Finished Elven Sentry Post: foliage added

Actually, I added almost as much foliage to my fingers and clothes as I did to the tree!  There are several kinds of foliage involved, with Woodland Scenics realistic tree, moss, clumping flock, and regular flock.



These first images were shot including the two miniatures you saw in the previous post.



You can see the various foliage types.  I started off with the Woodland Scenics realistic tree.  It is expensive stuff, but it looks so realistic!  I use it to "finish off" my sculpted branches.  Basically, it allows me to sculpt less, since I don't have to sculpt the most delicate branches.  This material also served as a support for the clumping flock and moss.



Some close ups of the figures, but also of the foliage.  I made sure to create nice little vignettes around the platforms with the foliage, and to put some flock on the rooftops.





One the main base I used some dried flowers.  These are very neat, but can sometimes have a rather unpleasant fragrance.  Sometimes the dye they use can be pretty smelly,



Here's another close up of the rooftops.  It was a lot of fun to see all the foliage on them, but what a mess!  Flock all over the place!



Now we have some long shots with no miniatures.







Well, I hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane! :-)  I have another big set of images of a scratch sculpted Mammoth I did for the Celtos game system.  That will be very fun!  For now, I leave you with one last image of the Elven Sentry Post...

Elven Sentry Post: Stage THREE

The sculpting was done, and then it was time to paint this thing. :-)

It was pretty basic, just a variety of warmer and cooler browns, with a few greenish colors here and there.





Most of the branches were going to be covered in foliage, so I didn't go too crazy painting them.



I put a few little freehand designs on the platforms... again, there will be lots of foliage everywhere.







I painted up a few Reaper minis to go on the platforms:





This sets the stage for the final phase, where I glue all sorts of foliage to my hand!!  Yea!

Elven Sentry Post... Step by Step stage TWO

I guess it's time for part two, the final sculpting phase for the Sentry post!

The next element to build is the watch towers.  You can see the wire armatures again, and the various types of sculpey.  The hardest and most resilient sculpey was used on the most delicate parts.  The pink super sculpey was good for the rooftops.



Once these were baked, I filed down some of the burrs that developed when I was sculpting the roof textures.





Once these were baked and cleaned up, it was time to get them in place on the tree!



I also made sure to go after any burrs on the tree, since the sculpting method was very similar to the one I used on the roofs.









For tomorrow, I will post the images of painting the tree and the figures that went with this!

Sculpting an Elven Sentry Post: Step by Step part ONE

Now that I am getting around to creating my army board for the Lord of the Rings Elves, I had to start considering building Elven terrain.

It got me thinking about one of my projects from back in the "Glory Days" of dioramas, when I used to make something like this every week.

This Elven Sentry post was made almost entirely from Sculpey.

Step one was to create an armature.



You can see that I used a few different types of wire.  The heavy wire is sculpting wire.  It is designed to be flexible enough to bend into place, but strong enough to support the heavy sculpey.



I used the softer white sculpey for the lower sections, since I knew it would be very thick, but also have the most texture.  The softer sculpey was much easier to turn into that heavy bark texture.



I also had my wooden display base handy, so that I could judge how large the roots would be.



Now it's time to extend those branches!  I used the stronger less flexible sculpey for these sections.  That is the pink color.



The pink Super Sculpey is much harder when baked, which will be essential for supporting the sentry platforms.



Here's another image showing this next stage of branch sculpting:



For the tips of the branches, I bring out the hardest sculpey, which is the bright orange.  You really want this to be very strong, but light.  This will carry most of the foliage.



You can also see the wires added that will hold the sentry posts in place...





Stay tuned for the next episode, which will detail how the sentry posts were created!

A new step by step article for the blog

Hey, a new "how to" deal for you to check out. :-)  It is one that I have promised for a while... an article the shows how all the armor was made for the Tomb Kings horsemen.

Here is an image of the original archers...



And a link to the new page:
http://wappellious.blogspot.com/p/step-by-step-armor-for-tomb-kings.html



There's lots of images, and hopefully enough text to make it something fun to read!

Now it is time to get some very rare sleep (yes, I do that every few weeks or several months).

The end result...

OK folks!  Here are some preliminary images.  I still have some more weapons to do, and some shoulder heraldry.







Here are some views of the magnetized Knights.









And the whole group...