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Excellent bud, really excellent. This is the comp to a tee, trying new things and improving your game, and this is a pretty great example. You nailed the marble. the blue shading works, and the completely home done sculpt of the hawks head is brilliant. Well done all round bud.

Thanks so much Cam! The blue shading is a relief, since I was just making it up trying to show some depth, I didn't know if it would turn out at all. With how busy I am right now, I was planning on keeping my contest entry pretty simple. But with the way LoER usually goes, I got more and more into it, and more proud of how it looked leading to trying even harder. I am really happy with how it turned out. I may need to have more fountains and cisterns appearing in games of D&D or I may barely use it for fear it it being damaged.

@Meer_Cat: Thanks for the advice. I added a bit more verdigris like you suggested. Hopefully it's good because I just sent in my finished pictures for the contest. Here they are:

Front view. I think the pool of water turned out well. I think it obscures enough detail to make the painting and shading of the pool more believable. The hot glue clung to the sides and was a bit viscous, but over all I think it turned out well. I used the hot tip of the glue gun to make the ripples in the water, and the stream of water coming out of the mouth is the bottom half of a wizard staff cast in hot glue.


side views. I think this first one may be my favorite angle to look at the piece.



From above:


Proof of the candy wrapper origin on the bottom:


And lastly a fun little scale shot with some minis


Thanks!

That fountain is a really delightful piece. Your depth painting really works too.

Ah that is a lovely fountain! The hawk head has some excellent verdigris and the stream from his mouth is great. The ripples of the water is just a brilliant touch, I see a lot of people buy all sorts of product to get ripples on their water but that looks just as good!

Looking good! I like the impression. of depth you have achieved with the pool.

Reminds me that I had better get a move on with my LoER piece as it has been ignored on a shelf for the last month...

Thanks so much for the kind words guys. I'm glad you like how the pool turned out, the experimenting paid off.
Also Commander Cain, I wouldn't worry to much. monkeytroll said there's 18 days left. With your legendary speed, that's plenty of time.

Having just finished my first experiment with water effects, I have something to compare with yours, and the fountain rocks! The hawk's head is perfect- looks exactly like aged bronze. I like the side view that you pointed out in your notes, it's my favorite of the shots as well, but the overhead view looking down into the water really shows how well your shading paid off to indicate depth- really top notch! The ripples are a really nice touch and the marbling is spot on. Great piece!

Your terrain is inspiring .

@Meer_Cat: Thanks so much Meer_Cat! And thanks for the suggestion to add more verdigris, it does look better now.

@neil101: Thanks neil, your kind words mean especially much considering the terrain you've created.

I haven't had much hobby time because of work, but I did finally get around to busting out my proxxon hot wire cutter and finished ripping down my random xps foam collection into more usable stuff. Unfortunately, it was time for bed when I finished so I didn't get to start using it to make stuff yet.

Before (I continued to find more xps after this picture was taken).


After:


Thanks for stopping by

Time well spent.

The fountain is really quite brilliant sir.

Thanks Cam! I have it admit I'm liking the fountain more and more, when I look at it, I'm starting to say "How did I do that?"

Today I had fun spending pretty much the entire evening after work on hobby time.
I finally got started on a HeroQuest door that I plan to make a mold of


Sorry for the messy picture. I've added to more layers of blocks to the tower in the background and started building interchangeable roofs for my D&D cottages.




I'm trying to keep the roofs pretty simple since I'll be bringing them in as examples to show my students for an art project we've been doing in class. Also it saves time.

I've made a thatched roof now too, which is interchangeable with the other. I think I learned about making thatched roofs like this from reading Viktor von Domm's blog.

most of the first layer done

Can I just come and play in your game?

--B.

Sounds good to me

One hell of a road trip.

Can't wait for teleporters then will just pop over and good times. Nice thatching.

@Briancj: Sadly true Brian, and my group hasn't managed the logistics to get together since May/June.

@Camkierhi: Thanks Cam, and teleporters would be nice. I would love to be able to play with so many people on Dakka, but we're all spread out and many of us have no one to play with

Does anyone watch "Miniature Mashup" on Youtube? I have what he calls Derpy the Dragon from my mystic warriors set and I'm tired of it taking up space. I've decided to follow his lead and make a chimera out of it (But mine will be correct scale from the Monster Manual).
So I'm starting with Derpy the Dragon from the Toys R Us Mystic Warriors bucket, A lion from my Terra wild animal tube, and a goat from a dollar store pack of farm animals.


Dismembered animals. Also it almsot feels unfair just how well dipping a plastic figure in boiling water to change the pose works. After hearing about it so often I tried it on the dragon's neck.


