tommisalama Posted August 20, 2013 Share Posted August 20, 2013 Hi there, This is my first WIP-thread. I posted an approximately 10 ten years old project to show off -forum, a Castle in the Mountains. It was a huge miniature castle which I made with my sister and my friend, a three people project that lasted for three weekends if I remember correctly. The goal was to make a castle detailed in a way that it can be used as a background piece in a short movie. So it didn't have to be very detailed, it was going to be used far away in the horizon for a short shot. I'm sorry for my lack of proper language as I'm not a native speaker, but I hope I can get some sense into my ramblings =). I will go into some detail on how it was made, but I have only a few pictures left, and the castle is now sadly destroyed, as we didn't have a place to storage it back then. I'll try to remember as much as I can, but overall it wasn't very complex work, and we used very basic techniques with it. This WIP however will be about something else than building a castle from scratch. For now that the piece is lost and destroyed and only pictures are left, I had an idea to turn it into a painting in my wall. I'm not going to paint it, but use the old photograph as a base for some photoshopping, adding pictures of mountains behind it, river beneath it and so on. This is a miniature forum, so I'm not going to post a WIP of me photoshopping things though. I will post images of the photoshopping too, but I thought I'd use some Bones miniatures with this project also. I'm thinking that the final photo could use a dragon! So I'd paint my Pathfinder Red Dragon, photograph it, and photoshop it perching in the bridge, or at the top of the castle. This is a WIP, so any input in everything is appreciated! The dragon needs some adventurers to fight of course. I'm thinking Valeros and Seoni at least. I'll start with a picture of the castle in which I'm basing this whole project. So what I'm thinking now is how to crop the picture. I like panoramic horizontal pictures on my wall, but the rock on the right isn't very good looking, so I'm thinking about a higher, vertical picture. Here's a quick layout I was thinking about, there's also some ideas what to put there and where to place the dragon. This is a very quick early plan, but I thought I should have something to start this with. Now you see that the dragon will be pretty small in this picture. I still want this to be mostly about the castle, so I'm thinking more of a scenic piece but with a hint of action. This can of course change, I do have a couple of closeups of the castle also. My next post will probably be about how we did the castle, and then I'll start with either photoshopping, or painting the dragon. I might be doing a bit both just to keep myself interested. If you have any input this early on, I'd be glad to hear it! Also tell me if I should just limit this WIP to painting, as this is a miniature forum... Thanks for reading! 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cthulhudarren Posted August 20, 2013 Share Posted August 20, 2013 Your English is excellent! In fact light years ahead of my Finnish! And "yes" to everything! You could use two dragons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jasper_the_2nd Posted August 20, 2013 Share Posted August 20, 2013 Agreed on your English, you are getting your point across just fine. I like the dragon on top, very classic looking. I'm thinking a torch lit invading army on the bridge would look cool, but may be pretty hard to do. And somehow my mind keeps suggesting a waterfall, though I can't figure out where it would fit.... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pragma Posted August 20, 2013 Share Posted August 20, 2013 I'd love to hear how you made this. If you can get such great results with simple techniques that's a great thing to know. And a waterfall is a great idea. I picture the castle perched at the top of the waterfall, with the water flowing in from the right under the bridge and dropping off into mist toward the bottom of the shot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tommisalama Posted August 20, 2013 Author Share Posted August 20, 2013 Awesome ideas, thanks! Waterfall is so cool that I have to try it. I'll be using a lot of stock photos 'cause we don't have for example waterfalls here in Finland =). I found a pretty good river already, and I think that I can make it turning into a waterfall at the bottom, like you suggested... Invading army with lit torches... Man that would be awesome! Hard to do maybe, but I'll try! And of course use miniatures for all the men in the army. And with that army, it would indeed make more sense to have the dragon on top of the castle. I've been thinking to photoshop the uppermost part of the castle out, it wasn't even in our design at first, but the director of the fantasy movie wanted it to continue. I always thought that it didn't fit in the design so well. Thanks guys, I'll post more about that castle soon! