Build: Rush Hour

No Challenge, No Cry

This project originated from - guess what? A challenge of course.
Paintomany, a painting studio and known youtube channel located in Germany, called for a competition called “Golden Detlef”.
No specific rules beside a time limitation of a month, and some categories.

I chose to apply in the “fantasy unit” category - so a group of at least 3 models.
And that was just because I fell in love with the Warhammer Age of Sigmar squig hoppers from the Night Goblin fraction. Crazy dudes, that ride on beasty, doglike blobs.

And since these guys had such powerful dynamic poses I imagined them chasing down a hill, partly slipping or jumping in total chaos.

Sketch the key aspects

I had a few ideas in mind and tried to visualize them with a sketch. One squig should stumble over a rock or hill - he should look as if he’s close to falling or jumping

Another should slip in a curve of mud. And I wanted a cave where animals are hiding.

The base had to be quite steep downhill. I could work with a saw on a wooden block, but styrofoam is just so much more flexible that I went that route.

With a bit of modeling paste (DAS) and some cork pieces for the rocks, it wasn’t too much of an effort to get the basics done.

Nice and clean Plinth

But then I stumbled into a topic that I still haven't solved until today for my projects:
How to get the socket / sides nice and clean?
Sure, it can be sanded and painted black, but you still see structures of wood on the lower part but not on the styrofoam part and nicks and crannies everywhere. Just look at these previous projects to see what I mean:

So I went to the craft store and check what can be used to repair wood and came up with that one:

Probably there are other companies selling such things too - it’s just a putty to fix gaps in e.g. wooden tables. Smells horribly, but I once was told about hobby stuff: If it doesn’t smell - it’s probably crap (-:
I did a quite thick layer and let it dry a day - that approach required patience.

And then you have to sand. That day I sanded by hand, now I use a simple electric hand sander, that saves alot of time.
The result was quite cool - a very clean and even finish:

The Image is made after a second coat - we'll come to that in a minute

Vegetation

Finally it was time to add nature. Starting with some twigs as branches or tree stumps - that was important to me as it should put emphasis on the chaotic rush downhill over trees and stones. Furros carved into the styrofoam should show that the squigs are really sliding and stumbling downhill - and that there were many more squigs running ahead.

The ground was covered with brown basing paste foam flock, sand and leaves that were pressed into it.
The leaves are made by a stamp from AK and inked coffee filters.

 

I like these stamps alot and would love to see more variants of them - especially smaller ones.The filters soak the color well without getting too “wet paper” like.
Finally I printed some mushrooms and hedgehogs that run away into the cave.

Priming and the plinth … again

The primed base looked promising but If you look closely, you’ll still see uneven spots on the socket front. I sanded too much and some spots didn’t have sufficient wood repair paste on it. Another layer of that paste was added later and you’ll see in the painting tutorial that the socket is white again - Probably I should write a tutorial on “clean socket sides - do’s and don’ts” one day (-: