Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

*Changed the name of the thread as this is no longer a "looking for help" so much as "heres what I'm working on" - however, feedback has been amazing, as have been the ideas and examples of your guys' work (which I actually prefer to what I've done, but cannot re-create as I have no greenstuff). So ideas and opinions on what can be changed/added/taken away are greatly appreciated


Doing a diorama, wanted to have a portal opened up with daemons crawling out of it. So far I have cut out a arched shaped using plasticard, swirled water effects over it, painted the water effects and then put another layer over that - not sure if I like it yet though, don't know how much like a portal it looks. Heres a pic: let me know what you think, and if you have other ideas as to how to do it.


Water effects are still drying on the latest layer, but thats the general look of it

Was also thinking about putting it behind the two pillars in this terrain set:

Your portal is great! I will probably try to make one like this soon.

Her's the one I've made yesterday:

I've swirled GS and tried to make screaming faces along the swirl.
I must say I prefer yours!

I really really like that one - the face on the sides would be awesome to put on the pillars in that terrain set. I wouldnt scrap that, I would build off of it. Paint it up with reds or greens, then add water effects to the top and swirl it. Could end up being a really cool looking piece. Awesome job!

Hi
Here is my portal, I dedicated it to nurgle. Sorry about the poor colors. I had to use some extreme settings on my camera in order to brighten the picture ( a rainy day, with poor indoor lighting).

You see a try on OSL on the inner edges of the portal...

Thats really badass

So I made the two pilliars for the sides out of clay, painted them up and put glowing runes and sutff on them, will have pics up shortly. However, I am having a hard time with figuring out how to do the arch without making it goofy looking, and I have no idea what to do with the back of the portal. thought about a brick wall, but I'm not sure. If anyone has ideas, that would be awesome

A brick/stone wall seems just fine!

HBH, I love the portal you've come up with. It looks so much more alive with energies than the other ones, (Which are still kick ass, rest assured). I would really like to see the final product.

Those are really cool !!

I like the idea of using the GW terrain kit but I suggest, since it's plastic, slotting a groove at the column join so the two halves come together to sandwich your portal.

Very nice, I might suggest a good thing to use for the stonework around the swirling portal might be the archway from the skaven screaming bell kit, if your needing something like that, looks cool though for sure.

I really like the look of your portal so far. Water effects does wonders for details. Also, I think a plain brick back would be fine, unless the opposite side of the portal is equally as interesting. If thats the case, slotting the pillars like Myrthe suggested would look the best!

Awesome! Thanks for the ideas, if a brick wall would look okay I think I may do that. But I am also tempted to do what was mentioned about making the other side of the portal just as interesting as the front, may look cool from a side profile view of a daemon princ climbing out of the portal front, but the other half of his body being non existant from the back (if that makes sense haha).

Well you guys have me motivated to get this thing done, I will go take some pics of the pillars I made and throw them up - also like the idea of slotting the pilliars. I was thinking too complex in terms of how to do it when the simple method of slotting it would be so much more effective!


Okay, here it is so far - still have to do the notches in the sides and build an arch for the top. Plan on starting the actual diorama tomorrow. (have to cut down some wood to size, router the edges, stain it, etc.)

AMAZING! Love it!

Looking forward to see how you you put the daemons in.

As for the top could you do some sort of stonehenge sort of thing where it's simply another pillar on top?

Yeah that would work. At first I was worried about the finger prints in the pilliars because I made them out of clay, but I think they may blend in as texture and the main focus will be the daemons. And trust me, I'm looking forward to seeing if I CAN put the daemons in without it looking dumb haha.

Some pretty damn cool portals o' doom in this thread

Do you think you could somehow blend the daemon's limbs into the portal using the same stuff you used to actually make the portal? So it's like it's really pulling the portal with it and not just having random body parts floating there?

Yeah, it is pretty easy to sculpt the water effects, I was kind of thinking something along those lines, almost like the portal is trying to keep them from comming through but they are forcing their way out

Yeh that's exactly what I was thinking!

