Hello,
I hope you all had a good start in the new year.
I wanted to present you some stuff I worked on in the last months. I worked on high quality gaming models, a new little Rackham vignette and on a very big diorama. The biggest project I have ever created. In this post I want to write about the last one.
I hope you all had a good start in the new year.
I wanted to present you some stuff I worked on in the last months. I worked on high quality gaming models, a new little Rackham vignette and on a very big diorama. The biggest project I have ever created. In this post I want to write about the last one.
Dragon Hunters
The project was built as a comission for a client I had create several single models before. For example my Savage Beauty.
But this time we wanted to go for something even bigger. The choice felt on 3x75mm models. Khalgrim from Scale 75, Dragon Huntress and Erynor from Black Sun Miniatures. We talked a while and we decided to add a complete dragon, not only the chopped of head of the Draogon Huntress kit. I decided to pick up Parawn from Mierce Miniatures and do a lot conversion work to find the best position on the base and to get a cool pose for the dragon huntress standing on the body. I had to do a lot of sculpting on the dragon to sculpt a cool swing in the tail, made the body bigger and added more little stings on the tail. On the picture you can see the stuff that I added.
Large conversions on Parawn:
Small changes on the dragon head:
For the base I started with a wood socket from CrazyWenky. And with some plasticcard on the back to have a straight surface. For the base I bought new cork, I bought a lot. I always enjoyed working with cork you can cut it easy and sand it too. The best is it has a very good texture that makes painting easier and pigments and washes turn out nice. The earth and the gaps are filled with Milliput, with added common earth, little stones and roots.
In this step I had clear positions for all models in mind and prepared the positons for the models. Especially for the dwarfen arm that is lying on the stone or the dragon body that lies on the ground. Some people were bit sad about the maybe "dying" dragon. That's why I added another dragon, which is coming out of a cave in the water and I added scratchbuilt dragon eggs to show the future of the dragons there. I think now it is a fair balance from dragons to hunters.
Finished basing with prepared models:
I had lot freedom in creating and painting. For the paintwork I decided to see the models as single models and finish them one by one. But I had the final positions of the base in mind and thought about rough color shemes. This one by one helps to reach the final result. Seperate steps make it easier to climb a mountain. And in the past I had big projects that ended as work in progress. So I think that was the better tactic for me. Beside this display models I had few breaks where I painted smaller gaming models. I enjoyed that and could relax here and than few weeks later I started the next 75mm figure. First one was Khalgrim, I won't say too much about the single models, but want to share the link to the full galleries.
Water dragon (different painting steps):
Khalgrim Gunnarson:
Erynor “Eternal Wings”:
Parawn:
Dragon Huntress:
I painted the base before I finished the last model. One of the hardest parts was to create the water effects for the base, wanted to try a different product than usual. This time I tried the method that is decribed on Massive Voodoo from Josua. Crystal Resin from Pebeo with my usual water finish. Acryl gel for waves and some white to paint them and work them out.
Detail shot of the water result:
Now came the greatest moment, add all models on the base and see the complete project coming together. I had to make little changes here and there but the most models fit in the positions I prepared in the sculpting step. Now not much to see, I tried to make good pictures of the finished diorama not easy on such a big piece. Overall I have spend about 200-250 hours in this project.
Here are the photos:
Thanks to Black Sun Miniatures and Crazywenky for the support!
More pictures of the finished result can be found here:
Hope you like my result and thanks for comments or votes!
Best regards
Oliver
Posts
Wow!
Awesome work!!!!
superb work, my only comment (constructive) would be that the figures are not really interacting with each others. superb painting !
Thanks for all your replies!
Thanks Kefran for your honest feedback. You're right, maybe that could be better solved. The easiest way would have been to change positions of the head, but than you wouldn't see the nice sculpted faces in the front view of the diorama. Even if it is a diorama, you still have a front main view. And the most faces of figures are best from front not from site. Other changes were probably good and possible, but in the end I am not a very good sculptor and have limited time if I want a fair payment.
Hi Oli, I would like to ask you where do you buy those cork pieces? I saw a few other works with cork used at basing and I would like to use it in some of my future works. I know I can find some e.g. in pet shop for terrarium use, but I think it's definitely not the cheapest option on the market... and of course great work! Love the blue dragon head in the water.
Thanks Michael,
I bought pretty much material in a big cork online shop. But I don't remeber the name. If you want I could sell you bit of that, several big pieces. And can mix it with cork bark and normal bark, both has nice but different textures. If you're interested in pictures and prize, you can write me a mail: honourguard@yahoo.com
Amazing diorama! I think more blood would fit the scene :)