Monday, February 25, 2013

Minis and Murals, an Ilyad diorama...



As I was preparing the new area for filming the painting videos, I ran across a few CD ROMs with backed up files on them.  I figured that I already had most of these somewhere else, but it turns out that it was a veritable treasure trove of 'lost' images!

Among the galleries I uncovered was a set of images I had been searching for for over a year to put on the blog!  All I had found before this was some tiny little images.  Here are the original images that I shot of one of my favorite dioramas.  It's a mural, which is so much fun to do in miniature!


The figure itself is from Ilyad, and I will be posting some more images that show it a bit closer, and without the diorama.  As usual, this diorama was made with baked sculpey.


It was done in layers, like the lost shrine and the Anastasia dioramas.  I would do one layer, bake it, add some more decoration, bake it again, and so on.


One all those layers and details were complete, I took some carving tools to it and chipped away!


The vines are from Woodland scenics.  This is probably the best example of using that product.  It can be a little messy with the super glue, and you will get lots of stuff on your fingers in the process!  However, it really is worth it, as it truly looks like vines when you work it correctly.


This view shows you a nice look at how it interacts with the terrain piece.  It's a two part medium.  You attach the vines first, and then glue the 'leaves' later.  That's where things can get a little messy.


I would love to try something like this again using all the new weathering powders and pigments that I have now!


Perhaps I will try some things like this with the Raging Heroes figures... or some Kingdom Death figures...


Here's a few images of the mural:



I will post the images of the figure later tonight!  Stay tuned!


8 comments:

  1. Hello james, congratulation for this diorama, once again this is a very beautiful work !!!
    I have a small question for the NMM gold,is it the same technique as for the Dark Elf Musician on Cold One from Gamezone that you gave me???
    Thank you for your answer.
    Cordially

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow, this looks great! If you ever do something like this, would you mind doing a step-by-step tutorial like the ones you did for your bases? And is the sculpey fragile when it is in sheets this size? I looked back at your other vignettes and they are all amazing. Very nice work!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I will definitely take step by step images when I get a chance to make one of these! The white sculpey can be fragile if the sheets are thin. If you are doing upright walls such as these, it can be a good idea to put to metal wire inside, like rebar in concrete. :-)

      Delete
    2. I was thinking the same thing about the rebar. I'm going to have to try out the white sculpey. I've been using super sculpey which works great, but it doesn't really crumble and carve like stone and concrete the way this does. Are you using sculpey III? Thanks again for the ideas!

      Delete
    3. This is the regular white sculpey. All the other types are too hard or rubbery to make this work.

      Delete
  3. That is insanely good! Great work Sir.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Many thanks! If I were doing a Roman theme army, I would sure want mosaics and murals like this behind them :-)

      Delete