'Meremaid Reapercon entry

[Marineal]

I decided to stop being silly and start posting my progress here. :)

For this diorama, I'm using 02648: Schumacher, 03631: Quoralei, and 77511: Xiloxoch with some pretty heavy modifications.

This is going to be a long post. Strap in and get ready!

 

The concept for my diorama starts with me deciding what a swamp mermaid (or 'Meremaid) looked like. I got on pinterest and started looking around for evil mermaids, etc. I know that, historically, mermaids/sirens lured men to their death, but generally speaking people think more Ariel anymore. I didn't want that. I wanted something that looked pretty on top, was deadly under the water. When I was searching for miniatures, I would find one or the other, so I knew I would have to do some converting. I also knew I wanted a kneeling man, preferably with an outreaching arm. After some searching on my own, and asking around on the forums, I ended up deciding on these component pieces.

 

The man was going to be the easiest conversion, so let's start with him. 

I pretty much just cut off his sword, modeled a thumb (cause I accidentally snipped it!), and bent his arm.

it 

I'm going to go back in and reduce that thumb a little, but it was arguing and I was tired. :) It will be painted like a glove since it has some separation from the sleeve now. I would love it if I could either unbend his fingers or sculpt new ones on, but that did not look right when I tried it. I may end up doing a complete hand transplant, but we'll see.

Next up, my 'Meremaid. 

The reason I've been doing all this practice resin is that I want her to be submerged from the waist down. I'm not interested in doing a whole lot of converting and painting and then having my resin screw up and wanting to die. :)

So, started with 2 component parts:

This is after both had some cropping done. I removed the head of the naga, and the dangly bits from Quoralei's arms. They were just getting in the way, and not what I imagined for her. 

Then a little more surgery:

That was a scary cut to commit to. Even though I can order more and nothing is set in stone, it was worrisome.

Test fitting her into her new legs:

See how her neck is bent funny? I think she had some difficulty somewhere along the way. I straightened out her head and one of her arms a bit, and I think it made a big difference. I had started this mini last year sometime as a quick paintjob that I then hated. That's why she's got some paint on her. I also decided I wanted to redo the 'fins' on her back, so she has some weird growths for a bit. :)

Greenstuff begins! I am by no means a master sculptor (see the above thumb), but I feel like I did this justice, especially considering it will be somewhat submerged.

I knew I wanted some sort of dorsal fins on her, I just had to make them myself. I used pieces of the existing model and cut them up and thinned them out a bit to give the effect I was looking for. A little smoothing, a little priming, and she looks good as new!

I decided to do a little zenithal priming on her so I could see the details and see if anything stuck out as 'wrong'.

I also decided that I wanted her to have a little bit of a fin on the end of her tail, so I cut that out of some bonesium I had laying around. I like the asymmetrical, angular look of it.

When I looked at her now, I wanted her to have a few more details, so I added some skulls to the base and gave her a crown. It's super fancy because it's made from toothpicks. lol

 

I also threw on a coat of black green, because I want her to look more crocodilian than fishy... We'll see how she turns out. 

I also decided I wanted to add a bunch of foliage and swamp-y stuff, so I used my leftover green stuff to play around. Again, NOT a pro at this. Definitely have a steep learning curve ahead of me!

I made a cute little lizard for her base, just because. I intended to use the snail shells in her crown, but they were just too big. I didn't think starfish and normal 'mermaid' stuff would work in her hair since she's not in the 'sea'. I may do some moss or net-type things eventually. For now, I'm happy with her conversion and hope to move forward with my resin experiments into actually pouring them onto practice bases instead of just into molds. 

Let me know what you think!!! I'd love any C&C since I'm hoping to enter this at Reapercon. Also, if you're a judge, look away!! :D

Edited February 8, 2019 by Marineal
Changed title

[Glitterwolf]

Great project!

 

[kristof65]

Ooh, can't wait to see how this progresses.  

[WhiteWulfe]

I can't wait to see how this progresses! 

[Adrift]

Great to see you back at it Jessi!

[paedia]

Great start!

[Serenity]

Cool project.  Since you asked for comments, is Xiloxoch a must-use part of this?  I would have selected a thinner and perhaps shorter snake body for the lady.  It would read more mermaid-like to me.

[Marineal]

3 minutes ago, Serenity said:

Cool project.  Since you asked for comments, is Xiloxoch a must-use part of this?  I would have selected a thinner and perhaps shorter snake body for the lady.  It would read more mermaid-like to me.

Honestly, I just started looking for alternate pieces I could use since I didn't like the other mermaid bodies I had and I happened to see the naga. 

I definitely agree that she's a little less mermaid-y, but several larger (out of production!!! :( ) minis have similar proportions. 

 

Thanks for your comment tho! I didn't even think about it again once I found a piece I already had that fit the bill. lol

[Rigel]

The Beautiful Melusine! There's precedent for the long snake-tail in European folklore. 

A lovely execution of a brilliant idea so far.  

Cattail reeds might be good for a marshy area; I bet "hot-dogs" of GreenStuff on floral wire would do the trick. And lily pads should be supremely easy to sculpt.

Snails, turtles, and frogs are all good swampy fauna, too. Maybe a wading bird like a heron. 

[Marineal]

8 minutes ago, Rigel said:

The Beautiful Melusine! There's precedent for the long snake-tail in European folklore. 

A lovely execution of a brilliant idea so far.  

Cattail reeds might be good for a marshy area; I bet "hot-dogs" of GreenStuff on floral wire would do the trick. And lily pads should be supremely easy to sculpt.

