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Standby for massive dump in 3... 2... 1... Chopping this up into a few pieces for easy posting/consumption. Where I've been: Video games (Xumenicus#1118, if you're on Battle.net), bought a new house, running a fly fishing tournament for a treehugger non-profit, part-running my treehugger fly fishing non-profit local chapter, some other random stuff, and yeah -- here we are. I promise to paint more. Seriously. I just need to paint and sculpt more. I also need to fish more. And game more. I guess this is a thing: Apparently, I need deadlines in order to get anything done. This time around, since I couldn't make it to RC2017 (travel budget blown on BlizzCon), I aimed for a couple different challenges over at Massive Voodoo: http://massivevoodoo.blogspot.com/2017/07/mv-challenge-2017.html Objective: Make a water-themed base. No central miniature, no real focus -- just a base. And it has to be mostly water. Disclaimer: I'm not at all confident, or consider myself proficient with clear resin. I wasn't sure how good/bad/terrible this piece would turn out, so I didn't spend days painting this. It's got a few rough layers of highlights, a few rough layers of shadows, and basically I just wanted to turn something in, have fun doing it, and not stress about being good enough to win. The MV crowd is amazing -- I was just trying to get closer to touching the sun. :) Supply List: Wood, coping saw, cyano super glue, wire, green stuff, sculpting tools, paint, brushes, old brushes, Ease Release 200 Mold Release Agent, plastic Solo cups, nitrile gloves, popsicles sticks (fox mixing resin), Castin' Craft® Clear Polyester Casting Resin, small sheet of plasticard, duct tape, Tree House Studio Clear Acrylic High Gloss Coating spray, sandpaper (100, 200, 400, 600, 1000 grit), Woodland Scenics Lichen, Woodland Scenics Water Effects, fly tying thread, level for leveling the curing area I did a few sketches one night so I could figure out what to do, and this is where I ended up. I thought about doing a waterfall, or something cooler, but I was kind of in a time crunch, and only had 3 weeks, especially since things are still calming down from moving. [pic_00] Picked out a piece of wood from my scrap pile... [pic_01] Went to work with a coping saw until I had a pleasing, interesting shape... [pic_02] Learning from past mistakes with trying to get green stuff to adhere to wood, I opted to seal the wood this time. I used cyano, and 2 old brushes. It actually works really well as a wood sealer ( http://www.woodworkersjournal.com/cyanoacrylate-everything-you-need-to-know/ ), but you need to be extra careful due to the amount being used -- more of a chance to glue yourself to something, glue to project to something, and the fumes will sneak up on you real quick, and burn your eyes or nose. Fair warning. Be careful. [pic_03] I opted to use green stuff for the project. That's where my comfort zone still is, even though I'm trying to work more with Beesputty and ZBrush. The bit of twisted copper wire there is to support an additional column. Do an image search for "limestone underwater caves", and you'll see where I'm going with this. [pic_04] More... [pic_05] A little more... [pic_06] Starting the tree. Do a search on "limestone cliffs trees roots", and you'll see where I'm headed even more. [pic_07]