(no subject)
With Portcullis
Well the overwhelming results of the poll were that my scene would benefit from a portcullis across the doorway. In fact, the only negative vote was mine. In all truth I originally wanted a portcullis myself, but the original one I'd made goodness knows how many years ago to go with the door was, frankly, horrible. I'd have to rethink how I was going to go about building it, but I had the afternoon free, so why not give it a go? And since a couple of people expressed an interest in how I would go about making it I took a few photos.
1) Tools
Being reasonably experienced in the hobby I knew what tools I'd need and thankfully this was going to be a simple task. Razor, plastic card, ruler, pins, pencil, superglue, pretty simple stuff. The most unusual thing would be the wire clippers (and later I realised a small drill).
2) Materials
And this is what I would make it of. The card and pins of course, but I had an idea about making some kind of rusty centerpiece to stop it being just a boring criss-cross of bars like the prototype was. So I trawled through my collection of old shields, thinking of using a blank shield as a back-piece and glueing the front of a skull to it, but to my absolute delight I found in my collection this goblin squig-head's sheild motif. Yeah okay, that sounds weird, but the symbol on that shield re-occurs all over the place in Warhammer Quest, and since this was a diorama about Warhammer Quest, absolutely perfect reference. The black pointy bits I broke off the prototype portcullis. I know that they came from the 40K Ork Battlewagon sprue but I have no idea how I ever came to get some in my posession. Very rare pointy bits, but perfect for the job, one of the joys of having a well appointed "Bits Box" that has accumulated over many years.
3) Getting the sizes
First was to cut the plasticard into 3mm wide strips. Personally I detest using plasticard, I bought a bundle of the stuff years ago and have barely touched used any. It's hard to cut, it's hard to glue and paint scrapes off it too easily. But in this instance nothing else would do, cardboard would more than likely curl when cut that thin and painted so plasticard it had to be.
4) Built
Once the card bars had been glued together I cut the top off some ordinary dressmakers pins. I had discovered years ago whilst constructing Necromunda scenery that pinheads make perfect rivets on this scale. So I drilled a hole and stuck a pin head at each join. I also stuck the shield in the middle after cutting a groove into the back so it fit over the middle bar. The spikes were simply glued to the end of the bars and there you go.
5) Undercoated
It is important to undercoat things before painting them. Important lesson. For figures I'll usually undercoat in white but for a piece of scenery that is going to be metallic black is the only option.
6) Fully Painted
Heavy drybrush of silver, followed by a light coat of brown wash to dirty it up. A light drybrush of silver so the edges gleam and then a very fine brush and some orange wash to add dribbly rust stains (not very visible in the picture alas). Even easier to paint than it is to build!
It's amazing how easy this hobby really is sometimes.
Poll The Portcullis
I think I'm going to be addicted to making polls for a while. They're so easy!