THE HOBBIT: TORTURER OF DOL GULDUR

Limited edition #56 of 500
Scale: 1/6
Dimensions: 35.5 x 36 x 30 cm (HxWxD)
Weight: 4.2 kg
Materials: Polystone
Pre-order: August 31, 2017
Released: January 2018
Sculptor: Sam Gao

Imprisoned by the Necromancer, Gandalf the Grey finds himself at the mercy of the savage Torturer of Dol Guldur. Exhausted and brutalised, the Wizard is dragged from his gibbet by the huge Orc, who makes ready to cut the Elven Ring Narya from his hand. At another time the vile slave of Sauron would be no match for Gandalf, but the weakened Istar can do little to resist in his current state.

Unusually tall and straight-backed for an Orc, the Torturer has long served the Dark Lord through his servant Azog, leader of the great Orcs of Gundabad. The Torturer fought in Azog’s campaign against the Dwarves and partook in the conquering of Moria, where he received a grievous wound.

The brute lived despite his horrific injury, though his skull had to be bound together with crude straps of iron, nailed into his bones. As jailor of the fortress of Dol Guldur, he adorned himself with macabre trophies, including a skirt of flayed Dwarf faces, bears’ claws and a chest plate fashioned from a ribcage.

One of the challenges of adapting The Hobbit for the screen was the lack of an antagonist throughout much of the original story. This led to expansion of the character of the Orc chieftain Azog into a persistent nemesis for Thorin who would dog the Dwarves’ trail all the way to Erebor. Azog’s look went through a lot of development at Weta Workshop before the director signed off on the entirely digital version seen in the films, but that design journey yielded a number of alternate concepts too cool to waste.

The character known as the Torturer of Dol Guldur was one such design to have come out of that process, eventually being assigned to the Orc jailor of the Necromancer’s lair in The Battle of the Five Armies. Also sometimes referred to by crew as the Red Orc, in reference to his blood and pigment-soaked armour, the distinctive look was conceived by designer Nick Keller, who chose the colour palette to help differentiate the character from the many other Orcs seen in the films.

Seven foot-tall actor Conan Stevens donned the costume and Orc prosthetics created by Weta Workshop’s artists, amply filling out the broad-shouldered villain and towering over his co-stars.