Snails, turtles, and frogs are all good swampy fauna, too. Maybe a wading bird like a heron. 

I have cattails and lily pads already! 

I'll have to look up melusine, I'm not familiar! 

Thanks for the swampy fauna! I was drawing a blank. Lol

[Marineal]

Alright! I had to work a few days, and had a few failures, but here's the update!

I had 3 back to back resin fails... but then I had a success! I figured out that I am just going to have to do multiple pours. And I bought a new mold to try out. 

So, fail with demoulding and building my own mold. 

Then the first pour worked out fine.

Then the second and third pours. I discovered that the 3rd pour was the clearest and least bubbly, so I will be going with 50mL pours for my future attempts.

You can definitely see the lines of the different pours, so that's my next hurdle. Always gotta have a hurdle. But you can also see how much better that third layer is. Considering I used the same technique for each layer and the volume was the only variable, I think I have a winner.

I also finally managed to get the corners completely filled!!! My hypothesis was that my reaction was kind of running away with itself, and I needed to try smaller volumes. Looks like I was right on that note.

 

So, that's where I am right now. Hoping to have some painting to show for here soon. Just been pretty busy, and I have to be in the right headspace to paint. Otherwise I hate whatever I do. ;)

 

Hope y'all enjoyed it!

 

[Marineal]

So continues my adventures into resin pouring and Silver seeking.

I ordered a new mold. It's round, and hold 1 LITER of resin/wax. Might have gone a little big, but my options were limited. When I received it, imagine my joy when I realized that a gargantuan sized base fits snugly!!! It will work perfectly for what I have in mind!! **happy dance**

Here's where we start. I used my air dry clay (THE 10 LB BOX!) to build up a rough structure with a few pieces of balsa wood to reinforce it and serve as the supports for my dock. I want it to be a little taller than her, as she will be hip deep in water. I also want a little sunken alcove in there I will fill with bones. 

Another angle where you can see her hand reaching towards the dock, and her alcove.

Then I built it up some more. I decided to go ahead and fill in the base. 

Starting work on my dock/bridge. I have a bag of scrap balsa wood I bought at hobby lobby, and it comes in super handy. So I chopped some up and roughed it up to make it look aged. Fair warning: If you use one of those wirey-scrapey things, it will draw blood. ;)Came back to my clay after nap time and it had pulled away from the base!

It was kind of cool that it molded the details perfectly though...

Therefore, I added another layer! I decided to build it up a little more.

More work on my dock. Since I wanted to have a 'broken' plank, I needed a center support. They're basecoated a mixture of blackened brown, some swampy green, and ginger cookie.

Then I mixed up my gross stuff. It's some acrylic paste, some PVA, some paint, and a whole lotta basing materials. I would suggest using your cheap stuff that you have a lot of for this, as it took quite a lot to get this consistency. I'm using old oregano from my pantry, tea leaves, and some small leaves that I stamped out of real leaves. 

Then I smeared it all over everything. And I added cat-tails! I added a few more pieces of broken wood here and there, and some femurs. But they're not totally visible yet. Eventually there will be more and they will be super creepy. 

Bridge/dock assembled! I did some more highlighting, but then I thought it needed more.

So I cut a bunch more stuff out of it, shaded and highlighted more, and added a few leaves. The man will be kneeling on it, so most of it will be invisible. I'm enjoying looking at it now, because it will be covered up soon. 

Bridge/dock think test-placement. 

I think its gonna work!

Once the first layer of grossness (and the air dry clay) have completely dried, I may have to add another layer. Once those are done, I will start adding more greenery. I really just wanted to try out the cattails, and they needed to be in the actual clay. For some reason. I just needed them in the clay, okay?That's it for now!!! I know I haven't been doing much painting, but I don't even have 12 minutes guaranteed for painting, and I really can't get motivated to try without a solid block of time. 

 

Let me know what you think!

 

 

Edited February 5, 2019 by Marineal

[Glitterwolf]

That looks great!

Who made those cat tails?

 

The scene is coming along fine, I think it will tell a great story when finished.

[Marineal]

4 hours ago, Glitterwolf said:

That looks great!

Who made those cat tails?

 

The scene is coming along fine, I think it will tell a great story when finished.

 Hmm.. It appears my pictures loaded funny in mobile.. Sorry about that. 

 

Thanks so much! I have high hopes! 

They're from Woodland scenics I believe. I have a ton of other aquarium greenery I have repainted to serve as swamp foliage as well! 

[Marineal]

Did some more work last night until the Tiny Overlord decided that was unacceptable. Lol

My tempted man's hand finally fell off. It had been manipulated quite a bit, so I was pretty much expecting that. Ordered 2 new ones, just in case. 

Then I painted some small details just o I remember they're there. Mostly that wood pieces. I'm going to get my airbrush fired up and do some painting on it so I don't risk a dry brush on all the little pieces. 

Right now it kind of looks like a hornets' nest, but I like it!. There are 2 femurs at the bottom, and more to come. When the air dry clay hardened, it shrunk back a little. So I'm having to do som excavation to get her in there now. I may end up just building it up some more around her. We'll see. My goal for today is to make a mockup of this (just some air dry clay and my leftover mud mixture) and pour some resin on it and see how it does. My concerns are that it may have a lot of bubbles. 

The other thing I need my airbrush for is to work some more on these aquarium plants. Brushing them is pretty tedious, and I think an airbrush would lend a softer touch. 

They'll be clipped and added all over for a swampy feel. The one sitting next to the dot of glue is a kind of makeshift fern. 

So, that's my new progress!