Mûmakil

Hi! I'm a bit behind on posts, but today's post is something special. A job I did for Fantasy Flight Games was released last month as part of the Lord of the Rings Card Game. More specifically, this is for the Heirs of Númenor expansion.

I was really honored to be asked to paint a Mûmakil, one of the most iconic creatures from Tolkien's great works. We weren't permitted to use New Line Cinema's designs, as Fantasy Flight only has license with Middle Earth Entertainment and not NLC. Therefore, our designs could not resemble the movies in any way. I was more than happy with that as I wanted to come up with my own look and culture. I knew I wanted my Mumak to be heavily armored, wicked, yet exotic and cultured. Oh, and it had to have tusks. Big tusks. I ended up using Greek, Indian, Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian sources. 

I included a lot of gold to give a sense of opulence. The armor is taken from Indian horse armor. The wavy spikes are a classic Thai architectural feature. The red standard is a reference to the Serpent Lord.

Here's the final card, as taken from the Fantasy Flight website.