In the Clutches of Shelob

I bought the Games Workshop kit "In the Clutches of Shelob" for my next booknook titled "Sam Did Not Wait." The Shelob model was a disaster and I cannot recommend it to anybody.  I bought this kit because it is exactly what I need for the scene but the quality of metal GW miniatures is dissapointing.

Not looking too bad!

This is the scene (in the book) where Sam has already dealt a terrible blow to Shelob (impaling herself) and she is getting ready to charge and kill him but will instead be driven away by the Phial of Galadriel which Sam has just removed from his pocket.

The Model Assembly

Shelob comes in a lot of pieces and they don't fit together all that great.

• The mold lines are really bad.
• Some of the peg in hole joints for the legs needed to be cut down significantly to make them work.
• There are large gaps in the body.
• Several legs had to be bent after gluing to match the photo / look right.
  

It also did not come with any instructions, so initially I had to look at pictures, but eventually found out that it does in fact ship with instructions and someone was brave enough to post them online (GW is famous for aggressively pursuing copyright violators).

These gaps were the worst.

and these

Filled with kneadatite (generic green stuff)

and those.

Frodo

Horrible mold line...   so he will face the other way / this will be the back inside the nook.

Sam

Sam seems to have a scar on his face and the detail for Sting is disappointing.  It is fused to his body by a piece of metal that should be open space.

I prepped the mini by cutting the tab from the model to leave a spike on the rear foot and using a pin-vise (hand drill) to make a hole and mount a piece of wire.  This way I can jab him into the foam terrain base and bend the pin on the other side to hold in addition to any glue.

Next Steps

• Laying out the nook's terrain with the miniatures in position
• Priming and painting these models.
• Printing out and mounting the face plate.