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Made in us
Utilizing Careful Highlighting





Doom demon's look great, and some nice progress coming on the terrain!
   
Made in de
Longtime Dakkanaut






Nice update on the courtyard, really interested how the finished piece will look like.
   
Made in us
Druid Warder





Sculpting and painting are very slow lately due to lots and lots of other things, but I was able to work on "table top architecture" a little bit. Not that raised platform thing or the great tree, but these cardboard walls. one of them, to be specific.

The idea is to make two outer walls with gates (solid stonework on one side, sculptures and smoothed over masonry on the other) and one inner wall (without gates but with doors to pass through with both sides smooth and pretty), as if splitting two inner courts or separating closed and open parts of the monastery. This inner wall should have Renaissance styled grottos with water source where the outer wall has a gate. Since I don't like working with small details on huge and heavy projects, I've decided to make them as separate inserts and glue them in just before the final assembly.

My inspiration would be Italian garden grottos as well as later imitations built through out Germany in XVIII-XIX centuries (Dresden, Berlin, palace gardens throughout Pomerania and Bayern). Deep recess into the wall with water basin partly hidden in it, walled by intentionally rough stone with place to sit and reflect (both metaphorically and physically - in the water) I've started with sizing parts, accounting for typical height of the base:

I hope I didn't screw it up already! Next I cut up the ring and the base of the insert, making sure everything is watertight

The inside of the ring is sculpted in acrylic sand and mortar artistic medium to imitate rough stone, with cardboard bottom painted dark to represent the depth of the basin. I plan adding some water plants so I have to add some green to the blue and black.

The half-dome of the grotto needs a base to sculpt on, so I add the rear wall from the same cardboard and round the top checking that it actually fits into the wall where it should.

Then it is time to mix the transparent resin and hope it does not make the mess seeping through the cardboard. I've also added water lily leaves to float on the surface of resin... The inside of the grotto is covered with the same mix of acrylic mortar to imitate stone.

And that is it for a time being. I will finish the outside part after gluing these inserts in place and paint it later to merge them with the imitation of wall masonry.

Now, will I finish something playable next? :(

Painting progress tracker:
2017: 50 of 50 planned; 2018: 80 of 60 planned; 2019: 75 of 75 planned

Pledge 2020:
6 to sculpt, 75 to paint (2/57 done) 
   
Made in us
[DCM]
Boom! Leman Russ Commander





United States

Hey Wirecat! I think your little grottoes shaped up very nicely- bonus points that they fit in their assigned niches as intended! The whole project sounds like a lot of fun. It will be nice to see that courtyard divider finished up!

"He fears his fate too much, or his desserts are small, who will not put it to a single touch; to win- or lose- it all."

Montrose Toast


 
   
Made in hk
Krazed Killa Kan





USA

Those grottoes are interesting. And like Meer_Cat said, it's good they fit into their spots. I would be worried they would warp from the acrylic mortar.

   
Made in de
Longtime Dakkanaut






Nice grotto work (somehow that sounds wrong ).
   
Made in us
Druid Warder





One more feathered monster for the company, Another griffon, this time from Nolzur marvelous miniatures. Already undercoated, this soft plastic figure wasn't very sharp in detail, but I've got it anyway - a very classic looking beast, if a little small. Monster, not a mount. .



Quick-painted him with Scale 75 "instant" paints last fall, touched up now. Through a mix of factory base and excess of paint retarder it came up very glossy. Weird. And a coat of matt varnish didn't change things too...

Coming back to the castle-monastery, I've finally got the laser-cut kit for the walls and towers. Spend some time sorting through it (it's only about a third of it in this photo!). Expensive, but hopefully worth it in the end. I've already started putting things together and already see some problems with it. This will need some clever work-around to make it both good-looking and playable.


Painting progress tracker:
2017: 50 of 50 planned; 2018: 80 of 60 planned; 2019: 75 of 75 planned

Pledge 2020:
6 to sculpt, 75 to paint (2/57 done) 
   
Made in us
Utilizing Careful Highlighting





Solid feathers. Maybe a quick drybrush, either as a highlight or of varnish might rough the surface and kill some of the shine?

