Fury of Dracula - WIP

CreganTur

Member
This is a pretty cool commission I\'m doing for a friend. If you\'ve never heard of the board game \"Fury of Dracula\", you should really check it out. You need 5 players to get the whole experience. 1 person plays Dracula: your movement is hidden from the players, but tracked by cards you draw, so you can\'t cheat. You leave behind traps and enemies for the hunters while trying to stay alive and possibly create more vampires.

The other 4 players are hunters, main characters from Bram Stoker\'s \'Dracula\'. You gather weapons and items to keep you alive in combat, while trying to track down Dracula throughout most of europe. The miniatures that come with the game are plastic, and have some pretty good detail to them:

Dracula1.jpg

From right to left: Dracula, Lord Goldaming, Van Helsing, Doctor Seward, & Mina Harker.

You can see on Dracula\'s arm that there\'s some flash on these minis, as well as some mold lines that I\'ll have to clean up. The biggest challenge is Lord Goldaming. I couldn\'t get a good picture of it, but there\'s some melted plastic on the left side of his face that literally looks like his eyeball is melting out of his face. It\'s going to take some careful cutting and sculpting to get him looking right again.

Here\'s a pic for scale:
Dracula2.jpg


Here\'s a closeup of the lovely Mina Harker to show the detail of the minis:
Dracula3.jpg


My friend wants these minis to look like the character portraits on the game cards. This cuts out the trouble of me having to come up with an original color scheme. But, this is a very dark game and the the portraits all make liberal use of OSL, so this is going to be a great learning experience for me, since my OSL painting skills are a little weak.

Also, if you look at the pic of Mina Harker above, you\'ll notice that she\'s sitting on a 1\" round base. I\'m going to rebase all of these minis, and I think you can tell why from the pics: the factory bases are a little warped. Also, I want to do something really cool with these bases!

I decided that I wanted to sculpt some theme appropriate bases. Once I found this pic of a classic London cobblestone street, I knew I had found my design:
Dracula4.jpg


I created this template by cutting rectangles of different sizes out of plasticard and arranging them on a 1\" round base, after sealing the slot in the base with some Epoxy Sculpt:
Dracula5.jpg


I used more Epoxy Sculpt to sculpt each brick of the cobblestone on top of it\'s plasticard template. I got halfway one last night:
Dracula6.jpg


I\'m trying to figure out what I\'m going to use for the grout (for lack of a better term) between the cobblestones. I might be able to do it with some more Epoxy Sculpt- just use a dental tool to push it into place and scrape away the excess... but if someone has a better idea, I\'d love to hear it!

Once I finish this base, I\'m going to make a mold of it and cast reproductions in Resin. I\'ll be using the reproductions for the minis.

Thanks for looking:)
 

cassar

BALLSCRATCHER
grouting the cobbles

if you have access to milliput then this will be messy you need a sink that you dont mind getting messy milliput and luke warm water prepare the milliput then flatten it out as thine as you can place the pancake of milliput over the cobbles then submerge in the water and work into the cracks with your fingers that may be sufficient or if you need to get alittle deeper in the cracks then a blunt dinner knife should do it:D
 

freakinacage

Well-known member
you could do that base in a quarter of the time by just mixing up some putty and pressing with a tool. before or after pressing you can use a rock to impress some life-like stony texture if you want.

i did a set of 10 in about half an hour this way
 

CreganTur

Member
Originally posted by freakinacage
you could do that base in a quarter of the time by just mixing up some putty and pressing with a tool. before or after pressing you can use a rock to impress some life-like stony texture if you want.

i did a set of 10 in about half an hour this way

I\'ll try that after I finish the base I\'ve already started- no sense letting it go to waste;)
 

cassar

BALLSCRATCHER
if you intend to use it as a mould/template then the putty might cause problems as when dry its brittle enough to break off, the milliput may take longer and be a little messy initially but you now its gonna last. freaks right if you wanna do a one off and paint it then the putty\'s cheaper and quicker:D
 

QuietiManes

New member
Re: the gaps.

Why not use something you don\'t have to mess with so much? Like some Squadron White or Green putty or some other companies version of toothpaste that hardens? Or how about drywall compound/spackle? Those things are for filling gaps and holes after all. Or thick epoxy glue or thick super glue, with sand on top perhaps...

Did they use grout that far back on the roadways? The picture looks like they did, but I didn\'t think they would have.
 

CreganTur

Member
It\'s been a while since my last update. Here\'s a pic of one of the bases I finished. So far, it\'s the only one I\'ve finished:
Dracula7.jpg


Here\'s a picture of Lord Goldaming. You can see where it looks like his eyeball is melting out of his face. It was a challenge to scrape all of that away and make his face look normal- that eye is supposed to be a monacle:
Dracula8.jpg


Here you can see the whole cast cut away from their bases and primed. You can kind of see that Lord Goldaming looks a little better :)
Dracula9.jpg


I\'ve finished Dr. Seward. He\'s only the second mini I\'ve ever painted using OSL. I think he turned out pretty good, but I would like some good, honest C&C so I can do better on the rest.
Dracula10.jpg
 

CreganTur

Member
It\'s been way too long since my last update. I decided not to use OSL on all the minis, and instead to just use a darker pallette on the figs.

Heres Van Helsing:
Dracula11.jpg


and Mina Harker:
Dracula12.jpg


C&C is very welcome!
 
Are you going to do a vignette with them of some sort? If so, you could do one or two of them with some OSL near a torch, and the rest a bit further back in the shadows.

These are coming along very nicely.
 

CreganTur

Member
Originally posted by mousekiller
Are you going to do a vignette with them of some sort? If so, you could do one or two of them with some OSL near a torch, and the rest a bit further back in the shadows.

Heh... you read my mind. Dr. Seward is holding a lantern, so he\'ll be done with OSL. I\'m still debating on Dracula... depends on how the skin tone works, probably.
 

CreganTur

Member
This is nothing more than a satus update to say that I\'ve actually started working on this project again. I\'ve finished 4 of the 5 figs; working on finishing Dracula now.

I made a silicone mold of the london cobblestone base, but I haven\'t gotten any good casts out of it yet. I think the main problem is I\'m spraying too much release agent into the mold. Another big problem is that I\'m stirring too much air into the resin.

I\'ll post a more detailed update with some pics in a couple of days.
 

CreganTur

Member
Well, I\'m almost finished with the project. All that\'s left is to get some feedback from my fellow CMONers beore I varnish these minis and give them to my friend.

This is the inspiration for the London Cobblestone bases I created:

album_pic.php


I had some problems with the silicon mold I created, but after playing around a bit I was able to cast some pretty good reproductions.

I\'ve also been playing around with my camera, trying to get good pics of these. This is the best I was able to get so far.

What do you guys think?

album_pic.php


ps. I know, the lantern look slike it was drawn in with paint... I have no idea why it looks like that in the pic.
 

CreganTur

Member
The guys over at WAMP asked for a larger, shaprer picture, and also suggested I add more white to the lamp to increase the light source. Well, I did both:

album_pic.php
 
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