Cheers
As mentioned, here's part two of the painting done during the blackout phase of the competition; the interior.
I wanted the interior to be visually distinct from the exterior. The inside should be vibrant and warm, while the outside is cold and frozen (no pun intended there
).
As I mentioned earlier in this thread, the city of Fellstadt, now better known as Frostgrave, was frozen solid for a thousand years, but this did not mean that there was no wear and tear on the buildings of the city. In fact, it was largely ruined, with some buildings almost completely reduced to rubble, while others became bare shadows of their former glory.
This particular building, of which my entry forms only part, once belonged to a powerful wizard. It was already old when he bought and renovated it, turning it into his workspace and living quarters, with room for his attending staff as well. As the years passed though, he moved his office/den from the corner tower (opposite this part of the house) down to this groundlevel room. No matter how good the potions and elixers; his arthritis prevented him from ascending those wretched spiral stairs every day.
Also, the humid and hot temperatures were playing havock with his mood, so he developed and cast a powerful variant spell of Dorhardt's Spell of Keeping. This was mostly used for storage spaces, to keep food fresh longer, but he modified it to keep his den at the same cool and dry conditions throughout the year.
So when the cataclysmic event that froze the city was unleashed, his house and its inhabitants were struck just like everything else in the city. But his den remained protected by his spell. For some reason it has been in effect for the more than thousand years that have passed since that fatal moment and is still going strong today.
Which is why a wizard exploring the thawing remains of the frozen city with his warband discovered the room, recognized its potential and made it his own. The rest of the warband is lodged in different parts of the same house, but none of those rooms have been preserved like the den was. But they offer shelter from the elements, and a degree of defensibility, so they're happy to stay there.
Also; the den is often used for planning sessions between the wizard, his apprentice and the leaders of the warband, which they find quite comfortable for obvious reasons.
But enough background; on to the painting!
As it is, I have very few pictures of the work in progress painting of the interior, as by the time I was doing that, it was crunch time. There were so many small bits to paint and so little time. In fact I ended up foregoing a number of them simply because I did not have the time anymore.
There was supposed to be a mantle hanging from the coathanger for instance, I wanted to add an enchanter's workbench in the corner opposite the fireplace, next to the door and a few more. I will add them later now, at my leasure. Just like bars in front of the ground level windows.
There are a few pictures of loose elements though; the miniature version of the Middle Earth map I drew in coloured inks when I was 14 for instance. I painted the tiny version as a spur of the moment idea at around 0130h the day before the deadline and it shows. It could have been more accurate and detailed, but it'll do. Especially for a bit that will hardly ever be seen during games
Another fun detail was the resin cat from my bits box. I stared at pictures of tabby cats way too long, just to get the patterns looking believable and I'm quite content with how he/she came out. Every wizard or witch needs to have at least one cat around.
The rest are just better/larger pictures of the interior as it was finished and assembled. All elements have been glued into place, bar the rug, table and chairs (the green ones). The table and chairs have been glued to the rug, and the scattered items on top of the table, but the rug is loose from the floor.
This means I can remove the entire thing as one unit, for when there needs to be more than one miniature in the room.
The floor was stained dark and had several coats of gloss varnish applied to better resemble a parquet floor.
The desk and bookshelf were interesting too; I applied several coats of paints and washes in a streaky fashion, always in the same direction, and this simulated woodgrain pretty well. Another coat of gloss varnish helped sell the illusion of them being made of polished, expensive woods.
The books were painted individually and looking back, those were the biggest chore. There were so very many of them, coming from a variety of sources; printed, plastic bits, resin casts and plasticard scratchbuilds. But all had their paper bits painted in different shades of white, tan, bone and even gold. Then followed all the different covers in a whole range of colours.
There were several transparent glasses and bottles/phials too, which I stained with inks to suggest contents.
The deck of cards was another one of those spur of the moment ideas that worked really well. I had planned on suggesting that there had been two members of the warband eating here and then dashing out of the door, maybe because the dogs began barking or some other alarm. To drive that point home, I wanted to put one of the chairs on its back, as if the occupant had jumped up
But with the addition of the decks of cards instead of some plates of food and cuttlery, it might look as if they got into a fight over the game, so I toned that aspect down. the chairs are now just moved back, but one of them did spill his beer on the way out...
And of course we can't forget the butterfly, which I felt had to be included, even when Blackwolf was not participating
It was painted on paper, cut out and put into a frame. Next to the cat it's quite the big beasty, so worthy of display for sure.
Then I wanted to highlight some parts of the exterior as well. The dog house for instance, which was my homage to Tom and Jerry; it's an approximation of Jerry's regular ally, Spike the bulldog. I love the fact it's cartoony but fitting in at the same time. Note that here, the name is still 'Fifi'; I changed it later, as I erroneously thought that was the name of the cartoon dog at the time...
The magic circle on the second story is another interesting one; it's a nonagram, paying tribute to one of my favourite bands; Slipknot. And the symbols spell 'DAEOTHAR1' in Aurebesh, both signing the piece with my handle and slipping in a subtle Star Wars reference at the same time
The astute amongst you might also have noticed that there have been several pieces of terrain to accompany this build. these are two resin pieces of unknown origin and two Renedra plastic ruins. the resin pieces I've left as-is. The Renedra ruined parts I've assembled into two L-shapes with some added foam rubble on MDF bases.
I painted these at the same time I did my entry, to match them with it. Mostly because I wanted to have some extra terrain to use in entry pictures, since I did not have any additional winter terrain pieces before.
And finally, the winterification of my build. I had started with a wite basecoat, which might have helped a bit, but mostly, I added sand around the edges of the bases, which were then painted white, with a very thin light blue wash and subsequent white drybrushes, to match my winter table, which was done in exactly the same way.
To make it more realistic, I also added Noch snow on all the upper surfaces, including edges of bricks, window sills etc. Also, lots of icicles were added from two different sources; Greenstuff World resin moulds and some clear plastic strips of icicles I bought decades ago; can't remember the name of the manufacturer.
Finally, I sparingly added a bit of an experiment on the doors, windows and select detail parts. It's another Greenstuff World product (undoubtedly another idea nicked from somebody else
). It's basically a fluid wihich you add to a surface and which dries into a white, crystaline structure, resembling frost.
I like the effect, but might need a bit more practice using it.
In the near future I want to varnish the whole piece to make it more durable though, so I'm hoping the varnish will not affect the snow and frost effect too much, but I suspect it will...
06 October 2015, 01:48:44 PM
