Bad news first. I didn't manage to complete the Blackjack Painting Challenge for November. While the Hunters from the TWD group I was painting are close to completion I could decide whether to give them some camo clothing or not and by the time I decided that was what I wanted I realized I'd have to rush to get it done. I'd rather have the best that I can paint rather than ticks in the box. I worked more than a couple different painting and terrain projects and struggled to find the right one to build an article around which lead to this one coming in right under the wire. Whatever the assessment I am calling this a another successful month on the blogging front. Enough babbling and excuses; On to the Standing Stones!
The start of this project followed directly on the heels of the barrow build I did a few months back. I was so stoked with the results I came up with all sorts of grandiose schemes that blew up in my face but this one was more fizzle. I was a big fan of the plaster rocks I used but when I looked at reference photos of standing stones I realized right away the molds I had weren't going to do the job and that I was going to have to find a different way. I ended up cutting a dozen rectangular blocks from pink foam to form the stone circle. I carved the blocks down a bit introducing a slight taper at one end and rounded them by removing material with an Olfa blade.
Once I had a collection I liked I positioned them on an MDF base I cut for the project. The diameter of the base is only 8". It would be a poor representation of a major site like Stonehenge but could capably represent a lesser circle. My stones are relatively close in scale with the rocks at Stonehenge which average 13 feet high, 7 feet wide, and weigh in around 25 tons. The rocks at mini henge would scale around the same height, Be around 5 feet across and weigh in in the high teens. The photos I was surfing for inspiration showed damaged columns and rows so I broke off a few of the ugliest stones I cut. The breaks made the circle more visually interesting and made manipulating models within easier. Happy with the layout I used foam glue to anchor the pillars to the board, secured the cross sections, then sealed the MDF base with Modge Podge. Once everything dried I added Celluclay to the base as groundwork. I built the clay up around the bases of the stones. I wanted them to look as though they were part of the earth and rooted like great broken teeth. It also allowed me to introduce slight depressions between the pillars suggesting worn footpaths between the columns.
I wanted just a little more texture before I move to painting so I applied some wood filler I'd diluted with some water. I roughly brushed it on and stippled it around with the brush itself and afterwords with a sponge just before it became tacky. Afterword I left it to dry so I could paint the whole thing in one go. The stone was painted with with black and papyrus (bone colour) craft paints mixed by eye in increasingly higher concentrations of bone. The final drybrush was the papyrus colour alone. The ground work was a craft chocolate brown, a tan, and a bit of that bone shade to finish it. After allowing for the paint to dry I flocked the base with a mix of static grass and fine clump foliage.
The stone circle project worked out all right. It was a relatively simple project, that turned out all right visually, and is adaptable to multiple gaming genres. Above our intrepid investigators face a foul horror called from beyond by mad cultists and below a Saxon Thegn and his retainers take refuge in an old pagan circle.
Definitely another winner. It looks great! I'm very impressed with your eldritch horror figure and the three summoners.
ReplyDeleteThanks Bryan. I'm always looking for an excuse to post my CoC investigators and that flying Polyp because I really like the RAFM ranges. The new investigators are nice figures and the classic Mythos creatures have a fanciful, otherworldly wrongness to them that transcends, or even is accentuated by the old school sculpting style.
DeleteLooks great and very useful for alternate settings!
ReplyDeleteThanks Simon. I could have a couple more "vignettes" with alternate figures to try and get the point but I hoped two would be enough. There are some good circle/arcane stone scenery sets on the market but most are detailed with symbols and details that place them in a particular genre. While they look impressive the extra details narrow the field.
DeleteExcellent piece of terrain HP! Your rock heights look spot on with the figures 🙂
ReplyDeleteI'm happy you noticed that Ivor because it means the build plan paid off. The numbers I quoted in the article for Stonehenge came off Wikipedia. Once I had the cold hard figures I had a look at my base. Going into the project I wanted something that would look imposing but still wouldn't overwhelm a modest board just by virtue of it's footprint. I chose 8" because it gave me some scale but still left room for other features. I liked the height but as I grouped the stones in my little circle they were pretty tight. I removed a few from the build but to allow figures to pass through the stones better I also narrowed the stones themselves. They ended up a little weedier in the interest of functionality. I sized the height by assuming a model I had on hand was a 6 footer and built all of the models math from that point. That's actually how I do all my terrain builds. It's possible to make more realistic stuff but I always have to remind myself that I am building gaming pieces and need to allow for durability and playability.
DeleteThese have come out really well, I suppose the problem is as you said one of scale, most stone circles are just standing stones and can be almost any diameter but the Stonehenge ones are very rare and I think tend to be on the bigger side but they do look an iconic circle that the standard ones don't.
DeleteI'm very impressed with the way you have got the foam to look like cut rock, usually it looks very foam like. ;)
As Bryan said the figures look excellent.
Thanks Vagabond. The whole project was riding on the outcome of the stone. I was worried I wouldn't manage enough of a resemblance to stone and the whole effort was going to be a wash. Once they were cut and textured I was more condifent in the results of the project and it came together quickly.
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