Tag Archives: J.R.R. Tolkein

Barrow-Downs — Mini Monday #19

It’s Mini Monday, where I share customizing, scratch building, kitbashing, and miniature painting projects for your roleplaying table. This week we’ll build super simple Barrow-downs for your undead horde.

Mini Monday Logo

To make this little addition for your gaming table all you need is an old CD or DVD, an egg box, papier-mâché, paint, flock, and some matt varnish.

Barrow-Down
These guys love death metal. You can find our skeleton painting tutorial here.

What are the Barrow-downs? In J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, they’re tombs built into earthen mounds, which became the home of the ghostly barrow-wights. I don’t think they featured in the movies, but hey, a roleplaying table can never have too many tombs.

Because of the CD’s size, the model fits well on battle maps. Barrow-downs makes a stunning centerpiece for an encounter, or to mark the entrance to a dungeon. The model is so cheap and easy to build that you could bang it out in a weekend.

Building the Barrow-Downs

Build the structure out of bits of the egg box, using your CD as a base. I used the center bits (whatever you call them) to form the standing stones at the entrance to the tomb. Papier-mâché over the whole thing to form a solid shell, then let dry. This makes for a strong, lightweight model.

Paint the earth a muddy brown, then dry brush it with a lighter brown to highlight it. Paint the stone gray, then dry brush with a lighter gray.

When that’s dry, flock over the model, leaving the stone, a path to the tomb entrance, and any cliffs free of the flock. Then spray the model with matt varnish and you’re done.

There are thousands of ways to take this project to the next level, so get inspired and have fun with it.

Till next time, stay frosty!