Painting Challenge XIII - Favorite Character Bonus Round

I pondered for a few weeks trying to figure out what to paint for this round.  In the end I plumped for Aragorn.  As a teenager, reading the Lord of the Rings, Aragorn was a true heroic character.  His selflessness, courage, compassion and skill were all features that I found worthy of emulation, and in fact, influenced my development into the man I am today.  To this day, Aragorn is still one of my favorites.  Uncomplicated by any of the current fad for anti-heroes, he’s just a well developed character with widely admirable traits.  It seems fitting that Aragorn will take me above my challenge goal. 

The model is a plastic GW model from the, really rather crappy, Mines of Moria, intro set.  This is the first model I’ve painted from the set.  By and large the detail is poor, with the exception of the face and some details on the jacket and leggings.  The face in particular really has a lot of character. 

The model was quick to paint up.  I didn’t use the movies as a guide, rather delving back to the images of my teenage mind as I read the books.  In general I prefer to paint according to the books rather than the movies.

Despite my affection for the character in the books and movies, I’ve never used Aragorn in a game.  He’s too expensive for my tastes.  Now that I have a painted model I might throw him down once or twice though, since he is a lot of fun to play.