And isn't good looking vs playable always the balance to be struck...
   
Made in us
Krazed Killa Kan





USA

I like the griffin
Share about the sculpt not having much detail, but I'm still tempted to pick one up after seeing yours.

   
Made in gb
Liberated Grot Land Raida






Northern Ireland

Must be the soft plastic reacting with the paints that makes them glossy, Ive had some Reaper Bones do the same thing. It is weird.

I have full faith in your ability to produces clever workaround for the castle-monastery. You can have your good looking cake and play with it... or something... you know what I mean.

   
Made in us
Druid Warder





Vejut wrote:Solid feathers. Maybe a quick drybrush, either as a highlight or of varnish might rough the surface and kill some of the shine?


Unfortunately, now drybrushing is out of question. What little detail was there to begin this is smoothed over by paint and varnish. :( Unless at some very distant future I'll strip it down to bare plastic...

Syro_ wrote:I like the griffin
Share about the sculpt not having much detail, but I'm still tempted to pick one up after seeing yours.


Go for it, Syro! It well may be that my copy was not the best. I hear, the sharpness of details on these minis vary from one copy to another. Injection process or excessive basecoating by hand at the factory... no idea, but people do say so.

theCrowe wrote:Must be the soft plastic reacting with the paints that makes them glossy, Ive had some Reaper Bones do the same thing. It is weird.

I have full faith in your ability to produces clever workaround for the castle-monastery. You can have your good looking cake and play with it... or something... you know what I mean.


Could be. Or maybe my paints require a lot more shaking (or just a complete restock) after a long sit in a closet. It really is weird.

And regarding playable terrain - oh, please! My recent favorite is this video:




Just go to 1:16 and watch the beauty he has built! Huge, pretty and nearly unplayable. And the courtyard at 4:38!

The problem with a kit I am trying to stack on top of my scratch-built walls is that white it is well designed (it has good fit of all parts, comes together really nice and quite closely resembles some real-life local architecture), it is in somewhat strange scale. While being offered as "28 mm scale", it is only good for miniatures of exactly 28 mm in height and with no bases under them. If You put the usual 28mm (or worse - 32mm) figures next to it, You start to suspect that they... would not fit under the roof.



A cat from Alkemy (furthest to the left) would be good, if not for the height of her base, 35mm Privateer Press is obviously too big, Ronnie the bard from Mantic would be good too, but has a round-lipped base under him, and only Oathsworn mice are really at home there.

Even worse, if assembled as intended, the parapet would take up some of the walking space. On the left I have drawn the wall cross-section as it should be according to author. Red parts are to be glued to the lower wall with spacer between them and the gallery part (roof, columns and balustrade) should be inserted into the wall to stay in place without the glue to be removed when needed. Unfortunately, this leaves only 40mm out of 50 mm wall width, even though the top piece is nicely marked with two rows of 1" squares. So, I want to build it like I show on the right, with both balustrade and parapet being wider and lower than the wall itself.



This way I should be able to have a clean top of the wall when necessary, so that a defending regiment for a Kings of War can be placed directly on top of the wall. Or some swashbucklers or musketeers could have a 2x2 duel there.

The problem is, original spacer will no longer fit, the gallery will have to be glued to parapet and the parapet walls will be of different height. Right now I am just putting together everything that does not require a hard decision right here and now, but options are quickly running out.

Painting progress tracker:
2017: 50 of 50 planned; 2018: 80 of 60 planned; 2019: 75 of 75 planned

Pledge 2020:
6 to sculpt, 75 to paint (2/57 done) 
   
Made in de
Longtime Dakkanaut






Cool comeback, griffin looks great even with little detail from the sculpt. And the castle project looks like a headscratcher. Excited to see what you will come up with!
   
