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Abandoned Aquila
I was originally going for a jungle/rainforest type set of ruins but couldn't get the right picture in my head to make it work on the model, so ended up going with more traditional forest floor instead. I have some little trees and branches I was going to include but none of them ended up looking right. I might try and pick up another aquila at some point and sculpt a massive tree growning out of it, with roots destroying the rocks and scenery. It uses a combination of real mosses, premade tufts, ground up herbs, different flocks and pigments for all the plants and dirt effects. The stone looked really boring without any effects on it so I used lots of stippling in grey tones, and some careful glazes and then careful washes with a paint + pigment mix, which was then brushed off certain areas. To try and get it to look nice and natural (random) I built it up in stages, starting with different pigment colours and mixes going over the base area. Next was some thinned pva glue put in some places, and the ground herbs sprinkled on. Some fluffy flock was mixed with matte varnish and then added to the most covered, darkest areas of the model where I thought dark, moist moss would grow. This was follow with a mix of the previous moss with greener, lighter flock added and this mix put on the model in lighter areas where I thought more colourful plant with more chlorophyll would flourish. This kindof went round in a cyle, with light pigment washes and then bits of plant added here and there. Some of the plants got drybrushed with greens and yellow to make them stand out. The final part was pulling off individual strands from a moss clump I had found and dried out, that looked like little plaits. I glued them on areas that were a bit dull, monotone or lacking in different detail. I glued the tufts down in areas I thought could do with a bit more height and directional plants coming out of them. I kept rotating the model to look at it from different angles to make sure I didn't have any big gaps or overcrowding before I added more stuff. I had some very fine moss that I glued glowing up the sides of the rocks. Then I picked out some rocks from where they had been covered by the pigments, but I wanted them to break up the browns a bit. It was really fun to make. I got a lot of nerdy pleasure individually placing bits of tuft and plants. I think the photography is getting better as well, although getting the background completely white is turning out to be a pain in the ass. I originally sat down to photo and sort a bunch of things to put up for sale on ebay but just doing the pictures of the terrain took a couple of hours.
Posted: 25 May 2013
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