Confrontation Part IV: Plastic & Putty

Last time, I presented the heavily engineered mounting post that I crafted to support the metal knight & pegasus combination for this diorama. Any hope of suspending such a heavy, metal figure from a single point required a solid structure. This time, I will explore some of how I approached the dragon at the opposite end of the scene, as well as some of the initial rough terrain layout for the base.

First, and foremost, this base is going to use up a massive amount of Super Sculpey modeling clay. The material is easy to work with, cheaper than Green Stuff, and won't dry out, or set until I bake it. That means I have weeks to fiddle with it, and add detail before I run off to bake it. You can see the first few stone forms in the photo above, as well as the clear delineation between the little fired patch around the brass support post, and the fresh Sculpey.

Confrontation Part III: Engineering for Metal

It has been quite some time since I posted the last installment of this series. Even though I knew this would be a long one, I had not intended to go five months between updates! To provide a brief recap: I had assembled most of the parts of the dragon Narthrax, but the other participant in the scene was sadly lacking in readiness:

Since the, I have been trying to get the metal half of this duo assembled, so I could get back to blocking out and building the base that will support both of them.

Do it yourself: Terrain Bonus Feature (1 of 2)

One thing I left out of my review of 10mm terrain options was the option to build your own. I am not an experienced terrain building master, but I have picked up some techniques, and I like to think that I can produce some pretty good results, given the time and motivation.

I left this out of my review series for a simple reason: The quality of home-made terrain, and the effort required to get it ready, are entirely dependent on the skills of the builder, and, since I won't be shipping myself over to do your building for you, your results will vary wildly.

Confrontation Part II: It's Not Easy Being Green

As expected, I have been proceeding slowly with this giant diorama WIP. In the past few weeks, I have been mostly painting tabletop miniatures for my Dropzone Commander armies (more on that in a later entry.) Still, I have done a lot of work preparing the dragon Narthrax for paint.

I need to get both the dragon and the knight mostly cleaned and assembled before I can begin construction of the scenic base to support them. I can't really complete their assembly or paint until I get that done. As is usually the case, prep work is key.

Advanced Construction

Over the summer, I received the first of several miniatures from the Ironwind Metals LAM project that ran on Kickstarter. (LAM being the accepted Battletech abbreviation for "Land-Air Mech" - the transformable mecha of that particular universe.) I am not ready to post the paint-up for this project just yet, but the build itself was quite an undertaking, so I thought I'd post it now.

This particular model is for the Mk.1 Stinger LAM. I chose to get the hybrid mode version, half way between mecha and fighter jet modes. As you can see, the mini comes in quite a few parts. Note that the hex base was not included with the model.