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Inner Geek Posted August 20, 2013 Share Posted August 20, 2013 I'll be the odd man out and say I'd prefer the dragon on the bridge. I think the dragon on the top is a bit expected so putting it on the bridge in a defensive position might be more interesting. He could be facing down the torch wielding horde. Also, if you lower the mountains in the view it may make the castle look more epic? A nice bright full moon just above the castle would put some interest there after you move the dragon to the bridge as well! If you leave the dragon up top, silhouetting him against a full moon might be nice anyway. I'm very excited about full moons today! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tommisalama Posted August 20, 2013 Author Share Posted August 20, 2013 Ok, so how did we make that castle. First of all, my sister designed it on paper. Here are drawings of it from every side. It was easy to construct it as we had these pictures in a very large size hanging on a wall. We first constructed the base for the castle from this lightweight board, that has some soft foam inside it. I have no idea what that board is called in english... The walls were cut into shape and glues together with hot glue. As the board was pretty soft to work with, we could cut some pieces out of it from the edges, to already start creating a worn, partly destroyed look. The base for the rock was made out of styrofoam. Styrofoam is very tricky to cut in shape, unless you have a special styrofoam-cutter, which is basically a heated metal wire. It melts the styrofoam so it doesn't crumble in to small annoying pieces. After this we started to sculpt the surface of the castle. We used standard artist clay, the one that doesn't need baking to cure. At this point we sculpted also the windows, and small cracks and weathering here and there. Here's a picture where I'm making the wall where the door goes. It also shows that we already started to paint it too. We did many things simultaneously to speed things up. First we painted basecoat with craft paints with a large flat brush. Some blacklining was also done for the windows. This pic shows how the rooftops were sculpted. I used a measure stick (what's it called, a flat long stick =) to press vertical lines across the roof, and then one by one made horizontal lines formed like bricks. a strong black wash was then applied to rooftops. You can also see in these pictures that we had started working on the rocky mountain too. It was made of black cardboard, which was soaked in water and then "crushed" to the surface of the styrofoam with PVA-glue. When it dried, it was hard and rock-like. Grey basecoat and it was also good to go. Here I run out of pictures before airbrushing. What we did was basically the same that you do when speed painting miniatures, only with larger brushes. A lot of black washing, then some heavy drybrushing with brown and white hues. We also made smaller details at this point, like crashed wooden structures from thin wood, a fence from tiny nails and string and so on. I made the bridge the same way we did the castle, structure with the light foamy board, then artist clay and sculpted the details. The upper part of the bridge was made of that thin wood we used. Then came the airbrushing. We used airbrush only with the rocky base, the castle itself is painted with brushes. Finally we decorated the whole thing with foliage, small branches for trees, and some hobby snow frost flakes and paste. That's kind of it =). 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tommisalama Posted August 20, 2013 Author Share Posted August 20, 2013 I'll be the odd man out and say I'd prefer the dragon on the bridge. I think the dragon on the top is a bit expected so putting it on the bridge in a defensive position might be more interesting. He could be facing down the torch wielding horde. Also, if you lower the mountains in the view it may make the castle look more epic? A nice bright full moon just above the castle would put some interest there after you move the dragon to the bridge as well! If you leave the dragon up top, silhouetting him against a full moon might be nice anyway. I'm very excited about full moons today! Cool thing about this is that as I photoshop the miniatures in place, I can easily try both ways! Hm, you might be right about the mountains and the epicness of it, I'll give it a try! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tommisalama Posted August 21, 2013 Author Share Posted August 21, 2013 (edited) Ok, I made some progress with the picture already yesterday evening, got some rivers, waterfall etc. Will post about that later on. Now I started to prepare my Pathfinder Red Dragon for painting. Man but I hate removing mold lines from Bones... I have no file that can do it, so have to just use my knife. I also wanted to paint the wings separately, but there are so huge caps I think I have to glue them first and apply some green stuff... Also I'm a bit concerned about the sponginess of the tail. Do any of you have some experience with this? Should I try to pin it somehow, or just leave it like that and start painting? Also thinking about priming. I don't have