BSC2018 : Tinfoil Knight's "Swamps are ill advised for novice explorers"

[tinfoilknight]

First time taking part in this so hopefully I can keep up with you more experienced chaps.

For Christmas I picked up a mantic random box. I always liked their sci fi range but never really invested in it. In the box were some cool space rat men and while putting one together I found that the ogre rats were posed really badly. It looked like this guy was falling over so my only solution was to build a diorama around him. Then I saw this group build happening and I thought why not take part since I was going to be doing a swamp themed mini diorama?

Then it hit me... Who even needs a giant rat with drills for arms? The 25% miniature limitation created massive problems for my plans. I simply couldn't do what I had hoped to do, it would have been closet to 50% miniatures and almost entirely built around them rather than the diorama being the central focus. As such I scrapped all the rat men and went back to the drawing board. That's when it hit me, why not do a swamp based on the Souls series? Who doesn't hate Blight town or the Valley of defilement? They're ill advised places to visit even without techno monstrosities trying to drill you a new exit hole.

I want to do a 2 or 3 tier diorama. A rotten wooden structure built up of whatever wood was thrown into the swamp made by creatures who barely pass for intelligent any more. Using different types of wood to get different thicknesses of planks laid over each other. This will be built upon a mount of filth, everything that would wash up in a swamp from bodies to old pottery to an unlucky guy in a cage (if I can figure out how to make a suitable cage). It's the sewer of the sewer pretty much. I look forward to cutting up sprue to make bricks and maybe I'll even be a bit cheeky and use some textured plasticard on the back drop. Got to push the boat out you know? I have plant roots and lichen to build up the idea that the civilization that used to be there is now taken over by the swamp. All manner of life breaking up the stone work as they consume everything.

I did still want to include a couple of miniatures to set the mood off but I want them to be more mood setting than action hero. With this in mind I stumbled across Heresy miniatures after a bit of googling last night. They do an excellent set of Ghouls (http://heresyminiatures.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_11&products_id=28) and a nice "Hellmite" (http://heresyminiatures.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_12&products_id=383) that will paint up well like some giant tick monster just engorged on his last victim.

I'm thinking this will be a challenging build but hopefully something I can manage. At the moment I don't have access to my usual work space due to a problem I'm awaiting surgery on. That's one of the reasons I picked to work on a wooden diorama since it's an easy material to work with when you don't have a desk to cut things perfectly. Foam, wood and plaster being the primary focus should work pretty well.

When the build officially starts I'll upload a couple of pictures I'm taking inspiration from and maybe a few of my doodles for little trinkets I want to sculpt out of miliput for the ghouls to be scavenging around.

[tinfoilknight]

I didn't manage to get a whole lot done on day 1 but I did start to get some of the "busy work" out of the way. I started making some idols, I think they might be a little big but I'm not sure yet. The idea was that these statues would represent some kind of family. They're a mindless wretches idea of a family so they had to be abstract but still recognizable as human. I was thinking of making their faces just holes since it's a little unsettling. They need cleaning up with some sand paper to clear up the holes but I like the idea. Depending on how they look in the rest of the piece I may redo them smaller. I'm concerned the height of the diorama will make the idols look tiny unless I make them large since they're going to be recessed and on the lowest tier.

I sketched a rough lay out on the wooden base I want to use. It's got the staircase sketched in and I'm arranging it as 3 layers. The second one will be a sewer opening with rusted bars while the top one will extend beyond the main structure in a very unsafe perch. I plan to cut up plastic sprue in order to make the sewer opening brick work. Maybe if it's too thick I'll just use the brick structure it's self. Have to see how well they take the paper clip bars.

Getting the rope look on the supports was done with dental floss. I originally tried using thin wire which looked like rip but I couldn't keep it tense enough to hold. As soon as I let my finger off it just sprang every where. I probably should of used something to hold it on but I like the binded look of the floss now. I'll try sealing it with watered down PVA and giving it a test paint. Hoping the waxy mintness doesn't interfear with the paint.

I included a size comparison with a Terminator game soldier dude. He was sitting at my desk and seemed ideal as a 28mm model. The wooden barricade is half complete but I don't know where on the diorama I plan to put it, I just want it to look like they tried to set up some kind of minor defense but everyone in the swamp is so far gone this is the best they could manage.

[tomrommel1]

following

[tinfoilknight]

My inexperience with a foam cutter shows when I started to carve the foam into what I wanted. I just couldn't get the smooth edge with the stick one I had, which didn't help when it broke half way through and I had to switch to the back up. But it's got the rough shape I wanted. The back started to resemble blocks so I left them and will add some kind of textured plasticard to them to work as the brick work base which builds up to the sewer outlet.

I also got one side of the main structure built. Had to cut up a lot of different sized wood to get what I wanted but it works The other side will have a similar rag tag look and then I'll suspend it from the poles coming out of the foam and the back wall. I'm not sure if I still want to do 2 tiers since I underestimated the tiers I would have. The floor with the wooden path (sneaky way to control the way people look at the diorama I will confess) already works as a tier, having floor/sewer/wood structure seems a fine diorama. Adding the additional level might make it feel a bit empty since I want to do it with minimal miniatures.

[marianas_gamer]

Good start, stay the course 
LB

[Vanvlak]

I think this is going to look good - and very ill-advised too 

[tinfoilknight]

I've been busy with other projects the last few days but sat down to finish up the walk way last night. I'm happy with the way it turned out even though it's not what I planned it as. I had originally wanted 4 beams going straight down but it just wasn't working with the ground and the top so I put them on a slant. I think it worked really well to frame the walkway and gave me the space I need to work with down below.

I will need to redo the idols, they're just way too large for how this is turning out but I'm okay with that. I wasn't really happy with what I had and I think I can do better in the near future when my set up improveswith the aid of a shiny new table.

While adding some extra details to the walk way I took some dried roots I had been saving to use as vines and found some that reminded me of insect legs. They had almost off shoots growing which gave them a segmented leg look and I couldn't resist. I really like the idea where these vines over running the walk way could be mistaken for giant spiders crawling around between them. It's a weird image that I think works for me.

Next step is to build up the stone work area before applying a thin coat of filler over the base to get the smooth wet mud look I'm after. I want to do this to secure the poles since they're not glued in properly yet.

I apologise for the phone pictures but best I can do right now.

[ichwillauch]

Looking good, will follow this

[Vanvlak]

An image upload problem is ongoing, but is being tackled; BUT due to this issue I decided to extend the deadline by a week, so you have a little more time.