From 2D to 3D...another dimension!

After I showed you guys the sketches of the miniatures, and the drawings that I had hoped to turn into miniatures someday, I thought you might have fun with this.

The miniature is from Dark Sword, and it is based on the Larry Elmore Raven Stone artwork.  Both painting and miniature are very cool!

I set about with my sculpey and my landscaping rocks to create the diorama.

I pressed my rocks into the unbaked sculpey, which gave me some fantastic texture!

It was a little difficult to translate the rocks perfectly to the image... and I had to figure out what the back might look like!  Remember how I said that in 2D, I never had to worry about such matters. :-)

I loved the sloping angles of the rocks... and creating the fire as well!

I enjoyed the story of this piece very much.  A wonderful vignette.

I carved the runes into the stone, and placed all the rocks together once they were baked.

I have some close up shots of the diorama coming, as well as individual pictures of the miniature itself, so stay tuned!!!!

The first wave of color

Before we head off on the working convention, I tried to get some color on those new bases!

Starting off with some primer from Badger.

The first layers involved getting some warmer brown/gray shades on the concrete and rock sections of the bases.

While many other colors of gray will be used, I started off with a blue gray.  You could create this by mixing sky blue with black.

The reason I like to go a little cooler with that color is the rust and weathering effects that I want to add later.  Those are much warmer, so I need to establish the color opposite as soon as possible.

I am lightening this with a few different light grays.

A bit lighter now, trying to get it more towards a neutral gray.

One last layer, adding an ivory color for the final lights.

Time to glaze and shade!  I have a collection of warm colors here... some more red, some more brownish gray.  Those will be used on the non-metal sections for the most part.

Nice contrast already.  It's hard to see what I did on the bottom section in these pics... sorry!

Now I bring out some blue and black to do some shading on the metal.

Preliminary glazes in.  These are very basic, just to establish the main value pattern.  Next, I will do some basic rust and weathering, and then move on to final highlights, freehand and such.

Stay tuned!!  Much more to come.