Glory shots! Grotesques vs Seraphim

Before Rich and I set down to play that test game, I set some minis on the table to do some 'glory shots' of the fortifications.

I ended up having to use the flash, but you still get to see a lot!

I love these type of scenes.  It's the best part of having painted minis and terrain!!

At least the flash gave you a decent view of the door.

Those Grotesques look really mad!

The girls aren't scared though, as they jump over the walls to greet the big guys...

I don't think they are gonna hug this one out.

So, I think I will have to set up some more of these. :-)

Enjoy!

Reaper Yvonne... shiny :-)

Hey folks!  I have a set of this particular Reaper miniature coming to use as the figure for the Sky/Earth Non Metallic Metal video.  I am using some Urban Mammoth figures for the Golds, brass and Bronze video.

I did this one years ago, and it was always one of my favorites for SE-NMM.  It had the most open, unhindered surfaces, with several different types of angles.  The sword is just perfect for what I need to do, and there were many other good spots for that 'horizon line'.

All these factors were way more important than they were for the standard NMM video, where reflections are not the issue.  I will also be scanning some images from my Medieval Armor book that has actual photographs of actual humans wearing actual shiny armor in actual scenes. :-)  These will be shown in the video (with credits to the author & publisher, etc.) as reference material.

Speaking of Reaper minis, there should be a big box of those arriving either tomorrow or Friday!  It was at least 10-12 videos worth of minis.

House warming party... more pics!

OK!  A busy day today, which begins with some more 'ground level' views of the painted house...

My next building will probably be a blacksmith's shop, which will be very fun!

I will probably have to build, paint, build, paint, final assemble, then paint if I want to have glowing embers and such...

I am also looking forward to making a different kind of 2 story house, and painting my huge Inn! Here's a link:

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2013/01/our-house-is-very-very-very-fine-house.html

The Ruined Chapel: Part 2

All right!  When we last left the chapel, we were putting on the extra wall bracing.  There will be two layers.  The first (the thin strips of foam core) were already applied...

I took additional strips of the same with, but cut them much shorter.

The top end was beveled, and then they were glued to the walls once they had been 'aged'

This was done on all the wall supports.

Meanwhile, for the interior, we needed a floor!  I cut the textured plastic sheet to size, and even cut out some missing tiles, etc.

To show some damage and partial collapse of the walls, I took the left over cut outs of the windows and sliced them up into various 'stone sized' pieces.

Those pieces had the corners chipped away, and they were placed in piles in the corners where the walls appeared to be falling down.

I tried to make sure that the two piles were not the same size and shape, as this was better for composition.  It is also the reason why I made one wall longer than the other!

Now it's time for the final elements of the construction.  A few different types of rocks and gravel were applied to finish things off.  I used the glue and finer grain gravel to fill in any gaps, or hide the join lines in the vertical wall supports, etc.

You can see that process continue here...

A little closer view of the gap filling, and the types of grain used.  

Hiding the edges of the textured plastic sheet...

And now it is left to dry, so that it can be painted!!!

The Ruined Chapel... part 1

This is a piece of terrain that I have been eager to try for quite a while.  I had hoarded the supplies for it, waiting for a chance to give it a try.  One of the interesting items I had saved was some sheets of textured plasticard that looked like tile floors.

Here's a better view.  Normally I would just cut up pieces of matt board or hard board, but this stuff seemed like it would be fun!

To make the walls, I took some of that nifty craft foam that Rich had given me.  Unlike the normal pink foam, this carves extremely well, especially with a very sharp knife.  The pink foam will crumble a little more easily.  I traced out a window pattern that would give some good sight lines to 28mm figures, and but them out.

The pink foam is a special corner piece.

Here you can see that I have hacked away at the white foam, trying to simulate the broken stones as quickly as possible.

I cut some foam board to support the walls.  This would make it a bit more decorative, and provide a better surface for gluing the walls to the base.

The walls begin to rise!  You can see how I am using the corner piece to help join the two walls together...

The walls have been raised.  I tried to keep enough open space in the interior to easily place at least ten 28mm figures inside.

Meanwhile, on the exterior, I wanted to provide cover by using the thickness of the walls to cut down on sight lines from outside the structure.

To create the next decorative element (which also offers some more support to the walls), I cut a bunch of uniformly sized strips of foam core.

I matched whatever damage had been done to the main walls on these support pieces, and glued them in place.

This was done between all the window sections.  Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion, where we put in the floor, use the excess window cut outs as fallen stones, and glue in all the rock and gravel!!  It will be lots of fun!

A little fixer-upper, painting the house...

For everyone who has been waiting to see what the house would look like painted, today is your day!

I'm starting off with the top views, so that you can see the roof and the ground treatments a little better.  I will post some ground level views later...

This was another pretty limited palette.  The same black, white, sap green, cadmium red, and tan.  I did use a little Vallejo dark sea blue and some black ink for certain effects, such as the windows and cracks.

I put a layer of gloss varnish over the windows, which gives them just a bit of a transparent look.  I didn't want to go too shiny, since they are not exactly supposed to be high quality plate glass :-)

I love putting the mossy stuff on rooftops!

Once again, the grass and flock was used to create some extra color contrast.  I focused on the reddish and tan colors during the painting, so that brighter green adds a little splash!

By painting the windows the darker blue grey, it allowed me to lighten up the wood trim around it with the tan, adding some interest there as well.

Finally, making the cracks with the liner brush and the ink mixed with various paints is the touch that I look forward to the most!