The miniature at the top represents Aragorn when he for the first time leaves Rivendell to seek his destiny. He has recently, to Elrond's worry, fallen in love with Arwen. I bet it's a fairly sweaty handshake he is giving her. 

The miniature is set in a Imladris setting, something I have wanted to do since I saw the Fellowship of Rings movie. There are some very captivating and inspiring scenes of Rivendell there. I imagined Aragorn and a companion leaving from an inconspicuous side gate with Arwen there to bid him a last farewell. 

 Below to the left is LR21 , 'The Watcher at Sarn Ford' from the 'From the Shire to Barrow Downs' release. It depicts a Ranger of the North, one of Striders kinsmen and trusted men, standing guard at the borders of the Shire. There are not many miniatures produced by Mitrhril of Rangers of the North (other than Strider) but I think this one could work perfectly whit the Aragorn and Arwen miniatures at the top. I very nicely sculptured miniature and a pleasure to paint. In the diorama the work as a kind of a 'filler', making the scene more interesting as the eye wanders from the natural focus , Aragorn and Arwen, and explores the rest of the scene.

 If you compare the picture second from the top with the one above middle, you can see that Roheryn's , Araghorn's horse, colors are different. I was not happy with my first attempt so I stripped and repainted it based on the picture to the left. Mimicking that excellent paint job I managed to make Roheryn a noble and reasonably natural looking dapple grey. There are few references to Roheryn's in the books. It says his name means  'horse of the lady', so called because Roheryn was given to Aragorn by Arwen. In   The Return of the King, Book V,  Chapter 2
'The Passing of the Grey Company' there is a passage which tells how the Grey Company led Roheryn to Aragon: 

"...A little apart the Rangers sat, silent, in an ordered company, armed with spear and bow and sword. They were clad in cloaks of dark grey, and their hoods were cast now over helm and head. Their horses were strong and of proud bearing, but rough-haired; and one stood there without a rider, Aragorn’s own horse that they had brought from the North; Roheryn was his name."

Above is the diorama again a bit closer and from various angles. Even though you do not see much of the ranger under the arch of the gate  I think you'll agree that the scene makes more sense with him in it. You get a better sense of departure and direction with him in it. If you are interested in compositional theory, as it is taught in painting classes for example, having a figure moving towards the back of the image means departure. Positioning walls at straight angles with the base is generally a no-no. It more often looks natural to mount them at odd angles. In this case, however, I thought it made sense to not follow this theory. I figured a wall straight across the base, making it a clearly defined boundary between here and there, in and out, home and away.

I started with a square piece of plywood , roughly 35 cm wide and 25 deep. I glued a 1" sheet of pink foam onto the board with Liquid Nails and left it to dry overnight. Once dry I trimmed the edges with a foam cutter and made a gentle slope from the front edge towards the back. I cannot stress enough times: always build your dioramas in a modular way and do not glue anything down until you absolutely have to. I in this spirit I cut out grooves for the wall and drilled out holes for the trees. This meant I could slide these items in their positions without having to use glue. I did however glue the boulders onto the bases with a hot glue gun since it was important that they look firmly embedded. The boulders were pieces of bark, a perfect material since it is lightweight, cheap and very rock like. The moss on the rocks were made by applying diluted white glue atop the boulders and then I sprinkled a Woodland Scenics Dark Green Fine Turf on it in two layers and last one layer of Medium Green of the same sort of material. This gave the moss a decent buildup. Last, the ground was given a generous sprinkle of leaves (see below) on a layer of diluted white glue.

Many people have asked me about the material I use for leaves. The are actually seed shell from a kind of birch tree which is pretty common in Europe. You can find it in gutters in parks in spring. The individual seed is three-pronged and looks slightly like a flor-de-lys or a maple leaf. Sifted for other debris it is looks pretty good as forest litter and leaves.

Sine this is a autumn scene I tinted the seeds with a watered down warm yellow ink and then let them dry. Once dry I gave them a thorough shake to separate them from each other . The seeds are quite hard so there is little risk of ruining them in the process.

The wall was made from 15mm foam core, clad with squares of 1mm plasticard except the foundation and edge tiles which were 1.5 mm plasticard.  The surface of the plastic squares were roughened up a little by softening the surface with polystyrene solvent and then by scratching the surface with sand paper. Once dry I softened the scratches  with steel wool. The terracotta tiles and the archway were sculpted with Tamyia epoxy putty. 

I base coated the whole thing with Games Workshop black primer, then a quick layer of Fortress Grey spray paint. The scene is supposed to be in Rivendell so I wanted the masonry to look age worn but well made. Several hilite of successively whiter grays captured the look of old granite pretty well. The light grey contrasts nicely against the warm forest colors.

The ivy clinging to the left side of the wall is a product from Hudson & Allen Studio. It is basically a piece of tinted loafah and green colored seeds of the same kind I used for leaves. It is the only commercial supplier of this material I have found so far.

The gates were made from a frame of 1,5mm plasticard onto which strips of plastic were glued to represent sweeping branches. Onto this I glued leaves cut from thin paper. I glued simple wire hinges to the sides and sprayed with black primer and highlighted with steel and silver metallics.

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