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| Voidgamers Home :: Hirst Arts Terrain Building :: Hirst Arts Design Derby 4 | Printer Friendly Version |
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By KSKYHAPPY - Dec. 31, 1969 The idea behind the piece was to create a centre piece which would require minimum conversion (time now a limited commodity) for maximum impact, using standard blocks and also could be made from the four moulds I possess (I only used three). As a centrepiece I also wanted it to be a place where some big fights could take place and it had to match my existing modular dungeon and be flexible enough to link easily. This piece was conceived as a 5x5 centre piece room for Mageknight dungeons. I thought that as I had recently purchased the dragon’s accessory mould it would be a good idea to theme it towards the new Mageknight dragon’s gate expansion. The problem with making a dungeon "room" for mageknight is that in most rpg's a room is an enclosed space which triggers a series of events upon opening/entering it, in Mageknight this is done on a 5x5 tile, if i walled the tile in it would have left a 3x3 room - not much space to put stuff in or i could have made a 7x7 room but then it wouldn't have fit my modular dungeon. Therefore some sacrifices had to be made. I decided I didn’t want to lose to much space to structure yet i had to provide a sense of enclosed space, so i decided on a back wall with columns to mark enclosure. The piece uses the following moulds: 1. Large floor tile mould cast 4 times 2. Fieldstone wall mould cast at least 5 times 3. Dragon accessory mould cast 16 times It also uses the additional pieces: Citadel miniatures Emperor dragon head and Angor’s wings, these pieces are no longer available – they must be around 20 years old! However most dragon heads and wings can probably be substituted. Its size approx. is 7.5” x 7.5” x 4.5” Step 1. The base. Cut to size from foamcore board, I would prefer to use black foam core but the expense is prohibitive compared to white. Step 2. The floor tiles are glued into place using UHU glue including the base for the back wall. Step3. The columns. The columns are made completely from the dragon accessory mould and have decorative capitals which are made from gluing four of the dragon head skulls onto the quadrangles of the circular column pedestal. To do a real neat job you can fill the gaps in with Milliput – this can take a long time. As I was running out of time I only completed the front left column - as shown. It would also be a good idea to glue only the column bases on for now and glue the top parts on after the rest of the piece has been painted. Step 4. Build up the back wall. The important thing to remember is that to make it as stable as possible because it’s tall so use pieces which interlock in 3 dimensions where possible, this will help the model bear the unequal load of the dragon’s head. The “alcove” where the head is to be placed was conceived as an embellishment which would disguise any tricky modelling needed to fix the metal parts on – out of sight out of mind. Don’t add the spiral columns to the sides of the head yet as this is a cover strip to disguise the wing joints. Step5. The wings. These more or less just sit on the arches. I had to cut some flanges off the wings with a Stanley knife where the wings were designed to slot into the original models torso but otherwise there was little modelling involved. The wing nibs slotted nicely into the small square flat piece from the Fieldstone wall mould if you cut the corner off. It doesn’t really matter how ugly this joint looks as the next thing to do is to disguise it by covering it with a spiral column. If you’re a perfectionist a touch of Milliput in here can disguise a multitude of sins. Step 6. The dragons head. I may have been lucky with this old model as really all I needed to do was stick it into the hole I’d devised. The metal piece was quite heavy and I was concerned that if I glued it on it would shear off under it’s own weight, I considered pinning it in but to be honest it’s a messy process and I wondered whether a more practical method might be found. Luckily the model’s “base” had a concave nib where it attached to the torso, I rolled a ball of milliput and placed it in the nib then pressed it against the fieldstone wall letting the milliput work into the cracks, I then propped the head in place and it dried rock hard – no glue needed! Step 7. Painting. The first coat was a paynes grey to all the areas except the columns above the base, the paynes grey acrylic paint I use is a free flow artists paint it is basically black with ultramarine blue – no not those ultramarines. The next coat is 50/50 paynes grey/ white which was heavily dry brushed over the previous coat. The third coat is 20/80 paynes grey/white which is lightly dry brushed over the previous coat, I also used this mix to undercoat the columns and capitals. The fourth coat was to wash citadel Chaos black over the skulls. The fifth coat was to drybrush the columns and the underbelly white. In order to make some of the detail stand out I painted all the teeth, column bands, skull horns, dragon scales etc. chaos black. The bronze parts were then “wet” brushed Dwarf bronze, I call it wet brushing, it’s like dry brushing except you don’t wipe as much paint off the brush, you then use the side of the brush rather than tip – swiping carefully across the raised areas, it’s slower but gives you a bolder effect - you can also use a decent brush rather than a knackered one for accuracy. The teeth were given several coats of skull white and the dragon’s eye was undercoated white, I also painted a white line down the neck of the dragon in order to emphasize the fluid line of the model. With the dragons head, I wanted it to look like it was carved from the same stone as the fieldstone and columns guilt with bronze, embellished with ebony and embedded with ruby eyes. In order to get the jewel effect I painted the eyes orange, washed them deep red then highlighted with orange again. Step 8 varnishing. I use a citadel spray varnish which is supposed to give a matt finish, however it actually gives a satin finish, sprayed in several light coats to build up the protective finish. Step 9 the finishing touch, paint the foamcore board edges black.
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