"Of all the terrors to confront the Fellowship of the Ring on their journey, none can compare with the Balrog. A demon of flame and shadow, a relic from the ancient past, the Balrog has lain entombed in the earth since the days long ago when great powers wandered openly under the sky and faught battles that tore mountain ranges asunder. Against this terrible evil only one could stand. To save the Fellowship and preserve the Quest, Gandalf gives himself to fate and confronts this greatest of foes."






Same old, same old. Green designs to mark its Fellowship status, tab-lock top flap, and the nice hard cardboard with a high gloss. Still no windows (not that there ever will/should be) and our good old friend the second half of the Ring poem is back to greet us.

I do enjoy the photos on this particular box though, I don’t believe they’re from the pre-order images, and they’re very well lit and show off the detail nicely. Also, for a statue that was supposedly the same size as the Fell Beast, the box is much larger than anticipated. But then again, so is the statue…







Okay, you see, I’ve been collecting Sideshow Weta products for about 4 years now, and I can honestly tell you that the new Balrog is probably in the top 3 on my “Most Pleasantly Surprised” list. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much. In fact, I intended to cancel this one, but they failed to notify me when it would arrive in their warehouse and I got lazy (same thing happened with Shelob, who should be arriving any day now). Then one day I got the shipping notice. Whoops. So I get it, and meaning to send it back (NOT happening now), I bring it inside. Then, curiosity hits. I open it and I’m blown away.

First of all, I used to have the Fell Beast statue, but after 6 months I grew tired of the piece and sold it. That was a pretty small statue for its price, all things considered. I was told by many that the Udun Balrog was the same way. I’m here to tell you folks, it isn’t. At least at first sight, the Balrog is MUCH larger than many of you are probably expecting. Which isn’t exactly to say that it “is” larger than the Fell Beast, or even that it has a tremendous amount of additional material in it, but it’s sort of an eye trick. At the very least it gives you a much more menacing impression than the Fell Beast ever did.

Now obviously I don’t have the FB anymore, so I can’t give any direct or factual comparisons/stats, but I can tell you two things: One, it’s definitely taller than the FB, and two, it’s all around “thickness” is greater. But enough about that stuff, on to the actual sculpture.



Overall this is a fantastic sculpt, and Ryk Fortuna has done a wonderful job capturing a new pose for the Balrog. However, I have two complaints with the piece. The first one, and the more serious one, is glaringly obvious in the above picture: The head is Gigantic. It’s not directly noticeable with its wings creating such tremendous shadows and all, but oh yes, very large head. When you look past this (and it’s easy to do so) you’ll have few complaints. The head itself is beautiful, or at least as beautiful as a fiery demon can be. All the horn spirals are there, the skeletal face structure is perfectly proportionate to its movie counterpart, and his eyes are in a perfect menacing slant. Of particular mention is his mouth, which has a wonderfully sculpted tongue, and a nice setup of tiny teeth. Even his throat goes down a good distance. Top notch work all around.

My other problem with the Sculpt besides his huge melon, is his mane of flames. Now, I’m not going to pretend to know anything about what I would guess can only be described as the living hell that sculpting flames must be, but I’m a little disappointed. The detail on them is fine, but they’re just at very odd angles and shapes, not at all evoking the movement of fire in my opinion. You may disagree, but I can only call it as I see it. Of smaller mention in the negative category is the left hand hidden behind the wing: I think it’s pretty simple, and off-model in its general shape. Again, this could just be me.



I have no complaints with the rest of the Sculpt. The tail, legs, wings and especially the back area leading up to the mane are fantastic. The rock base, though so often overlooked is perfection. It looks exactly like it’s intended to, rock. Not always an easy feat to accomplish. Also of interest, unlike the Fell Beast, the Balrog’s rock base is not connected to the standard SSW black base, but rather has the metal peg and hole system. Slightly interesting…





Without sounding too artsy, I guess I can describe the paint job as “bold”. It grabs your attention pretty easily, which can be both a good and a bad thing. Let’s start with the good. The mane of flames is fantastic, as is the entire back area. There is downright impressive blending of yellows, reds and oranges on the piece, as well as some excellent fading effects. The black areas are also excellent. They have some nice use of darker grays to bring out the musculature and stretch effects on the wings. The eyes and nostrils are also incredibly clean and professionally done. The “bold” description is attributed to the bright yellows on the piece, which make you look in their direction easily.

The only downside to the paintjob, which is unavoidable I suppose with a statue requiring such thin detail lines of clashing colors, is paint bleeding. Not everything stays in the lines I’m afraid. It’s especially noticeable on the top of his tail, where the colors don’t quite stay put. Also, there are “lava crack” effects on the piece where there were none in the movie, such as on his horns. These minor things are all that held him back from a perfect paint score.







Once again, the most minor of nitpicks are holding this piece back from perfect scores. The statue overall is of fantastic quality. The wings I believe, or at least one of them, is made from plastic instead of polystone (Anyone who owns the Boromir statue and has taken a good look/feel at his cape will know what I’m talking about). You really can’t tell at all without feeling it, and I’m not even sure myself, but I think I’m right. However, that’s not what’s holding it back. My standard Sideshow black base is slightly off-kilter. It’s not flat, basically, and my statue, all too subtly moves because of it. It’s tiny, nothing dangerous or even annoying, but I can do Morse code my Balrog statue, something I’m sure it wasn’t originally designed for. Not bad, but not perfect. Such a shame...





Although it may not look like it at first glance, there really isn’t much more material in the Balrog than any standard $125 statue. So at $150, we’re not getting a super terrific deal. On the other hand, the paint operations and fragile nature of the piece are above the normal areas. So while I can understand the price, it could have been at least $10 lower. I think maybe they’re just setting a standard “creature” price in this scale.







If you’ve been paying attention, this score is pretty obvious. Even though I think it’s slightly overpriced, had the head been in the proper scale, and the paint job a tiny bit tighter, I would have given this piece of perfect score. But as it stands, it’s just oh so close. Still, it’s a much better value than Moria, and some of the other higher-priced items. All in all he’s a solid buy for anyone who missed out on the original Balrog, the undisputed champion of the SSW collection.