Well, my first post of 2010. Crikey, time flies...
I have not been doing any 3D work on my computers recently, but I have done some physical stuff (not exercise, mind!) The Tempus Fugitives 3rd installment in their Age of The Emperor Campaign Weekend Quadrilogy, required me to build something new and useful, since I said I didn't want to bring my Leviathan back in.
The mandate was fairly simple: Since some gamers would finish earlier than others, and whilst everyone is playing army versus army battles, the Horus Heresy ended with a climactic battle on Horus Battlebarge. Build an atmospheric terrain piece which will allow players to take a single character out of those that teleported up (Ollis Pious, Rogal Dorn, Sanguinnius, The Emperor etc) and face them off in a special rules game against Horus himself.
The most dificult thing for me was that because it was a secret project I couldn't share it with anyone, so couldn't get feedback on whether I was going the right way or not, and secondly I also ran out of time very quickly. It wasn't 'as finished' as I would have liked, but it was finished enough to be released the weekend just gone.
Proper sets of piccies up tonight, but in the meantime, here's a teaser!
Posts
Then in February, I made a start. Since this was going to be an 'arena' I was going to be fairly limited in what I could do with the model itself, so I knew I had to have plenty of actual characters around to fill the space and add detail. I also wanted the place to look grandiose, but for figures not to get in the way of the action, so I decided it needed to be a multi level affair, with plenty of layers, so I could put figures in the lower levels, while the Horus/Emperor action took place on top... So, here we see me making a start on characters for 'the pits' (an area where Horus keeps animated corpses, little evil creatures and human slaves, for his amusement.
We also get to see the chaos symbol appear on the flat wooden boards, adding the chaos symbol into the arena on a grandiose scale!
At this stage it was easy to get a feel of how the barge would look.
Then, time for some red paint and some holes cut in the back wall...
Tecnically I should have put lots of cloud on, but I was pretty happy with the blue shading and didn't want to ruin it, so you have to imagine that Horus has blown the clouds away to cear his descent to the planet... or something.. The black looks a little overcooked in the second photo, but the paint was still wet. When it dried, it actually came out really well!
These pictures can show you in layers, what's going on. So above, we got Earth.. which is now a bit old-earthier than it should be (Someone just told me the oceans boiled away!) .... Below, the base board, which lifts the whole model above, so we can look down on earth from afar...
Then the bottom layer, showing the pits.
Then the lower floor of the throne room
Then Horus's Floor
And then with stairs and back wall
http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq69/Dannage/Project%20SoT/Photo584.jpg
http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq69/Dannage/Project%20SoT/Photo583.jpg
Holy motherbleeping bleep! Dannage... dude... I'm at a loss for words...
Glad you like the model. I wasn't too happy with it myself actually, but it was well received and it was good to try something big again. There is another Fugitives event in May, I may be considering something to make and take there for that. Unfortunately, my workshop has a leaky roof, so I've had to move all my stuff to a portacabin and I'm waiting for them to build me a new unit. Be nice to finally get all my stuff out of my other house so I can rent the damned thing out!
About the diorama, I can easily imagine that you can find things to improve with no end in sight, things like that are hard to let go and call them 'Done'. it's looking good nonetheless mate
Hehehe, I'd kill for a decent workshop. I'm currently working out of a plastic storage box and a coffee table... It's quite the hassle, having to spend 15 minutes unpacking and 15 minutes of packing up before and after every little painting session I want to do. One of the downsides of an appartment with no 'dirty' room to spare....
The Marine's almost finished, I swear! I even started on the base and the details like the bolter and combat knife etc etc... I want to have him finished by the end of the year.