Defenders of Helm's Deep- Aragorn

"Come!' said Aragorn. 'This is the hour when we draw swords together."

 Every time I reread LotR (ten times now!), it astounds me how much depth Tolkien packed into his characterizations (an excellent example is Merry and Pippin's growth throughout the books). There are also moments where more central characters fade into the background, like Aragorn's role at the battle of Helm's Deep. For the most part, he's very careful to avoid the center stage- always deferring to Theoden or Eomer. At the same time, this is the first we see of Aragorn in his element as king. It is the hour Anduril is first drawn and declared openly, that he claims his birthright as the bearer of Narsil reforged (and at extension the heir to Gondor's throne); and takes up the mantle of leader of men. Most telling is his talk with Saruman's army right before dawn, which culminated in this revelation of his power-

"So great a power and royalty was revealed in Aragorn, as he stood there alone [....] that many of the wild men paused[.]"

To cause this victorious, heckling army to reconsider its attack is remarkable. Again, it's the first time Aragorn reveals himself as something other than Strider to a large amount of people, and the result is telling of future encounters.

That look of emerging power is one I tried to capture in miniature. As with my previous Aragorn, I didn't paint the beard sculpted on the figure.This is per the books, and Tolkien's express statement (in Letters) that the Dunedain do not grow facial hair as part of their Elven heritage. I'm not quite sure how I like it on the sculpt, sometimes it looks good and weather-beaten (as he is 87 during the War of the Ring), at others too Neanderthal.

I like the outfit worn by this sculpt, it shows the transition between Ranger and King well. He's still clad in the rusty greens and browns from the Fellowship, but layered with greaves and mail from Theoden's armory. I wanted the clothes under the armor to look very weathered, and dropping the base colors to a darker tone did the trick. This would also work well as a Pelennor Fields Aragorn, and I look forward to playing the Dunedain (featured in my second post!) lead by him.

The finished miniatures has a certain Leatherstocking feeling to it, especially with the knife and boots- this suits Aragorn well to me. Also, as seen in the above picture, he wears the ring of Barahir, the sole remaining legacy of Beren One-Hand!

Anduril goes to war! The Blade that was Broken shines again!