#22-#24: - WarDancer Diorama
It’s a funny old world. As my Brother posted that he would give up any artistic expression of his Wood Elf aesthetic, well, I just couldn’t be having with that. When was that? Roughly 10pm on the 21st as I rolled into bed. And by 10pm on the 24th I was rolling into bed again with this wrapped and ready to go.
It was strange that events just aligned such that I had time to make it happen. Two days from concept to complete, most odd, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s to strike while the inspiration is hot or it just never gets done. It is meant to be the year of vignettes, after all.
I can't think of anything more tedious that an artist listing flaws that other people can't even see, so I won't.
Part of the brief of this project was to use what I had lying around, no purchases, and to hopefully start using up some of the ridiculous amount of “basing” supplies that I’m floating. And that I achieved, even the display bell jar was lying around in a drawer. I think I bought it just after the lockdowns lifted for my Mother Colour diorama that never happened. I’m not worried, even this diorama is proof of the mother colour theory that I had wanted to test, there is no question as to it’s effectiveness.
I'm very happy with the airbrush work, and the way the stream turned out. The water level was going to be higher but when I opened the can of resin left over from my Fallout night light, it has all cured (which I hadn't thought was possible due to the need for a seperate catalyst). So I had to make do with resin glue, and I think the more restrained result better than what I had originally planned.
The obelisk is okay. I wanted more varied and detailed runes, but I was using a soldering iron to burn them in, and even the attempt at the triskelion was much harder than anticipated. It is a bit of a test of technique, I was tempted to design and 3D print a face plate to use on the faces of the obelisk, but then that would be too clean and perfect, and more High Elfy.
Painting the minis was my current style of evolved slapchop, very fast and very effective. Colouring I worked off of these lines from an earlier LJ post from my Brother: " The units are overwhelmingly emerald green, with tan and white neutrals, and bronze for the slightest hint of red in the earth. But the wardancers, their faces will streak with red, and it will not be clear if it is war paint, or blood.". I'm pretty happy that I nailed that brief. The white toughened leather I'm really happy with, though it may be a touch clean.
I'm really happy with the "trees". In an ideal world I would have included foilage, but I didn't have any suitable materials on hand, and I wasn't going to use cotton wool. In some way to make up for that I went with some very heavily lichen encrusted sticks (baked for some hours to dry and make sure there's no potential biohazard) that replicated bark at scale very well.
The base came together amazingly well in a painting sense. I made my own texture paste for base coating, and then I just slapped all the colours on with the airbrush in one session, almost wet blending with the inks and paints. The varied tones and depth of colour that results is amazing, and so much more of the variation seen in nature than can be replicated easily by a brush. Overspray from the trees on the obelisk, and vice versa, the creek bed got a stream of yellow.
Pretty happy with the way the small stream worked out. Most of the depth was done with UV "glue" resin, and the angled edges/verticals touched up with gloss medium.
I'm not especially happy with the final colour of the red "warpaint", though I can't think what else I could have done at this point. Fairly happy with the patterns though, messy and asymmetrical seemed to be the order of the day.
I tried to match the pattern of the red on the female's face to that of my brother's LJ icon.
I received the wood elf piece last night, and it's absolutely brilliant. I really appreciate the thought in it./ It also looks good, with some great aesthetics. Well done, and much appreciated
It was strange that events just aligned such that I had time to make it happen. Two days from concept to complete, most odd, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s to strike while the inspiration is hot or it just never gets done. It is meant to be the year of vignettes, after all.
I can't think of anything more tedious that an artist listing flaws that other people can't even see, so I won't.
Part of the brief of this project was to use what I had lying around, no purchases, and to hopefully start using up some of the ridiculous amount of “basing” supplies that I’m floating. And that I achieved, even the display bell jar was lying around in a drawer. I think I bought it just after the lockdowns lifted for my Mother Colour diorama that never happened. I’m not worried, even this diorama is proof of the mother colour theory that I had wanted to test, there is no question as to it’s effectiveness.
I'm very happy with the airbrush work, and the way the stream turned out. The water level was going to be higher but when I opened the can of resin left over from my Fallout night light, it has all cured (which I hadn't thought was possible due to the need for a seperate catalyst). So I had to make do with resin glue, and I think the more restrained result better than what I had originally planned.
The obelisk is okay. I wanted more varied and detailed runes, but I was using a soldering iron to burn them in, and even the attempt at the triskelion was much harder than anticipated. It is a bit of a test of technique, I was tempted to design and 3D print a face plate to use on the faces of the obelisk, but then that would be too clean and perfect, and more High Elfy.
Painting the minis was my current style of evolved slapchop, very fast and very effective. Colouring I worked off of these lines from an earlier LJ post from my Brother: " The units are overwhelmingly emerald green, with tan and white neutrals, and bronze for the slightest hint of red in the earth. But the wardancers, their faces will streak with red, and it will not be clear if it is war paint, or blood.". I'm pretty happy that I nailed that brief. The white toughened leather I'm really happy with, though it may be a touch clean.
I'm really happy with the "trees". In an ideal world I would have included foilage, but I didn't have any suitable materials on hand, and I wasn't going to use cotton wool. In some way to make up for that I went with some very heavily lichen encrusted sticks (baked for some hours to dry and make sure there's no potential biohazard) that replicated bark at scale very well.
The base came together amazingly well in a painting sense. I made my own texture paste for base coating, and then I just slapped all the colours on with the airbrush in one session, almost wet blending with the inks and paints. The varied tones and depth of colour that results is amazing, and so much more of the variation seen in nature than can be replicated easily by a brush. Overspray from the trees on the obelisk, and vice versa, the creek bed got a stream of yellow.
Pretty happy with the way the small stream worked out. Most of the depth was done with UV "glue" resin, and the angled edges/verticals touched up with gloss medium.
I'm not especially happy with the final colour of the red "warpaint", though I can't think what else I could have done at this point. Fairly happy with the patterns though, messy and asymmetrical seemed to be the order of the day.
I tried to match the pattern of the red on the female's face to that of my brother's LJ icon.
I received the wood elf piece last night, and it's absolutely brilliant. I really appreciate the thought in it./ It also looks good, with some great aesthetics. Well done, and much appreciated