greatest of the warriors of his tribe for this campaign. The Mumakil that stood arrayed with his force were the most fearsome of all such beasts he had ever seen. Surely he would crush the haughty forces of the West with his grand army.

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The Idea

My original idea was to have a Harad band. I thought of it when my dad and I were looking at some miniatures of Arabian tribesmen on the Internet. I thought it would be cool if some of them were playing drums and other instruments. After thinking it over I came to the conclusion that it would be more useful if they were a command group, that way I would be able to use them in my Harad army. Most Harad banners seem to be based on a snake. I wanted something a bit different but that would still fit into the overall "serpent" theme of the Harad forces. I chose to have my army represented by a cobra theme. It seemed unique and workable, giving my army an easily recognizable logo.

After thinking about exactly what musician conversions to make, I settled on a drummer and horn player. I looked through the bits box and found some instruments, picking out my favorite one. Then I looked at the sprues of Harad miniatures and found the models shown here.

Standard Bearer
Captain
Horn Player
Drummer

I had a hard time choosing which ones to use because of all the good choices. I settled on the two archers to convert into a horn player and a drummer.

I started to work on these two and felt that there was something missing, perhaps I needed to add another miniature or two. I searched through the sprue again and found great models for the captain and a banner bearer.

Conversions

With these miniatures and the instrument I had picked out I tried to figure out the best way to make them look natural, as if they were actually playing the instruments.

Horn Blower

I started by cutting the miniature's whole arm off from the shoulder down. I then used my hobby knife to smooth the plastic out from where I had cut off the arm. After studying the mini, I realized that it would be easier to use a different arm altogether, connect the horn to it and then connect that to the body. I found an arm holding a spear and cut the spear off right at the hand. I then used a pin vice to create a hole precisely where I needed the arm to be attached.

I cut a piece of a paper clip to fit in the holes I had made in the miniature and arm. I put glue on the paper clip then rubbed it all around in the inside of the hole, inserted the paper clip and let it dry.

After examining my horn player, I realized that since I had cut off his whole arm, I would have to create another entire upper arm.

I used my dad as a model while I fixed the arm. I made him act as though he were playing a horn for at least 4 or 5 minutes while I modeled the basic shape of the arm. I then got the dentist's tool wet and smoothed out the green stuff, making it look even better.

I connected the rest of the horn by drilling a small hole in the back of the horn and glued a paperclip into it. After that dried, I drilled another hole in the hand and cut the paperclip down enough to barely fit inside the hole. I glued this in place and let it dry. After this I added a bit of green stuff to the tip and fashioned it into a fluted tip to make the horn look more realistic.

I was done with the horn player other than painting. Once I painted it and looked at it, the horn was just too long for my liking.

To fix this I cut the tip of the horn back to where the straps were and smoothed out some of the straps. I then had to create another tip by making a small ball of green stuff and just barely flattening it, poke the front of it with the lid of a marker to indent it and push it onto the front of the horn. I also cut off the ribons and moved them back and trimmed them down some, I attached these with glue and let them dry.

After touching up the changed areas, the final model turned out fairly nicely.

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Over the course of weeks the huge army marched northward on the Harad road. Salkyre was growing ever more impatient to engage the enemy. His troops would soon find battle and glory in service to the Dark Lord.

As the grand Harad army arrived in the vicinity of Ithilien Salkyre's scouts began reporting more contact with forces that may prove to be that of the foe. He steeled himself and ensured his command group was on call at a moment's notice to relay his orders to the troops.

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Drummer

I first cut off the bow from his left hand, freeing up the hand to hold a drumstick.

I then cut off the entire arm, preparing to reposition it so that it would be in a more natural position. I needed to bring his arm forward a little bit and down some. When I finally got it to a position I liked, I used the pin vice to drill a hole in the middle of the shoulder and the arm and used the same paperclip technique as explained earlier to hold them together.

I drilled small holes through his hands where the drumsticks would go. I made the drumsticks by cutting small pieces of large paperclips just big enough for him to hold and have a little bit sticking out of the top. You can see these drumsticks below. I glued these into place and let them dry.

I then got out my dad's green stuff, and pulled off a small piece, kneaded it together until it turned green and rolled it into a small tube. I pushed the green stuff into the huge gap left around the shoulder when I repositioned the arm.

It was then a matter of making sure the green stuff looked right with the existing details of the model. I ended up using a dentist's tool for this, which made it a lot easier than using my finger.

If I had used my finger, it would have left fingerprints and I couldn't have been able to do such intricate work on it. This was my first experience with using green stuff, and I'm glad to say it was really fun. It turned out really nicely.

The Drum

I went through a ton of pictures of drum styles before I found one that was close to the image I had in my mind of what I wanted.

It took quite a while but I eventually figured out that I could make it very close by using a wooden barrel with the tip cut -- or sanded -- off.

Painting The Drum

Making The Stand

I decided to make the stand from scratch, so I searched the Internet for pictures of drum stands, and actually got my idea from a picture of an oil drum on a rack. You can see this picture below.

I cut a piece of balsa wood 6cm tall and 7cm wide to use as the front, the back is 5cm tall and 7cm wide.

I then took a bamboo skewer and wrapped the finest sand paper I could find around it. I took the skewer and sanded a dent in the bottom of the two pieces of balsa wood as seen here.

After that was finished I cut one inch off another skewer and then cut that in half. I used the skewer with sandpaper to make notches in the middle of the ½ inch skewers where the drum would sit. I used a strip of balsa wood 2cm tall and 7cm long as the cross beams between the front and back.

I painted the drum stand a dark brown. After that layer dried I highlighted it with a lighter brown. A final highlight was made with a very light brown.

The final stand

Standard Bearer and Flag

I first cleaned all of the mould lines and extra plastic off with my hobby knife. I wanted this guy to be different from most of the other standard bearers where the banners are wavy and perfectly horizontal. My intention was to make it actually look as though it were flapping in the wind haphazardly. I pulled off and prepared a small piece of green stuff and flattened it out on a piece of wax paper that I stole from the kitchen. I've read that if you do this the green stuff would not stick to your working station and also would enable you to pull it free after smashing it very very flat and thin (it works). I then made it into a flag shape by pulling it, resulting in a nicely "worn" look at the tips. This was wrapped around the spear near the top as you can see here.

I then shaped it and set it up high on a bookshelf to dry without being knocked over or bumped.

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