Paint: Rush Hour

About Realism - Fantasy - workovers and the lack of photo skills

This project was created in autumn and winter time. Everything outside was muddy and full of leaves. This mood definitely influenced the whole idea of a slippery autumn hill. I wanted it to become exactly that - Tons of browns, a few greens, and many many fallen leaves.

The environment received some washes of those colors and a bit of a dry brush.
I didn’t take separate pictures - unfortunately I documented mainly the goblins - but you see it regularly in the background.

Yellow Squigs and traditional goblins

Squigs are red. It’s like spacemarines are blue. Sure you can use any color but most people just chose these inspired by artworks and Games Workshop publications. Such conventions trigger me to exactly not do that. So I chose yellow for the squig and a little contrasting extra: a turquoise stripe on the back. I still like that choice alot.

As experimental as the squigs were, the less experimental became the night goblins.
Dark capes, green skin. Some would say “boring”.
Me too. And after a short synch with my paint buddies, I painted one goblin with a red hood and one with a purple.

That was definitely better but still those gobbos needed some more power.
Glasses on and go for the free hands - No secret, just frequent re-dos.

After everything was put together, I was quite happy. The base meanwhile received a few tufts and the water effect with “still water” was done.

Finishing the base just to change it afterwards

Finally the base received some more color power with red leaves - lots of them.
All made from the AK-leaf stamps and coffee filters colored with washes. A few Tufts and bushes here and there to call it a day.

Or not.

Somehow the whole scene was way too noisy and the ground was value-wise very close to the minis. So I let my painting friends convince me to make a brave decision. Make everything darker and go complementary: Purple.

The whole ground was flooded with a dark purple wash, the mushrooms were repainted purple and the gobbo capes received updates. The red cape got a major color push and black one was changed to green. Afterwards, the leaves received a strong orange / red. It helped - a bit. The contrast of the minis was stronger and it looked better.

But do you remember my initial vision? A muddy autumn forest? Well, now it’s a magic forest. It wasn’t satisfying to give up that vision - although totally reasonable.

Lacking Photo skills

I was eager to improve my photography skills for the squigs - hey it’s a competition!
So I took the old DSLR of my wife - with remote instructions from my buddys and made the worst pictures ever.
There were just so many parameters and I messed everything up. To cite my buddies: “Mike, Your squigs look like potatoes now”.
Unfortunately, that comment came one day after the pictures were entered for the competition - that’s what it is when you stay up long and don’t take time for a second look with fresh eyes.

In the end I didn’t reach anything in the competition - and when you look at the pictures, that’s well deserved (-:
It’s 4 years ago now and I still like the scene. The energy of the rushing squigs is really visible and powerful when turning it in your hands and look at all sides - But not really on a photo, even not on a good one. I think that's one of the biggest lessons learned: If you do something for an online competition that is just judged by photos - make sure it works well on a photo.

Ok - I can’t leave that entry with these shitty photos, so here is a bit better shot that was made afterwards - still needs more light and focus, but the potatoes are gone now (-;

Aftermath - Still water and wood paste

After ~ a year I took the diorama to a local show, the Bembel Minature cup.
Interestingly two things happened. The still water became milky and crumpled.
I checked two other projects and had the exact same issue. No clue what happened and I never heard about such issues from others.

And do you remember the discussion in the “build” article about making plinths smoots?
Well, as you can see this plinth got crackles exactly at the part where the styrofoam and wood meet. I’m not sure if its a matter of the material, drying time of glue ( I think i used white glue) or of the wood paste. Probably I need some more experiments.

And as always, you’ll find the list o applied Materials here: Fact Sheet