Made in us
Druid Warder





Nothing finished this time, just more progress. Actually, just enough of progress to stack things together for the first time. Now it will be lots of little steps - adding acrylic paste here and there and waiting for the summer to come so I can work with resin outside. These towers need their bases weighted. There are some things that can be fitted and glued in the meantime, but right now I would prefer to work on wall surfaces and actual miniatures.



Painting progress tracker:
2017: 50 of 50 planned; 2018: 80 of 60 planned; 2019: 75 of 75 planned

Pledge 2020:
6 to sculpt, 75 to paint (2/57 done) 
   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka





6 foot underwater

The monastery is definitely coming together now. It looks like your fix for the gallery worked?

cyborks & flyboyz : http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/300067.page
heretical ramblings : http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/302773.page
imperial preachings : http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/303365.page
Da Waaagh-ky Races : http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/325045.page
Briancj: You have the Mek Taint, MT, and the only thing we can do is watch in horror/amazement.

 
   
Made in us
Utilizing Careful Highlighting





Impressive bit of architecture there! Coming along nicely.
   
Made in de
Longtime Dakkanaut






Core building looks great! And summer will be a while
   
Made in us
Druid Warder





It worked, monkeytroll. Sort of. One of the tops fits the wall very tight to the point I am afraid it will crack, sooner or later. But now it all is safely stored in a dark place waiting for the month of May. I may still work on little things that came with the kit, like a broken bridge and a fountain, but resin and "pine syrup" require warm weather and until I am sure everything fits and aligns, what use is in trying to paint the walls or put statues in their places? :(




The super-mega-plan here is to finish everything by September, in time for a local convention, IF I go there, health and other conditions allowing. I may cut some corners, like not having tower tops by then - they need to be designed and printed, but all the rest should be of the presentable quality.

And now - miniatures... where did my inspiration go? :(

Painting progress tracker:
2017: 50 of 50 planned; 2018: 80 of 60 planned; 2019: 75 of 75 planned

Pledge 2020:
6 to sculpt, 75 to paint (2/57 done) 
   
Made in us
Druid Warder





You may remember the greenstuff tentacles from the last page. Well , they got their use. These Goritsi have waited for a paint for too long. And now they are done. No more unfinished Wrath of Kings figures here. Would not call them a great success, but now it is a bit of "get it done or lose to the time".



And as a large infantry regiment for Kings of War. Unfortunately, they still miss two more figures in the middle, but this is not something I can do right now.



I will switch to the modern or sci-fi for awhile now. But then it will be more building some grey plastic. Nothing to see here, move along.

Painting progress tracker:
2017: 50 of 50 planned; 2018: 80 of 60 planned; 2019: 75 of 75 planned

Pledge 2020:
6 to sculpt, 75 to paint (2/57 done) 
   
Made in us
Utilizing Careful Highlighting





Nice plaid, and the muscles shaded up nicely!
   
Made in us
Krazed Killa Kan





USA

Nice stuff, it makes me happy to see some Wrath if Kings figures.

   
Made in us
Druid Warder





Long time no fantasy make me sad. But these elves make me angry. Since I couldn't trade them off I had to paint them myself and... got reminded why very few paint these old elves. It's too difficult!




OK, the standard Isle of Blood starter set elves. Reavers. But I had to swap very few colors so many times it actually hurt. I better stay with brown beastmen...




And I still have a chariot to finish! Well, at least it is not much requiring finishing, but then I will have to confront Mantic elves. :(

Painting progress tracker:
2017: 50 of 50 planned; 2018: 80 of 60 planned; 2019: 75 of 75 planned

Pledge 2020:
6 to sculpt, 75 to paint (2/57 done) 
   
Made in us
Druid Warder





The chariot is done too. Terrible kit. Lots of mold shifts. Not just the mold lines, but two halves of injection molds sliding against each other by half a mm. Airplane kit of such quality I'd have slowly nurtured back to good with tons of Revell "plasto" (their plastic filler). This one I've built as it is.