any red spray primers, and only black one, and white one are from Citadel and I heard they don't work very well on Bones... One option would be to make a green dragon out of it as I have Army Painter's Green spray primer, but I'd like to turn this to a Pathfinder cover diorama (the dragon is red in the cover) later on... I also have a grey primer, and bone primer, but I don't think either of them really contribute to the color scheme. Best option might be just to paint straight on with undilluted paint (my brushes won't like it). Edited August 21, 2013 by tommisalama Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeraintElberion Posted August 21, 2013 Share Posted August 21, 2013 The flexibility of the tail just reduces the chance of damage. You can leave it as it is. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psyberwolfe1 Posted August 21, 2013 Share Posted August 21, 2013 (edited) Since you have an airbrush thin any paint with Liquitex Airbrush medium and then paint the figure the color you want. No primer required for that Bones Dragon. The "sponginess" of the tail is part of the flexibility of Bones. Don't worry about it. Since you're in Europe if you can't find Liquitex Airbrush Medium, Vallejo makes an Airbrush Thinner that should also work fine. Edited August 21, 2013 by psyberwolfe1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KruleBear Posted August 21, 2013 Share Posted August 21, 2013 (edited) I would agree with having the dragon on the bridge or on one of the lower ledges of the castle. As for waterfalls, keep it small so it doesn't overwhelm the castle. Maybe several small falls sprouting from springs out of the cliff face rather than from a river. This screams as being too high up in the mountain for a river. btw very cool castle and i like the wip idea for recovering some of the memories you had making it with your sister. A bit of an extreme example: http://images2.fanpop.com/images/photos/5800000/Waterfalls-mountains-and-waterfalls-5835884-1999-1333.jpg Edited August 21, 2013 by KruleBear Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tommisalama Posted August 21, 2013 Author Share Posted August 21, 2013 (edited) Since you have an airbrush thin any paint with Liquitex Airbrush medium and then paint the figure the color you want. No primer required for that Bones Dragon. The "sponginess" of the tail is part of the flexibility of Bones. Don't worry about it. Since you're in Europe if you can't find Liquitex Airbrush Medium, Vallejo makes an Airbrush Thinner that should also work fine. I do have an airbrush, but the needle is broken, and I have never actually used one myself. It was my friend who did the airbrushing. That said, if I get it to work, can one airbrush in a balcony? Is it similar to how spray primers act? I would agree with having the dragon on the bridge or on one of the lower ledges of the castle. As for waterfalls, keep it small so it doesn't overwhelm the castle. Maybe several small falls sprouting from springs out of the cliff face rather than from a river. This screams as being too high up in the mountain for a river. btw very cool castle and i like the wip idea for recovering some of the memories you had making it with your sister. A bit of an extreme example: http://images2.fanpop.com/images/photos/5800000/Waterfalls-mountains-and-waterfalls-5835884-1999-1333.jpg I did some compositing and the dragon did look best at the top of the castle, but nothing's decided yet. At this point I have a small river running beneath the castle, and then small continuous waterfall falling from it. It does look a little silly, I think your proposition of several small falls would work better... Have to try it! The biggest challenge here is for me to get the scale right in the picture. The river beneath the castle is actually a lot smaller river in scale, so the rocks and all in it look a little funny when compared to the castle... Well, more on this later when I post a pic! Edit: cleaning the dragon from mould (or mold, which is it?) lines almost completed. Feeling very frustrated with the Bones material right now, hopefully it will pass =). Edited August 21, 2013 by tommisalama Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psyberwolfe1 Posted August 21, 2013 Share Posted August 21, 2013 (edited) You can airbrush where ever you like. Outside has it's limitations, but they can worked with. What brand is your airbrush? Because outside of it being a cheap Chinese knockoff getting replacement parts is a breeze. Once you figure out how to use your airbrush it will be better than spray primers. Edited August 21, 2013 by psyberwolfe1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tommisalama Posted August 21, 2013 Author Share Posted August 21, 2013 You can airbrush where ever you like. Outside has it's limitations, but they can worked with. What brand is your airbrush? Because outside of it being a cheap Chinese knockoff getting replacement parts is a breeze. Mm, but doesn't it need good ventilation and protection for the walls, furniture etc.? I have an Iwata HP-C. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.