Vikotnik's Denmark-inspired Pyrate Thread

[Dr. The Viking]

Amuck!

[Theatralic]

Oh wow  , I would write more but there is nothing I can add, just WOW.

[Thantsants]

Love your take on the Sea Demons - mine look a little dowdy in comparison now 

The undead crab is a pretty mad mini - I think you're being a bit hard on yourself.

 I often find myself rejecting certain natural colour schemes when doing research for a critter I'm painting because I fear that it'd look too odd on a miniature!

[rob_alderman]

Fantastic thread!

I painted those Pirate gobbos some years ago and won a painting comp with them, but that was a junior category... I feel like I should repaint them now!!

[Centaur_Seducer]

Lovely as ever, Karsten!

Have to admit though that I really need another crab for the herring-project. The reaper one looks a bit meh when painted even by you :/

[vikotnik]

Cheers for the nice comments, guys!

It really is motivating to go through all the madness involved in painting and building things like this from start to the beginning when people actually appreciate all the work you put into it!  

@Thantsants: The crab is usable, but I simply had no fun painting it because it... sucks. Look what Otherworld Miniatures are about to release:

Wow. I really hope that I can get my hand on one of these ASAP. I will most definitely include it in this project, I promise!

@Silversixx: Look at the pictue above! Exactly what you...(and everyone else...) need! Plus, they even will release a crayfish! A crayfish!!! How more swedish can it get? I hope I can have a proper look at the fisherman project next year!


OK, on to the construction of the table...

Last summer, we spent our holiday in Denmark near the North Sea. On a long walk at the beach, I said to Mrs. vikotnik: "I think I will build a table with frame made from driftwood." She sighed and answered: "OK. But only if you use up the leftover styrofoam from that fairy thing you made last year."

I then went on to scour the beach fro usable pieces of driftwood. Look what I found:




Back home, I used rope to tie the corners, much like a raft:




I made the frame a bit longer in shape, looking less symmetrical. Now it looks like this:




I then used some new styrofoam(...sssshh, don't tell her...!) to fill the frame and used almost all the leftovers to construct the backdrop:




Next, I mixed up some scenery goop from PVA, unused cat litter and sand and covered the surfaces with it using a spatula:




...wait! A SPATULA? Impossible! I have to use my hands!


Yeah, rub it in, baby!  


While this was still wet, I sprinkled sand of various grain sizes onto it:


Starts to look OK, I think. Back when I was a child, I always liked adventure films with the heroes exploring some caves. So I decided to depict some underground lagoon on this table. The flat surface in the foreground will be water later on. An underground lagoon! This should be interesting enough to play in and a nice challenge to paint.


I pushed some sea shells into the still-wet surface to make it more interesting and marine-like:



I let it dry for a few days, primed the whole thing(including the frame) black and painted it, being not too careful as there would be ample opportunity to correct any mistakes later on:


The part that would be covered by water was covered by ordinary newspaper glued in place with PVA. Some reflexes were sloppily painted on. Starts to look OK now.


The next step would be to add the water-effect paste by Vallejo. Quite an unpleasant thing to do, covering a large surface of the table you just built and painted in dark tones with an opaque white paste, brrr:


The brownish strip where the future water meets the beach is some rather small shells that always meet their end at the waterline. I added them before applying the water to hide the seam between the, erm, newspaper and the rocky beach. These were painted afterwards.


I let it dry for about a week and a half(!) and it looked like this:


It does not come across in the picture, but the whole cave has been painted to seem to be illuminated from the sea.

Sadly, the table looks a bit smallish in the last pic, so here is another view:


The colours are more fitting in that shot, still struggling with the new camera... The hole on the right would be the entrance for the goblins. I added some sparkling holographic dust to the rocky surfaces but sadly, this does only come across when you look closely.


A view without the surroundings:




How do the miniatures fit in?




"Shoot that crab! It's a bad sculpt and besides we cannot eat it because it already is dead!"





Panorama. Not a lot to make out, but you get the idea of the colours working out somehow.


No proper pyrate adventure taking place in an underground lagoon without a REAL monster, a...




"Hold on! The shark stole our chef!!"




"Phew! Now that the shark is gone, we're safe again..."




I got some devices to measure movement during gameplay. The upper device is an invisible goblin's foot while the one below is an ordinary snail shell:




My son gave me a small treasure chest which I wanted to use as a dice box. I found a very nice dice box for the Sea Demons, too:




...and, of course, the dice:




That's it for now, hope you liked the pics.

I hope I can bribe Doomhippe into a small game tomorrow night. We had some very funny ideas about the game which I will describe as soon as I know how everything works out. Plus, there might well be a few more miniatures to appear in...
"Escape from Hygge Island!"

[manic _miner]

 Just seen this post now.Love your take on the Sea Demons.Paul Muller has done a great job on them.I have one more of them sitting in the line for moulding.It is great seeing these popping up around the place.Lovely painting by the way.

 Your display is really cool too.Will have to have a better look tomorrow when I have more time.

[Funghy-Fipps]

A bit late to the party I'm afraid, but I've thoroughly enjoyed browsing this thread. I don't think that genius is too strong a word to associate with your excellent work.

[Overlord]

I had completely missed this thread up until now.  The usual fantastic compostion, modelling, painting and attention to detail that all your highly original games have.
Brilliant work Karsten 

[Captain Blood]

Art.
I can say no more.

[Admiral Benbow]

Karsten, this is ... fantastic.
 

[Blackwolf]

Beautiful

[Jonas]

Looks great all over

[aggro84]

Wow the table is amazing! What an original idea! It's a true work of art.

[Welf VIII.]

This is really looking great. I love it, Mr. Manierismus.