90's inspired 40,000 terrain

KingOfTheLeadPile

KingOfTheLeadPile

Member
The air drying clay I am using is contracting quite a bit when drying, here you see gaps between stem and base as well as between stem and top. Both were not there when I was done sculpting.



PXL_20240519_183748611-w960.jpg

view full sized image
​


So I had to take another round and fill those gaps at the top at least, the ones to the base will be covered by sand anyways.




When all were done, I gave them a coat of Mod Podge, cheap acrylic black and alcohol (to get the mixture better flowing characteristics) and sealed the models.




The "leaves" are now pretty hard, but still thin, so I must pay attention to not exert too much pressure with my fingers, when handling the trees, otherwise the "leaves" will snap off.




Next came the airbrush, I first mixed Molotow Purple Violet about 4:20 with Molotow Vanilla Pastel as an underpainting for 3/4 of the height, leaving the top black. Then I came in with pure Vanilly Pastel over the whole stem, leaving the purplish tone slighty showing towards the bottom.




The top "hairs"/centers of the garlic was also sprayed Vanilla Pastel. The "leaves" got a white ink spray, trying to get them less covered going outwards.




Next up are some oils.
 
KingOfTheLeadPile

KingOfTheLeadPile

Member
As I only had about half of my trees done with the garlic shrooms, and it is clear that our garlic consumption will not let me finish the woods any time soon, I needed to look for an alternative.


Last summer, I had collected a bunch of acorn cupules, which I decided to use for another very common tree sized mushroom plant found on the planet - colloquially known as lantern shroom.




After all the wire armatures were done, I drilled holes into the cupules, pushed a wire through and then gave it a 90° bend at the tip to prevent the cupule to fall off again.






All the mushrooms got a first coat of air drying clay, to fix their shape.




 
symphonicpoet

symphonicpoet

Moderator
Oh, those acorn cap plants are great! I recall someone from France making sweetgum seed pods. (I jokingly offered to send them buckets of the stuff since I rake them up and throw them out by the barrel every year, but I'm not sure it'd be affordable after shipping. And I'm not sure how customs would like American seedpods showing up at CDG. Never you mind that some American rootstock saved their wine industry.) Anyway . . . hmm . . . you give me ideas. :) Fantastic!
 
KingOfTheLeadPile

KingOfTheLeadPile

Member
I switched to black Fimo (soft), as my airdrying clay was nearly used up and wouldn't last me for the rest of the 'trees'.


In three stages, I sculpted the exterior structure, trying to blend the cupules with the stems. After each stage, the models went to the oven at 110°C for 30 mins.








With the final batch, I also scultped some small pieces that will go onto the bases, to fungify them a bit and connect them visually to the 'trees'.


 
KingOfTheLeadPile

KingOfTheLeadPile

Member
I painted the bases and the lantern shrooms. To get a bit variety, I choose a 4:1 Molotow 203 cool grey pastel and 206 lagoon blue for the bottom to about half; oversprayed that with cool grey, and for the top quarter or so used 115 vanilla pastell as with the first batch of mushrooms. The lampshades got a final highlight of white ink. All colors were applied by airbrush.


 
KingOfTheLeadPile

KingOfTheLeadPile

Member
I prepared oil washes, by first letting excess oil soak into a piece of cardboard.




The lantern trees have the color progression from purple over green to the tan; so they got a purple/green oil wash into the lower areas, that was then blended into a brown wash for the upper part.


The garlic shrooms don't have the green, so here I used purple/black blending into brown.




After letting the oil washed cure for ~2 hours, I removed the wash from the raised areas with make-up sponges.


The oils have now to dry thoroughly, before I will follow up with a final drybrush.
 
Brother Meredith

Brother Meredith

Member
How much of an issue is the excess oil? I have seen use of cardboard before creating a wash on YouTube videos, but not heard an explanation or reasoning.
 
KingOfTheLeadPile

KingOfTheLeadPile

Member
To my understanding it only affects drying times. The oil takes very long to dry, if you remove the majority of it before applying, the mineral spirit evaporates quite quickly; the rest of the oil paint then does not take that long anymore.

I also find it easier to mix the consistency with white spirit to my liking, if I am working from the dryer paste.
 
KingOfTheLeadPile

KingOfTheLeadPile

Member
After basecoating the bases in the mid brown I have been using for this terrain set, I applied the same mix of flock and aquarium sand as for the rest. Still need to better blend in some of the fungi pieces.


I then placed all the parts in their final storage layout on 5mm MDF sheets. For the bases, I marked their position to not play tetris every time I want to store them. The 'trees' are stored randomly, there is enough space, but I covered their MDF sheet in magnetic foil, so the trees, with their metal washer bases, will not fall around in the storage box.




My next job is to paint all the shroom bases and sprinkle sand on them.
 
KingOfTheLeadPile

KingOfTheLeadPile

Member
The garlic shrooms are done. The initial plan was to paint their heads with oil colours, to get intense and vibrant colours to contrast with the rather dull stems. But then I recently bought the Golden SoFlat fluorescent paints (and used two non-fluorescent ones as there is no blue fluorescent yet), and thought, well, vibrant - check.


Here is the result:




I used two colours per head, with the darker one towards the center, then wet blending on the model towards the lighter. The fluorescent paints aren't very opaque, so that the underlying zenithal white over black shines through and adds to the colour modulation.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top