I've starting piecing together the parts, gap filling, and sculpting on details. I'm also working to make the dragon's head look better.


I've also been building some jail cell fronts for D&D




Thanks for stopping by

That pool looks very good. You managed to do the water effect with hot glue? Or did I miss something?
Anyway, well done.

Also that thatched roof works really well. It's always good to have interchangeable parts to fit different themes

That chimera conversion is a great idea. I can't wait to see how it turns out.

@Ezki: Thanks Ezki, yes the pool of water is just hot glue with gloss varnish. I've been slacking on the buildings a bit, except for the tower which is still slowly growing.

@JoshInJapan: Thanks Josh! I hope it turns out well, the lion is a little shrimpy. I've done a bit more work on it.

Heh, as always I am shamed by what you consider a less productive period! Your fountain came out really nice - the depth painting achieves exactly what you were aiming for, but my favourite part is the hot glue ripples. Really well done, I have worked with that stuff and know how tricky that is. The cottages are also coming along really nicely, really good shingles on the one roof and your thatch looks lovely.
Very curious to see how your chimera comes out!

The thatch is a really neat idea and it reminds me of the thatch cottage in my village!

Looking forward to seeing this chimera shape up, I like the concept of it already

Thanks Da Boss, I am starting to feel that whenever I say I'm having a not productive period I start working harder right after . I unfortunately forgot the cottage at school so it may be a while before I get back to working on it. I'm glad you like my fountain.

@Tyranid Horde: Thanks! That's very flattering that my cottage reminds me of a real one in your village. For a long time I've wondered how difficult it is to maintain a thatched roof. Progress on the chimera ha sbeen slow but it is still progressing

Speaking of which, I've been working on armatures for the wings

First thing first - great fountain! I like the contrast between old metal and marble You've got there. Adding depth effect is nice too, although usually even hard corners of the basin aren't as deep/dark as the actual boitom, but from the usual distance (photo with adventurers standing around) that doesn't look like a problem. Scale issues.

Archways and cells look good for start and that chimera... now that can become hilarious! Good luck and steady hands!

Loving the work bud, really inspiring stuff, certainly makes me want to go put together some beasties.

Merry Christmas bud, hope you have a great day.

Thanks WireCat, thanks Cam. Been very busy here and not any real time for crafting. One of these days I'll have to show off my holiday haul, but don't have photos yet.

I took some pics tonight to show what I have been up to. Not too exciting, but I've been having some serious issues with space, so I started building storage trays based off a "Wylock's Armory" video I saw. I want all my 30k storage being fit nicely in identical bankers boxes.

My first storage tray with all the chaos infantry I have.


Two trays done.


trays in the box


vehicles cap it off. I should probably make a more secure tray for my vehicles, but I think it's ok for now.

And as promised, here is my holiday haul of loot. I was really surprised that my brother got me an air brush, I've never had one before. This will be a learning experience.

Nice swag shot there, some great gifts!

I'm very much with you on the 'uniform packaging and transporting of miniatures' and like your bankers' box approach- methodical and orderly. It's always a balance between having things where you can find 'em when you need 'em and they not broken- and being able to get packed and unpacked quickly. This seems a nice balance of factors.

I also received an airbrush from an unexpected source as a gift, and have also never used one before (unless you count painting outbuildings on our farm with a Weber). I look forward to lots of notes from you as you discover how to get the results you want.

Two videos I have found so far that are very informative (for me, at least, literally knowing nothing) are here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_3084976943&feature=iv&src_vid=lbgSM84-3cM&v=Uk0oA0PctIA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_3060876477&feature=iv&src_vid=Uk0oA0PctIA&v=lbgSM84-3cM

If I stumble across any more, I'll post them here. Good luck!

Seems like I won't be the only one delving into some airbrushing in 2019!

It's funny that you're showing off your storage for your models, I've literally just watched the video and I've been thinking that it'll be a good way to store my models. Too many of mine are stored in old battleforce boxes in bubblewrap!

It's cool that we'll all be trying out airbrushes around the same time and learning together
@Meer_Cat: And thanks Meer_Cat both for the airbrush resources and the kind words, I've built one more tray since my last post (not worth posting a pic, but I was impressed that I can fit the entirety of my Imperial guard infantry (more than 100 models) in a single try with enough room for 4-6 more models. Good luck with learning/using your airbrush.
@Tyranid Horde: It's funny how in synch what we are doing right now, is. The trays take longer to make than I would like, but are working well so far. Like Meer_Cat mentioned it's good to find a balance where your modles aren't broken. I had been keeping all my non-marine CSM infantry just tossed loose in a box, and I had to put back together at least 10 of my cheap homemade mutants. Good luck with your airbrush, and storage boxes if you go for them.