Lord of the Rings Miniatures from White Dwarf 73 (January 1986)

ME-32  Noldor - Deep Elf, painted by Pete Prow, evidently as one of Finarfin's kindred as the Noldor were generally dark haired.

I'm not overly impressed with any of the elf designs in the 80's citadel Lord of the Rings line, and I generally like Elves. There is some Errol Flynn in Robin Hood or Richard Taylor in Ivanhoe vibe about the costume, but the whole thing just comes off as kind of bland.

Having said that, the big feather is odd, Tom Meier was championing the look back in the early 80's and still does it today with his fantastically sculpted Thunderbolt Mountain miniatures range, but it's not true to the source material. Eagles were the servants of Manwë and the Noldor were favoured by Aulë the Smith. Which begs the question - why is that pole-arm so poorly sculpted? These guys were master craftsmen, ornate arms, armour and detail would have made sense - so what do we get? big feather head-dresses.