Mordor Corpse Ship

The Raider is propelled by a form of dark magic, chanelled through an unsound rock that makes anyone not aligned with the Dark Forces feel tainted and dirty, like he is covered in grime. The rock was found and twisted into it's current form at roughly the same time as the Scara-hai made their Andraug, the Walking Wolf. This one's bigger though. Construction of the ship was led by the same sect of orcs, on orders of a high lieutenant of Sauron. 

When on sea it reanimates the deep sea creature's fins and tail-fin and the disgusting, smelling corpse raider can reach a formidable 8-9 knots depending on currents and winds. The orcs serving aboard do it very, very reluctantly but have been chosen for their ability to actually withstand the open seas without being too incapacitated. The Mordor Corpse Raider strikes at dawn and at dusk, with her crew avoiding the plague of the sun as much as possible. With the keen night-sight of the orcs they can easily spot the human vessels before being spotted.

The Mordor Raider's purpose is basically raiding and sea-brigadeering (pirating?).

Before going into the Work In Progress-pictures (WIP:s), these are some of the details still left to add. It's insides are basically empty, and I am not sure how much I want to detail it... If at all necessary...

This project have generated heaps of trash. Handfuls of balsa, paper and polymer clay pieces are now littering my apartment.

After building the basic shape in artist's card and sculpting it's head and the cut-off rib-cage bones I promptly added the sagging skin and flesh that we could see in the update before this one. After that I added walls between the large bones of the deep-sea mega fish that was trapped and ritualistically killed by one of Sauron's most feared servants: Mag'ul of the East. A dangerous acolyte of the dark magic. Perhaps he was once a human, or even one of those very few magically inclined half-orcs...

Ma'gul and his apprentices were the ones that constructed the unsound tower, which is why it looks radically different from the rickety construction of the beast-ship's hull, which was built by snagas and orcs.

My reasoning for using lasercut masonite for the tower was I wanted it to really stand out, like it was something special. Additionally, it serves to straighten up the design slightly: The ship might look like a hodge-podge and I have consciously tried to tone down most high fantasy aspects and restrain myself with the weirdness and disgusting details: You will find no entrails etc in this project, because I want to find a nice balance between the pragmatic militarism of the orcs and the weirdness of the sick ship itself.

After detailing the ship further with two plastic pieces from the Warhammer Light-Planet Empire-wagon-thingie (which was added for a gothic, Mordorian touch as well as to give the "ship" a more civilized look) I started with the "metal" defenses that crown it's outer hull of wood and bone and thick skin.

Made ten of those...
 

... and mounted them...

... and added further details, such as 3D-printed chains (I am very proud of designing those myself in Sketchup and then printing them, very satisfying even though they are super simple - but I am very new to this, soooo...).

Made the head detachable during construction, might attach it later. You can notice that the orcs have chained the ugly deepwater beast's jaws together, and on the inside they have reinforced it with wood and leather and tar.


My question to you, dear reader: Where should the dark tower be placed - front, end or somewhere in the middle, and if so, where in the middle, more to the aft or the other direction?

Please leave a comment with regards to the placement of the unsound tower... or if you have anything else to add.

Next up: Painting the Mordor Corpse Ship/Mordor Raider/Mordor Corpse Raider.