Painted diorama!
Here I bring you some photos of the painted and finished diorama. This project was such as blast to work on. Lots of planning went into it and its a shame my camera is so bad at capturing it. In person it is quite a sight, and is now displayed behind glass, soon to be properly illuminated inside of the cabinet.
The painting process was fairly straight forward, painting all the miniatures fully (even when some angles where barely visible), and taking into account the position on the scene, angle to lighting effects and how bright the surroundings are. In the future I will plan out the lighting and light intencity better, since I think the diorama could have done with much darker areas to emphasize the lighting effects, and a better integration of the background lighting on the scene, adding more yellow and orange rim lights. A learning experience, but a fun one.
The backplate background was made painting it by hand on wood plank. I've never really done this kind of effect, but after a quick test I used some of the ground and terrain elements of the diorama to create an illusion of depth, showing a bigger scene far away.
Originally I didnt know if I was going to paint it digitally and print it instead, but I had good idea of the colors and style of the picture I wanted to make. I though the hand-made approach was more charming.
Minis and terrain separated. Now everything is glued in place, but during building and painting, having all the pins on the models was really userful. The diorama is currently on a glass cabinet, which will have lighting to better show the piece.
Scene by scene
The battle
Though it would be fun to showcase the diorama by framing the different scenes and interactions between the models.
I approached the piece as plenty of smaller scenes, and hopefully the images will showcase it.
The diorama is a segment of a battle, a flank of the front lines where orks are just about to overwelm the astra militarum defenders. Just in time, a squad of space marines reinforce to prevent this crucial objective to fall, and the pieces freeze-frames right before the impact.
Heavy bolter
Despite the odds, a heavy bolter team keeps firing the charging orks. All this dakka attracts the attention of a kunnin greenskin, which sneaks under cover to deliver a frantic squigbomb, whom is instants away from taking down the heavy weapon team.
Deffdread
What is worse than seeing an ork charging towards you? A huge mecanized machine covered in klaws, spikes, horns and saws, of course. A deffdread charges straight through fortified position, terrifying the guardsman fighting within it.
I the machine reaches the command position past the trench, killing the officer and cutting the comunications, the flank will fall, so a brave specialist operator gets out of cover to have a better shot against the vehicle, perhaps the emperor aids his aim in reward for his bravery.
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The duel
Dispite all the chaos, 2 opponents lock eyes and charge eachother in the center of the scene. A guardsman witnesses the impact between the angel and the demon.
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The bigger picture
Above I mention this scene is a flank of a bigger battle. This battle can be seen in the background backplate, where 2 much bigger forces are in the middle of an engagement.
Around them, the destruction and smoking cities darken a sunset before a long night.
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Green tide
Despite being individual entities, orks can behave as a conglomerate green mass of violence.
Fallen warrior
Once a great servant of the emperor, the dreadnought lies in the mud, crawling with gretchin looking for scrap and a vantage point to take out some humies.
Somehow I didnt take enough in-focus pictures of this scene
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And finally, each of the miniatures.
Although they are not golden demon winners by any strech of the imagination, I am really happy with the standard of painting, considering how many models there where involved.
I am also pleased with the guardsmen expressions and eyes looking the right direction even though you can only see them from certain angles up-close, which is a small detail but in my opinion a game changer when it comes to selling the scene.
WIP of the building process. For more info, check my projects here:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/390/793314.page