The irony is - this is the only kit I've ever purchased directly from GW webshop in year 2008. Apparently, it is the last their kit I'd ever build.




So much for GW elves...

Painting progress tracker:
2017: 50 of 50 planned; 2018: 80 of 60 planned; 2019: 75 of 75 planned

Pledge 2020:
6 to sculpt, 75 to paint (2/57 done) 
   
Made in us
Utilizing Careful Highlighting





Sorry to hear they were a pain, but the paint job did come out nice at least!
   
Made in de
Longtime Dakkanaut






Gotta echo Vejut, at least they are well painted even if a pain to build
   
Made in us
Druid Warder





Thank You! A new experience is better than none, I think.

Summer is here and I can work with resin again, finishing bits and pieces of the castle kit I intend to finish this year. Of small pieces that came with the walls and towers I particularly like how this little fountain is coming out. Probably needs another coat of gloss on the water, but it is already quite bright.



Put together the plywood basin, then made a water with wax, wrapped it in silicone gum, left to cure and then melted the wax out by submerging everything in boiling water.



Then poured resin into the mold, cut the cast out and left it floating in more resin. Unfortunately, when curing this transparent resin contracts a little and it was enough to make a hole in the wall for an air to seep in, thus a little annoying bubble just under the surface...



Painted wood with a mix of cold grey and light skin pink from AV, varnished with matt sealant and added transfers I've got from this kickstarter - https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/802649.page#11337806

But the technology is good, maybe I'll finally repeat the process to make that stargate that keeps buzzing in my head.

And - two last towers from the kit. Labeled "lesser war towers", they are actually quite big structures, almost 10" tall! Not the best part of the kit, a lot of big details connecting to each other by the edge, but they have plenty of flat surface to try new materials or add more details... And they remind me of the Facing Worlds map in UT.



Unfortunately, I was about half way in building them when I realized there are two different ways to build the interior, and not all parts need to be glued it! Arrrgh!!! But a jewelers saw solves a lot of problems.



Hopefully next week I will be able to put the castle together to show some progress.

(Edited as I've messed up the pictures!)

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/07/06 21:00:26


Painting progress tracker:
2017: 50 of 50 planned; 2018: 80 of 60 planned; 2019: 75 of 75 planned

Pledge 2020:
6 to sculpt, 75 to paint (2/57 done) 
   
Made in us
Utilizing Careful Highlighting





That fountain is a pretry cool peice, and a stargate that way sounds fun. Good luck on the towers!
   
Made in us
Grisly Ghost Ark Driver






That fountain is great, well made!

See what's on my painting table Now painting: Kruleboyz Gutrippaz 
   
Made in ca
Fixture of Dakka





Surrey, BC - Canada

Solid work there Wirecat.

Cheers,

CB

   
Made in us
Druid Warder





Thanks for cheers and good luck wishes! I really hope this update will bring some smiles.

Some of You may remember these two wolf-ladies of questionable attire from about 4 years ago... Well, I've finally got to paint their casts!



The idea was to have a unit filler for my Kings of War large infantry block to take up the central part of the movement tray. Yes, I do come back to really old plans!

Elder she-wolf kicks her younger relative in the butt to add some insult to acceleration -
"You go first, sister!"





Tried to paint them "black but not really black", ended up with AV extra dark sea gray mixed with white and black from Koch-i-Noor for one werewolf and AV blue and royal purple with some Scale75 huldra blue for another. As expected, the perceived color really changes with the light.

Also, I am adding some inside parts to the castle that have no gameplay purpose but still can be seen from outside. Here are the winding stairs for big towers. Side view...



... and top view (this is how players will see them)

.

And now - back to painting strange things!

Painting progress tracker:
2017: 50 of 50 planned; 2018: 80 of 60 planned; 2019: 75 of 75 planned

Pledge 2020:
6 to sculpt, 75 to paint (2/57 done) 
   
Made in us
Krazed Killa Kan





USA

I remember those wolf ladies, it's good to see them again.

   
 
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