Dragon dior-drama!

[Amazon warrior]

...please?

Right, I do so like jumping in the deep end, so here\'s my latest mapcap scheme. I have never made a diorama before, and my most complicated base to date was the Reaper butterfly chick. But now, I have two awesome dragons that deserve the best I can manage. I need help!

I have a nice chunk of \"rock\" as my base (pet stores are ace!), and I know roughly what I want to do with it, but to save myself large quantities of blood, sweat and tears, I thought I\'d ask you all for your advice and opinions.

Currently, my base looks like this:

The top picture is the \"front\" and the bottom is the \"back\". My thought at the moment is to use something (polyfilla, perhaps?) to fill in the hollows at the back, then use some sort of water \"stuff\" (but not the pee-coloured resin of doom that Liz had such an awful experience with!) to make a waterfall that comes out of that nice big hole. Where will it go next? Haven\'t a clue!

BUT! I also quite like the cave-like atmosphere of the \"back\", and am wondering if I can turn this idea around.

Any advice or suggestions you clever folk have would be a huge help right now, I have ideas but no routeplan!

(For reference, the dragons\'ll be on top of the rock, and that cork oval will be what everything\'s built on to.)

 

[PegaZus]

I think that the waterfall idea, which is a great idea, won\'t work with this rock. Unless of course, you\'re willing to fill up to the top of the hole with water effects, but could get mighty expensive.

Since you\'ve got two dragons, why not make them male and female, guarding a clutch of eggs? The first picture would be the outside of the cave, and inside you could put some treasure piles along with a bunch of dragon eggs.

Barring that, you could turn the rock over, with the top picture\'s face down. Fill the inside with a little water effect, and either sacrifice one of the dragons (or better yet, get some dragon bits) to create one of the dragons coming out of the \"well\" cave. That would mean that these dragons would all be aquatic living, but that\'s a thought.

Going back to the original orientation, why not make it a lava cave? Lots of places to put puddled lava amongst the treasure, with lots of OSL practice.

And that just brought up another idea. Just make it a simple treasure cave, with some adventurers carrying as much as they can and headed for the exit. The title? What else?! SNACK TIME!

Anyway, there is a few other ideas. Maybe something will spark.

 

[Amazon warrior]

Oooh! Some of those ideas have interesting possibilities. Cheers! I knew this was a good idea.

Regarding the dragons, their positions are fairly fixed. They\'re the Ral Partha box set \"The Conflict\" Here\'s an example. Any serious conversion of these guys is way beyond my current ability level, and I like their poses too much to change a lot. I have some ideas for the paint scheme based around the fact that they\'re in close contact with each other too.

With the waterfall, I was thinking of having it as more of a stream flowing out of a cave in the rock, thereby dodging having to fill the hole completely. Having never, ever used water effects, I don\'t know whats possible and what\'s not. But having them fighting over eggs is an intriguing idea. I like that a lot!

Edit: I\'m reluctant to do a treasure theme because I already have another two dragons (Steve Jackson\'s Valor and Snarl) that I want to use in just such a situation.

(I like dragons a bit. Can you tell? lollol)

 

[PegaZus]

Well, if you were doing just one side, then it probably would be fine to do the waterfall. And I do like the waterfall a lot. But, other than blocking off the entire back of the rock, I think it\'d be hard. Then again...

Reverse what you\'ve got. Make the back the front and the front the back. I\'m not sure that will work because I can\'t see it very well. Now, what have you got? You\'ve got an undercut cave, and now the water system can flow from the center hole, down into a pool that is the second hole, then down just a little bit into the main lake/pond/whatever.

Let me fire up the Gimp and I\'ll illustrate what I\'m talking about.

 

[Amazon warrior]

Yeah...

Ideally, I\'d like this to be viewable from all angles, so blocking the back isn\'t the most thrilling solution. The undercut cave could be very cool.

I eagerly await the Gimping!

 

[PegaZus]

Okay, here\'s what I came up with. I added a couple of rocks by just copying some of the rock. You could probably use whatever you want. I didn\'t add any grass or aquatic plants. I think you\'d want to leave the water on the cork as thin as possible. I\'ve yet to see something \"unbordered\" that was nice.

 

[Amazon warrior]

Oh hey! Cheers man! That\'s great!

You\'re right, this is definitely the way to go with this. It even nicely fits the curve of the oval! I\'m going to build up the cork base a lot with cork rocks, polyfilla, basing sand, whatever, so there will be a border to the pool and it can be a bit deeper. I literally only bought this thing yesterday, so any suggestion is a good one right now.

 

[Amazon warrior]

I\'s in your hoard...

...stealing your lewtz!

Ok, so seeing as I\'m doing two dioramas, I\'ve decided to make a WIP thread for both of them. They\'re both for dragons, but hopefully with quite different themes and feels.

This is the other one I\'m working on. I bought these dragons years ago from fleabay, and havn\'t really known what to do with them since, but I think they\'d make a good diorama. I just cobbled the base together from cork sheet and basing sand and dotted a few bits around to see what it\'ll look like all together.

I\'ve ordered the Fenryll treasures and chests to use as well, and if I need to I\'ll make some extra coins out of GS. I was also thinking of buyng some really cheap beads to add as chunky gems and some basic skellies to cut up as \"remains\". What do you think?

