Samedi

Very cool fish, both of them. I like the empty eyes of the catfish-thing very much. So a vote for no pupils.

Very convincing base!

Thank you all for your kind words! And a special thank you to @AussieAusborn for taking the time for such a detailed feedback! I find this kind of comment very helpful for learning. And yes, I always get a bit scared of overdoing it when highlighting...

Finally - it is finished! This project took me a little over 11 years (well, mostly I let it sit on the shelf and procrastinated, but anyway...). The monk is an old mini by metal magic and the ravens are from crocodile games. This little scene shows the hermit St. Meinrad. He had a little hermitage near what is now Einsiedeln in Switzerland, about an hour by train from where I live. The saga goes that he befriended two ravens. One day, he was killed by some vagrants, who wanted to take the offerings of the pilgrims from the shrine. The enraged ravens chased the robbers all the way to Zurich and brought them to justice there. This project had a lot of "firsts": first real base with scenery (never did some serious basing before) first diorama with more than one mini first water effects first time highlighting black first time using rattle cans Thanks to a lot of help from you guys and a lot of research on the internet I managed to get a result I am happy with. Again, thanks to everyone who helped and supported me over in my WIP-thread! Now the mini is gift wrapped, on Sunday my Dad will get it for his 81st birthday. And here is the result. C&C are very welcome. What should I have done differently? Where do you see room for improvement? Thanks for your feedback!

After a recent buying spree I decided I have enough minis to last me for the rest of my life. But man, I want that dwarf!

Thanks for your kind words, @AussieAusborn! I always enjoy reading how others have tackled their problems and what techniques they used, so I tried to give something back. Maybe that way I can help someone not run into the same issues as I had. Now hopefully, this will be the last picture I post in this thread: Progress: The second and third coat of varnish went on very well. And I started with the water effects: Yesterday evening I spread a thin layer of Vallejo Still Water on an unopened blister and let it dry. Peeled it off today and cut off a stripe to use as a waterfall. My coat went on way too thin - it was a pain to peel off and at the end it had the consistency of cling film. Thicker coat next time! But I went ahead anyway and glued the stripe in place with some more water effect - that stuff is really sticky, so no glue required. Now it's not a waterfall, but just water running down the rocks. Works for me. Then used a pipette to carefully fill the little pool in the front with water. Instructions are to put it on in thin layers, 3mm max. Maybe I used a bit too much (my patience is running out). As the stuff is air drying it probably will shrink, forcing me to do another layer tomorrow. We'll see... Now it's drying under a glass bowl, to protect it from collecting dust. I am curious to see how it will turn out! At this point I would like to thank all of you for your help, your input, your encouragement and your support! Sometimes a simple "looking good so far" went a long way in getting me back to the table. I learned a lot during this project. There are three youtubers who really helped me with all my questions: Vince Venturella/Hobby Cheating, Lukes Aps/Geek Gaming Scenics and finally The TerrainTutor (thanks @Standifer). I would highly recommend them to anyone who hasn't watched them already. So, thanks again, and see you all in Show Off in a few days!

Almost finished! It took some time to blend the new parts of the base with the rest, somehow it looked off all the time. I just randomly washed and drybrushed and washed again - and then, suddenly, it fit. The lichen was a bit tougher. I tried to make a wasch of walnut brown, but it tended to stick to the wrong parts or not at all. The dry brushing attempt (olive green) did not go well as the lichen was still too soft. Finally tried some very careful overbrushing with a fairly wet brush using slightly thinned paint - that worked. Adding the walnut to the thinned PVA-glue would have been the better way - or even soaking the whole lichen in thinned and tinted PVA-glue before applying it to the base. Then I tried to add some birch seeds to the base, but I did not like that. The seeds screamed "fall" while the rest of the base has more of a "summer" kind of vibe. So no seeds. Next: Sealing the rim of the base with some matte varnish Adding my signature to the rim Hope that the rain will stop tomorrow so I can seal the mini with another coat of spray varnish Making the little creek with the water effects. I hope to finish by Thursday, wish me luck!

I love your color choices - the deep, rich blue dress vs. the glowing orange pumpkins!

Really cool! The difference in texture between the "wet" bloody/fleshy parts and the "dry" scaly parts came out great!

I never really saw the barnacles in the WIP... Love the result!

Came out great! I really like your color scheme!

Thanks, @AussieAusborn! You encouraged me to try it with PVA. So I made a mix of about 1:4 PVA and distilled water (which I use for thinning the paints anyway) and added a drop of flow improver (picked up this trick this afternoon during a youtube marathon). Then took and old brush and carefully soaked the lichen with the mixture. Now that it has dried, it has some structure - if I am really careful I may even be able to drybrush the lichen. Maybe I'll repeat the process ant tint the glue with a bit of paint! Unfortunately, since the lichen came pre-colored, some of the green bled on to the rest of the base. Ah well, you can't have everything. And since the green is right next to the "bushes", maybe there is a damp spot, where some algae grow. Next: Once again washes and drybrushing to match the terrain around the minis with the rest of the base. Also, I'll probably have to repaint the dead tree of the ravens, it looks a bit off.

That's a really cool concept of an over-/underwater diorama. Can't wait for the final product!

Looks better with the white lines. And the eye looks really good!

Finally added the minis. Prepared the spots by scraping away some of the sand and some Milliput with an Xacto knife. That went surprisingly well. The ravens still wouldn't fit. Pressed them down really hard and almost broke them in the process. Finally figured out that I didn't drill the pinning hole deep enough. Now that I can smell the completion I start to rush - I have to control myself better! Integrated the miniature bases in the scenery with pumice paste and an old paintbrush. Finally decided to add some lichen (like I planned in the beginning). I am very happy so far with the results. My next problem: I have to give the soft wobbly lichen some structure. I have no idea so far how to do that. Maybe some thinned PVA-glue might work. Does anyone have some experience with this? Anyway: This is how it looks right now.