Sunday, January 25, 2015

Reaching the Upper Levels


Let's look at at the top level of the display board today!

For as many technical challenges lurked below, this was even more tricky.

To go along with the army story (this is, Empire and Bretonnians constantly raiding Tomb Cities), I needed to have the inner Tomb, and the desert landscape above.

It also had to be removable for transport and other considerations.

There had to be room for my scratch sculpted constructs, my scratch built Screaming Skull catapult, the main light source over the Casket of Souls, and the scene to the right...


I sculpted the sphinxes to show the difference between the 'regular' statues and the ones that had come to life, like the Heirotitan and the Colossus.


Prince Apophas would stand watch over the 'altar', which covered the massive lighting apparatus.



The Heirotitan!  I have a number of posts on him, such as the sculpting process:



This overhead view gives a nice sense of how everything worked together...



The Colossus!!  Some views of the sculpting process:



The painting of the Colossus:



Here's the scene that was so much fun to create!

The hapless and greedy Empire soldiers are about to become Carrion food!

The Carrion were a huge part of the story, having originally been the tropical bird pets of Pseusennes.

Their bases were carved from baked sculpey.



It took a lot of engineering to create the hole they had dug.. thank goodness for Oxide Paste!


Time to run!!!

This story was meant to tie into this scene, and explain the Hieroglyphs on the walls:



Creating the glyphs on the walls took a lot of effort, but it was worth it!


The idea was that the  Second Taint of the Silver Pharaoh would be explained in its images.  Ironically, they were so realistic, people dismissed them as mere printings of actual glyphs from Egypt!


More to come!  Please feel free to look through the immense number of articles on this army and display board... about 1300 hours went into the entire project over the course of 2 years.


6 comments:

  1. Good lord. That's breathtaking. I love every little bit of it.

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    1. Thanks! It's scary to think of all the things that don't even show up in these images! Hundreds of hours of "hidden" details. :-)

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  2. Wowaweeewa! That's the most impressive army and display base i've ever seen!

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    1. Many thanks! Each of those little details made the project so much fun! It's still neat to look at even now :-)

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    2. I'am a big fan of your blending style. Your works looks almost like made by airbrush yet the have totaly diferent and unique "soul". Is there any movie or maybe have you posted some detailed tips about how you handle with brush and layers when you paint? Would really like to see this. I tried to copy some of your techniques but is impossible for me:(

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    3. Many thanks! :-)

      There are numerous articles here on the blog (all about the shaded basecoat and glazing methods), but I also have the video series that I created... fifty three videos in all! You can send me a message on facebook if you would like more details...

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