 

[PegaZus]

I can see now why you didn\'t want to do the treasure hoard with the rock! I think it looks good so far. I\'d personally want to put the owner dragon up higher, but that won\'t really work well with the poses, and I know you said you didn\'t want to convert.

Its a little sad that you\'ve probably missed the sale, but I picked up a BUNCH of glitter and glass beads from Hobby Lobby the weekend after New Year\'s. They were nearly giving the stuff away. Bought 13 bottles of the stuff for $6. Figured I\'d just sit down and make a bunch of treasure chests and dragon hoards. Might have to go grab me some dragon models and make my own diorama.

 

[Amazon warrior]

Yep!

Converting these guys wouldn\'t be so bad. They\'re a super-simple sculpt and they were cheap as. The only thing I\'ve done, however, is make their poses a little more interesting by bending legs, wings and tails. I could make the dragon on the platform higher, but I\'d have to unstick everything, which would be... interesting!

Converting the other two, tho? :no::no: Honestly, it\'s going to be bad enough just getting them to go together as they are, without me changing stuff. I spent an alarming amount of time yesterday just drilling holes and filling gaps, and this is only on one of them. The only thing that gives me hope is knowing just how kick-a$$ they\'ll look when I\'m done. (I hope! lol)

Shiney things are good! I think I was a magpie in a former life! lol Luckily, one of my other hobbies is bead-collecting. Unluckily, I don\'t have any of my collection here, but I\'ll figure something out.

Do it! The one who finishes first gets to, uh, finish first!

 

[Amazon warrior]

I need to be certified. I don\'t know what made me buy these horrendously spiky, awkward sods, and then want to do a stupidly complicated diorama with them. I have holes in my hands from trying to hold them together and make sure bits line up like they\'re supposed to.

I\'m going to paint the dragons seperately, and I think I\'ve finally figured out everything so that I can fit them together with out too much grief when the time comes. I need to do a bit more gap-filling and decide what the hell I\'m doing about the wings, but then I should be able to prime them up and get going.

This is the progess so far:

I tested out a few possible poses with my \"rock\", and I think this one\'s the winner. With a trickling water-effects stream/pool underneath, rocks and so forth, as suggested by PegaZus, I think it\'ll look good. I\'ve drilled some pinning holes for fixing the dragons to the diorama later on, and I have some wickedly strong epoxy glue. I\'m gonna need it!

Thoughts? Spare straight-jacket?

 

[NINJAWIZARD]

I think this will be bad ass.

Great pose. Love the idea of dragons fighting

Originally posted by Amazon warrior
I need to be certified. I don\'t know what made me buy these horrendously spiky, awkward sods, and then want to do a stupidly complicated diorama with them. I have holes in my hands from trying to hold them together and make sure bits line up like they\'re supposed to.

I\'m going to paint the dragons seperately, and I think I\'ve finally figured out everything so that I can fit them together with out too much grief when the time comes. I need to do a bit more gap-filling and decide what the hell I\'m doing about the wings, but then I should be able to prime them up and get going.

This is the progess so far:

I tested out a few possible poses with my \"rock\", and I think this one\'s the winner. With a trickling water-effects stream/pool underneath, rocks and so forth, as suggested by PegaZus, I think it\'ll look good. I\'ve drilled some pinning holes for fixing the dragons to the diorama later on, and I have some wickedly strong epoxy glue. I\'m gonna need it!

Thoughts? Spare straight-jacket?

 

[demonherald]

other than that looks awesome nothing to add....can\'t wait to see the progress

 

[Amazon warrior]

Nor can I! lol

 

[Amazon warrior]

Is it threadomancy to ressurect your own WIP thread? ??? Anywho, treasure!

Is there too much on there? Not enough? Most of it can still be moved if necessary- the skellies still have \"sandals\" because I haven\'t filed down that last bit of base yet. Figured I\'d hold off on that until I knew they were staying! The piles of loot are from Fenryll, most of the other bits are from Reaper (tho there is a Rackham shield in there too), and I made some more coins out of GS. Easy enough, and I can make more if needed. I decided I liked the idea of someone hacking open one of the chests, so I marked up the lid of one a bit and stuck an axe into the biggest gash. The half-eaten dude is a combination of a skellie and a mounted chap (I wanted the horse but had no use for the rider- until now!), and I\'m really pleased with how he looks.

Whadd\'yall think?

 

[matt15595]

WOW!!!!!!!!!

lol how long did you TAKE to make all those greenstuff gold coins hahaha

bet that was fun

i really like this idea of two dragons fighting over each other\'s loot

its cool. cant wait to see it finished!!

 

[Amazon warrior]

:redface: Thanks!

The coins didn\'t take as long as you might expect- they\'re just sliced up rolls of GS- the trick is to suspend them from a shelf or similar so you don\'t get that flat, squashed side. The worst part was making sure they didn\'t ping off round the room when I was cutting them! Do you think it needs any more?

Hopefully I can find time to actually put some paint on it. I have a mad-hectic schedule at the moment- work from 9-5.30, German class 6-9 every day except Friday.

 

[Friar]

Looks awesome, this is going to be a fantastic diorama can\'t wait to see it done. The scene looks good I think it\'s at a very good place not to busy but not boring at all

 

[demonherald]

looking good ...... certainly gonna be fun to paint but it\'s detail like that that makes a diorama for me...keep it up..

 

[Maron]

It is looking great.

There are enough coins there for me.

I love the pose of the defensive dragon.

Looking forward to seeing this one develop.