Andy's thread of Curiosities (Formally the Museum Thread)

[oldskoolrebel]

Good Evening all; over the next two months I will be busy finishing not one, but two boards for MacLAM. Luckily I will be using this as an opportunity to finish previous projects. When there is a will, there is a way.

Over the last two nights I have been busy painting the Egyptian dungeon that I started over here. I'm fairly happy with the progress here. The pieces I currently own have all been painted, some are now just awaiting detailing. With this in mind I have ordered some new paints (gold, turquoise and jade) from Maelstrom which will hopefully arrive by the end of the week.



From the overview you can see the contrast between the floor and walls, I'm pretty happy with this. I'm not so enamoured by the gaps in the floor. Although I wonder how 'tightly' I butted the floor together. Also evident in this image are miniatures in various stages of painting. I've rebased some of my older miniatures and they will need a (considerable) amount of touching up.



The 'detailing', as I'm calling it, includes items like the pots in the corner, the pillars, statues and the floor relief. I'm planning on spending the time finishing it. My only issue is I don't know how to weather it? For example there are a couple of lions heads attached to the walls. I was planning on painting these 'gold' but I definitely don't want them to be shiney and new looking. Any thoughts on how this can be achieved? Perhaps some washing with black/smokey ink? I need to say that I've never weathered before so I really am open to all suggestions.

As for interest reasons, my 'new' basing style can be seen on the fez wearing gentleman on the right. I prefer the small bases to the traditional GW ones.



I'm not quite sure what to do with the pillars; do I paint them another colour or just leave them as they are?


I'm also happy to report that I'm getting to use several miniatures in my lead pile so they will see some sort of painting. Having said that I've already ordered several new miniatures. Including this beautiful example of cunning, ruthlessness and EVIL. One of Pulp miniature's she wolves (and thanks again Mason), never before has evil looked so sexy. And yes that is a whip in her hand!  



Over the next few weeks, I hope to be providing status updates. And if I don't please feel free to shout at me!

Lets hope I keep to schedule (as if...)

Cheers
Andy
 

[Dewbakuk]

Looking good. The main problem with the 'gaps' seems to be the centre wall at the bottom of the picture, it's not inline with the others and is pushing the rest out. Should be fine when lined up tighter.

[gamer Mac]

Looking great
Is it gold your are wanting to make look old. Try a brown ink

[OSHIROmodels]

Only two months eh? You lucky so and so 

Looking good so far 

Might I suggest some wind blown sand drifts in some of the corners (with maybe a pot just peaking out.

As to the tarnished gold, maybe a pale green wash followed by the brown and then a bit of a wet scrub brush (as opposed to a dry brush) of the base colour of the stone. This is of course assuming that the lion is gold leafed and not solid. If solid then a very light dry brush of sliver after the washes would be the way to go.

cheers

James

[Malamute]

Looking great so far, I like Jimbibbly's idea of sand drifts.

[oldskoolrebel]

Cheers for the advice guys.

I've spray varnished the pieces without additional details. That was todays job. I've seen paint chip off some of the tester pieces far too easily to let people play with them without protection... And no I'm not talking about durex here!

Hopefully the paints will arrive from maelstrom tomorrow and i can attempt to finish some of the detailing.

Cheers
Andy

[Andym]

Cool! When do we get to play?

[oldskoolrebel]

As usual, when ( if  ) its finished.


Actually, hopefully some sort of tester before MacLAM.

[oldskoolrebel]

Small update,

I've finished varnishing the unadorned wall/floor sections and I've been painting some of the detailed ones. Hopefully not too long before I finish them.

I've also started another building for the 'city' board. I've based this, roughly, on some of the pictures of the great library of Alexandria; obviously much simplified. One of the images can be seen below.


I'm quite keen to create a building that is usable in Western and Middle Eastern tables. I'm hoping that the Greek influenced shapes will help it to remain fairly neutral. Please excuse the spice mills!


The 'overhang' section I'm hoping to turn into a small curators office. I'll probably borrow a circle cutter from work and have a nice circular window. I'd love to put a frame in it; I think making one might be very difficult. So I might get the following one from antenociti's (although I don't know the size). If anyone knows the size; or where to get another I'm all ears 


I'm planning on adding two smaller, lower wings to the left and right hand side of the building. The central building will probably be open plan with a mezzanine level/elevated walkway. Obviously this is a dry fit, and I've still got a lot of work and planning to do (including deciding where doors and windows have to go!).

Also I'd just like to thank Operator5 for his inspirational New Commerce Museum thread!

Cheers
Andy

[fluffy05]

Stunning work on the terrain!

Love it 

[Wirelizard]

The 'overhang' section I'm hoping to turn into a small curators office. I'll probably borrow a circle cutter from work and have a nice circular window. I'd love to put a frame in it; I think making one might be very difficult. So I might get the following one from antenociti's (although I don't know the size). If anyone knows the size; or where to get another I'm all ears 

That page at Antenociti's doesn't give scale information, but given the price for a single window I'm going to assume it's O scale. Given that O is 1/48, a 48" (scale) window is 1" (real) across.

Nice find, actually. I could see doing some very cool buildings with a big round window like that!

Looking forward to seeing the Greek-inspired museum progress, I also filed Operator5's New Commerce Museum build away for future inspiration!

[Andym]

Nice!! Good start on the museum!

[gamer Mac]

Cracking work Andy

[Captain Blood]

Looking good Andy.

Don't accidentally build the spice jars into the museum 

[Mason]

Only just cottoned on to this, but you have made a great start!
 

Watching with anticipation...