Ghost Archipelago: Ruin Terrain

Alongside several other projects I have on the go at the moment, one I'm doing for myself is another ruin for Ghost Archipelago.

This was born from a desire to make my own sculptural pieces rather than buying loads of Buddhist aquarium pieces. Then of course I found a ready supply of sculpts from Poundland and everything changed, but since I'm not good at lobbing stuff away I've persevered.

Here is my ruin influenced by various bits of aquaria, but sculpted from PVAcrete on top of a card base.

I'm treating this as an experiment, can't see me making anything like it again, but it has been fun.

Will have to bite the bullet and put some crew together next :-)

Terrain :Fallen Log Update

Since I modeled the fallen log piece I showed the other day, things have moved along apace. Took it to Luke's APS and the pair of us worked on producing a silicon mold which came out well.

We then cast a prototype in plaster and here I have taken that miniature, painted and flocked to high heavens.

How did we get to this point?

Bit of gluing first, then undercoated black.

After the undercoat, a brown over brush all over.

Flock added.

Some clump foliage.

Static grass, which I felt didn't add much, other than pfaff.

Popped on the radiator to dry, while I walked the dogs.

The finished article all set.

Frostgrave: Ruin

I have been working on this piece of terrain for the last couple of weeks, off and on, now it seems to be finished to me, so I thought I would post it.

Its unusual for me because I very rarely work in polystyrene. I drew all the details on with a biro after I had cut the basic shapes with a knife.

I also added a hardboard base to give strength to the model.

The other half of the poor poly packaging that I used for the project.. I will make the second piece, not sure when just yet , have rather a lot on.

I think it has a couple of uses, obviously Frostgrave, but also Ghost Archipelago, another post will show how I intend using it for Ghost later.

Terrain: Fallen Log

I have been practising my modeling skills recently, trying to get better with Das and Milliput, so I thought I would start with something small. The idea was to eventually try to make a cheap cast of the piece, just to see how it goes. 

My first attempt was with Das and PVA to give it some flexibility, I worked from some originals from Grabblecast (which are very nice) to give me something to work from. Cut the basic shapes from blue foam and then began working on top.

It went OK but the Das doesn't like having a knife pulled through it, tends to crack, even with the PVA and so the bark details were difficult to add.

They were OK, but I felt they could be better so decided to have a go with Milliput next. I've used it before and knew how well it take details.

Also I tried hard to make this one nothing like the first copies as I don't want plagiarism claims made against me.

The Milliput worked well, this time I cut a bit of cane from the garden and glued it to the base to work on top of.

I have been sharing this with Luke from Lukes APS and we are going to have a go at making a silicone cast of it, see how it goes.

One criticism I have, and I think Luke would agree, is that its a rather flat sculpt and it needs to be a bit more dynamic to be interesting, Luke did suggest raising the height in the centre or having 2 logs intersecting. I will be trying again :-)