Or if that proves too hard you could always model hands and claws reaching out of the portal trying to grab at someone outside. Might prove more difficult but if the water effects is easy to use I'm guessing all you'd have to do is base the hands/claws white and arrange them appropriately. Orrrrrrrr screaming faces =P

Faces would be awesome! Haha but I am horrible with sculpting faces, mostly just sculpt guts and postules onto plague marines. I thought about the arms idea, but I made 3 pretty cool looking space marines that I want to have waiting outside the portal. One is squatting down with a rocket launcher, one is launching himself off of a fuel drum with a drawn plasma pistol and the other is a psyker.

Well you mould faces into the portal using plastic skulls and zombie faces etc. Im guessing the portal is just white card covered in coloured water effects? So so long as the heads are basecoated white you should be able to replicate the portal effect over the heads. Maybe something to experiment with...

Like the sound of the marines. Personally would've chosen guard and had them running away from a mean old Daemon prince emerging from the portal screaming his head off, but that's just me =P

Hahaha that would have been funny.

And yeah that pretty much all it is, I will try it out as I've made 4 identital portals in case I mess one up

It makes me dizzy , i'm falling...in my head hurts! gonna... throw... up

Zuul approves of this portal.

Haha thanks for the comments guys. Here is an update, I had to scrap the old portal, turns out it would be much much easier to glue the daemon onto the portal before painting it and doing the water effects (someone may have mentioned that would be the way to go, should have listened). So now I am in the process of aquiring some bits from a daemon prince box, as well as some daemonic heads. I'm going to go with "Jake Bake A Cake" 's idea of faces in the background. Basically all thats left is the portal and then painting the whole thing. I will probably use some daemon heads, shave the backs off and glue them to the plasticard "portal", then glue the daemon prince on, paint everything, then add water effects. Also going to make the portal double sided rather than doing bricks up the back, just for added effort. Also drilled 3 holes for the bases of my space marines. This whole thing will then sit on top of a thicker piece of wood with will be routered and stained a deep red.


Sorry for the wall of text, here are some pictures so far (and that peice of Ruins terrain will be painted cooler, I just found it already painted and threw it on there):

i have that corner building , from heroscape ? portal looks better , epscially like the chaos arrows pointing into the chapel, ou should really use a complimentary colour for the rest of the build like a dark crimson , maybe have some srolls or banners fluttering in the wind to incapsulate the spinning turmoil ( i make mine from cut up metal squeezy chubes of glue), a bit less static would be great. interested to see how you paint it

The space marines that I'm going to put in there are going to be a dark crimson colour with white hoods on, going to make the background and everything black and bleak with grey highlights. The building ruins are going to be a streaky white, going to do a brown base coat with varying coats of white streaks going from rotting flesh to bleached bone, washed with gryphon sepia, then highlighted bleached bone. Wanted to leave the ground plain, so that the portal, the chapel and the space marines are the focus. I admit it doesnt look all that great right now, but once painted and everything it should look much better.


Oh, and I'm not sure what those ruins are from. My nephew had them lying around in his box of action figures, so I snagged one of them (with permission of course).

I agree that the arrows on the ground are just awesome!!!

Thanks! Only took me half a sheet of plasticard to get them looking right haha Got it on my 4th try


Oh, and on those chaos arrows, I was going to paint them all rusty and then paint runes on them in a scorpian green. Any specific style of runes I should go with, or should I just stick to the typical Anglo-Saxon/Norwegian looking runes?

hows the build comming along?

Very awesome work. I would love to have something like that on my table!

I'd say standard runes, depending on what daemons coming out you could have god specific icons on the ruins in blood or something. Don't forget a glow coming from the portal on the ground. And I'd say mutate the area around the portal be a bit more "corupted" so add some chaos spawn spikes, (chaos spawn bits are awesome for all kinds of conversions) hands, etc. Clawing through the ground. But I really like your portal idea and I can't wait for a finished product!!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, there are a few "slightly morphed" human heads in the chaos spawn box that you could use to represent spirits trying to break through the portal.