Here Thar be Treasure - Part 3

This is the last installment of the diorama base. I have blended in all the hand carved elements last night and touched up the paint and added some ground cover. I'm very happy with this, wish I could enter it without miniatures! The minis are almost ready to go on it and I'm looking forward to wrapping this one up. Although its perfectly within the rules to post pictures of it prior to the competition, I just don't do that. ReaperCon is next week so if you aren't there in person to see it I'll get the pictures posted when I get back.

The vines may need to be trimmed back a bit at this point. I'll make that decision when I'm ready to place the miniatures. Oh and I think the title is going to be Hasty Exit (despite the title of the post).

Here thar be treasure - Part 2

I had something of a disaster tonight. I was working on the "hero" for the diorama and she literally broke in half when I went after a mold line that I missed. Literally broke in half across the stomach. I tried to glue her back together but was only partially successful. So my choice is to start over or give her one hell of a scar across her stomach. If I can find another one locally I'm going to start over on her, I'm just not sure I can pull the scar off.

So instead of painting the miniatures I opted to get the base as close to finished as I could tonight. Here are some pictures of tonight's progress. This has come a long way from what I showed the other day. I would say that its really about 90% complete at the moment. I'm leaving one wall loose so I can position the minis inside the hall correctly, then I'll seal the whole think up. I'm please with the claustrophobic effect its giving off right now.
So a shot from the last time.

And how it looks now, without the wall.

 And with the wall in place

Here thar be treasure, Arrrrrr

Its not really talk like a pirate day but over the weekend I did make a start on my second competition entry. I'm going to show the current state of affairs on this piece. Not sure how much I'll show after this but I wanted to maybe get a little feedback on how its looks. I worked on this tonight too, I am feeling a little overwhelmed with what I need to do on the first piece, sometimes its just better to take a break and let things gel in your head so that's the tack I'm taking there. Oh, and before you get to the pictures, my carving skills are not the best, fortunately its story we are going for here.

So a little commentary, Most of this is constructed from good old white sheet styrene. Where I really need some thickness in the walls I made a sandwich using a piece of foam core (or two) on the inside and styrene on the outside. Then I kind jigsawed it all together. Tonight I add the Milliput which forms the out surface of the walls and the floors. Milliput is a two part putty that stays workable for 15 or 20 minutes before it really hardens up. After that it takes real carving to make a dent in the stuff. I can already see I have left a thumbprint behind so that will have to be filed away. Right now it still breaks down into its component parts, two sides, one front and the base. Ultimately it will also sit on a oval display base, which defined the shape and size that I was going to work with. At some point I'll assemble the whole thing but its likely that the two corridor walls will have probably not be permanently attached until the miniatures are done and ready to be added.

I'm not quite sure what to do with the back of the corridor. When you look through the front I don't you to see out the back. I suppose a little perspective drawing will be in order to cover that up. I have a lot of ideas for this one and we will see how many I can include before its time to enter it. This one may still be drying when it hits the contest room!