Gothmog

Origami, Original Designs

I thought this would be a nice one for Halloween. While I was making orks, I thought it would be fun to try and make Gothmog. Here he is.

wko_019-gothmog-101

Gothmog is the king of the Balrogs in the Silmarillion (from the Lord of the Rings universe). There’s another Gothmog in the Return of the King who’s an ork or something. So not that guy. Gothmog (more or less) killed Fëanor, the elf dude who made the Silmarils. He’s my favourite character in the whole that stuff (although I did kind of only skim the Silmarillion).

Balrogs aren’t exactly well described in any of the books. They’re probably man-sized, unless they just look that way from a distance, and may have wings, as long as they don’t just cause shadows that look like wings. They all have fire whips and may have swords, except Gothmog, who has a big black axe.

wko_019-gothmog-104

wko_019-gothmog-125 wko_019-gothmog-124

He got a little complicated, so I made the whip and axe out of different squares of paper. He has some pretty large wings, hands with fingers, and a little tail (mainly because I had some extra paper there). The main feature is the head. He has two large teeth/tusks on the bottom of his mouth, four on the upper part, and a large tongue. He also has a mane of fire and 12 horns (6 on each side). I think he ended up pretty good.

wko_019-gothmog-122 wko_019-gothmog-118

wko_019-gothmog-127

Orks

Origami, Original Designs

Mostly unrelated, I updated the scorpion.

I’ve wanted to come up with an ork or balrog or something like that for awhile. Eventually, I came up with a good and flexible way to make the head of something like an ork. By flexible, I mean I can add extra tusks or horns or whatever pointy things I want to pretty easily.

WKO_016 - ORK A (103)

This made it so I had to decide where the best place to put the head would be (i.e. location in the paper; I know the head should go on the neck). At the same, time I needed to solve a good body.

WKO_016 - ORK A (107) WKO_016 - ORK A (104) WKO_016 - ORK A (102) WKO_016 - ORK A (101)

This first finished one is kind of cartoony, but I think he looks pretty good. However, it’s bugging me that I’ve seen a cartoon or a video game with a monster just like this one. I thought it looked like the artwork to a moblin from The Legend of Zelda, or an ork from one of the cartoon Lord of the Rings movies (LotR, RotK), but neither of these are the cartoon I remember.

WKO_017 - DEVIL ORK (107)

The second one I came up with I’m calling a Devil Ork. This is because he looks a bit like Jun Maekawa’s Devil (I folded the Devil again to check, and the only thing similar is the tail’s triangle). When I stood him up, the first finished one looked like he was posing like Hojyo Takashi’s Vajrapani (Growling Form?). While I’m sure it’s just in my head, it makes me really happy for some reason.

WKO_017 - DEVIL ORK (103) WKO_017 - DEVIL ORK (101) WKO_017 - DEVIL ORK (102) WKO_017 - DEVIL ORK (109)

I didn’t want to forget how to make this one (a few parts were a bit tricky), so I went a bit nuts making extras in a lighter red, yellow, green, and blue.

WKO_017 - DEVIL ORK (116) WKO_017 - DEVIL ORK (114) WKO_017 - DEVIL ORK (113)

I also came up with a balrog, but I’ll save that for later.