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I painted this guy up for use in StarGrave, 5 Parsecs From Home, or any other sci-fi skirmish game I might get involved in. His paint scheme is very loosely based on a well known smuggler from a galaxy far, far away. I tried to get his eyes looking off to his left; I think I didn't make him look too bad. I hope you like him.

Dan's Build Journal #3 Sewers - Abandoned Smugglers Tunnel Ged took a deep breath to calm his nerves and then instantly regretted it, as the stench rising up from the old sewer entrance made him retch involuntarily. Reaching into his side pouch the young rogue pulled out a small vial of purple oil, uncorked it and then dabbed a copious amount in the space between his nose and upper lip. Lavender Oil, thats what the old drunkard had recommended, though truth be told the solution only made the stench slightly more bearable. The rogue carefully descended an old and very rotten wooden ladder into the underground sewer complex, the air was still and heavy and the only noises, the scuttling of nearby rats and the occasional sound of dripping water. Ged ignited his torch and pulled out a crumpled old map. It was common knowledge that in his youth the old drunkard had served as a smuggler for the local thieves guild, and after several weeks of plying the man with drink and trying to befriend the old retch he had finally revealed his secret. Decades earlier, the old man and his crew had used the sewer tunnels to smuggle contraband and stolen goods in and out of the city, that was until they had allegedly disturbed some ancient horror sleeping beneath the water and were forced to flee, abandoning their camp and their treasures. Ged couldn't help but smile to himself, he knew the old smuggler to be an honest man, and there was no doubt in his mind that the smugglers cache would be exactly where he had been told, however Ged didn't believe in monsters, the old smuggler was a notorious drunkard and he probably got spooked by his own shadow after a few too many ales. Having now gained his bearings the rogue carefully refolded the old map, and set off towards his prize confident that this was going to be an easy and profitable payday. Navigating the old tunnels proved an arduous task, the floor was slick with slime and it would have been easy to get lost within the complex labyrinth, but the smugglers map proved true and after about 30 minutes Ged arrived at the tunnel that had been marked on his map. The tunnel was long and Ged's torch did little to penetrate the darkness more than a few feet in front of him, unperturbed the rogue slowly started down the eerily quiet passageway, until.... SPLASH! Startled the young rogue spun about, hand reaching instinctively for his dagger and eyes straining to see in the darkness. Ged momentarily caught sight of several circular ripples radiating outward from the centre of the sewage canal, before the disturbed water settled back down to its prior stillness. Ged, crouched low and and holding his breath in order to better hear his surroundings continued to scan the surface of the water. After several moments of silence, he sheathed his dagger and stood up straight, it was probably just a rat he thought to himself. The next few minutes passed without incident until young Ged neared the end of the tunnel and finally came upon his prize. Stacked high were dusty old chests and coffers, caked in a decades accumulation of spiderwebs but still full of valuables, there were piles of gold and jewels, paintings, rare books and other works of art. Most of the books and artworks were ruined, rotten from years sitting in a damp environment, but the gold, this would set up a man for life. Trembling from excitement, Ged unfastened his backpack and eagerly began filling it with anything that looked valuable. So engrossed in the task at hand, Ged didn't hear the disturbance in the water, he was blissfully unaware of his encroaching doom until he felt it tighten around his leg. Looking down in surprise the young rogue had no time to time react before the long green tentacle yanked him violently into the water and complete darkness, terrified the young man tried to to scream but only succeeded in flooding his lungs with the rank sewage water, his desperate thrashing lasted but a few moments and then complete silence, the only evidence of the rogues passing, his torch slowly burning out next to the smugglers cache. Completed Project Pictures: My Other Build Journals: First off the elephant in the room. I appreciate I have literally just started 'Build Journal #2 - Ancient Ruins' which has only had one post so far, unfortunately that's had to go on temporary hold. My last piece of foamboard isn't quite big enough to support the planned build and I do not have anything else strong enough to hold it and so I've had to order some. Rather than waste my last weekend off work, I figured I'd start work on one of my smaller quicker builds which should keep me occupied until the foamboard arrives. This ones going to be a photo backdrop of a dark, dirty, fantasy sewer system. Preparing the Masonry For this build I am going to be using 'Hirst Arts Mold #343 - Underground Brick' and casting the blocks from Dental Stone which is a lot more durable than plaster. Luckily I had prepared a large batch of these blocks at the same time I was making blocks for my Ancient Ruins build and so I was ready to go straight away. The first job was creating a back wall for the project, which took around an hour to both experiment and dry-fit something I was happy with and then glue it all together. At present the wall has some pretty obvious and unsightly 'seam lines' where you can tell it is just a bunch of blocks glued together, that will be fixed later. Laying the Foundation For the foundation I used a sheet of 6mm foamcore, which I then cut to the length of the wall. I then measured and cut a block of polystyrene using a hotwire tool which will serve as the walkway above the sewage water. I glued a second piece of foamcore (this was the offcut from the first piece I had cut to size) and glued that to the back, this is to give the wall a bit more support once glued to the base. I quickly tested the fit (but didn't yet glue the wall to the base) Preparing the Walkway The walkway was made out of Sculpy, a modelling clay that needs baking to harden. I used a Greenstuff World texture roller to imprint a stone brick floor pattern into the clay, test fitted it to the polystyrene and then cut it to the right size. The flooring was then baked and glued to the polystyrene once cooled (This shrunk slightly in the oven, if you look at the next picture the wall slightly overhands the path now). I added a brick wall against the the polystyrene where the water will eventually flow, but the height was just off, to fix this I glued some old foam bricks I had laying around to the edge. These are a lot bigger than the bricks of the wall and floor, however as edging pieces they seem to work well, I textured these with a scumpled up ball of tinfoil. Finally I attempted to fill the gaps and seamlines where the blocks meet with some home made spackle. I rubbed dry powdered plaster into all the gaps and then used a soft haired makeup brush to gently dust away the excess which had gathered and filled in the detail of the brick work, once cleaned up I spritzed the entire thing with water to soak into the cracks and dried plaster. I may need to do this a second time, but its already looking a lot better. Creating the Waterway. To finish up the waterway, I built another wall section and placed it a few inches out from the first, I then cut away the excess foamboard to keep the build neat and compact. As the clay floor I'd made ended up a little uneven in places, the back wall no longer sat flat and there were gaps as a result, especially under the final buttress (not that obvious at the angle I photographed it above, but it was quite a large gap). I ended up filing all these gaps with some sculptamold, I also made some small debris piles around a few of the buttresses. To finish off the whole model was primed white ready for painting.