From EvanH: 28mm Terrain Entry - Pictish Standing Stones & Oratory Chapel (25 points)

Who'da thunkit? Two entries before year's end! 

Well, at least it's still 2017 in Regina, and that's what counts. I'm sending this from the world of seven hours in the future, a very different world to that of 2017. We have dispensed with the need for your primitive laborious typing of blog posts and now post telepathically from inside our cryotubes. 

I've had these two pieces sitting in a drawer for at least two-and-a-half years now, so it was time to get to work, especially as terrain is now a category in its own right.

They are Pictish-inspired Standing Stones from Scotia Grendel, and very nice they are too. They are incised with traditional Pictish designs, and would make an ideal objective in a Dark Age skirmish game, or just a nice piece of atmospheric battlefield scenery for any battle involving Picts or Scots.

This is the larger of the two stones, and comes in at just over 5 inches tall. The base is a Warbases 60mm MDF round. The groundwork was a PVA and sand mix, painted over with Citadel Stirland Mud, one of their range of textured basing paints.

I basecoated the stones in Citadel Dark Flesh, a now-discontinued colour, and drybrushed successive layers of Foundry Native American Flesh 120 A and B, to duplicate red sandstone of the sort found in the Northern Isles.

The smaller stone was prepared and painted in exactly the same fashion as the larger, and both were given blotches of yellow lichen to give a weathered and timeworn look. There are patches of what I can only assume is intended to be moss on the surface of the sculpts, so I have painted them with Citadel Castellan Green. I followed with an overbrush of Straken Green and a light drybrush of Nurgling Green to finish. Tajima1 Tufts, Wild Grass and Moorland Diorama Elements, completed the basing of both stones.

The smaller stone comes in at just over 3 inches tall, and is likewise based on a 60mm round.

After some discussion with Curt, who gently broke the news that 'fits comfortably within a six-inch cube' isn't quite the same as 'fills a six-inch cube', it was apparent that I'd have to pull something else out of the hat. And so I made a quick decision to rustle up some more Celtic fringe terrain, viz., an Oratory Chapel of the sort common up and down the coasts of Scotland, Ireland and Wales in the Early Medieval Period. 

Not quite Westminster Abbey.

This little structure was assembled in 34C heat with high humidity, and this posed more than a few problems. A block of medium density styrofoam was hacked into a rough shape, then coated with a layer of polyfilla. When they say that you can sand filler after 60 minutes, don't believe them. Summer humidity in Sydney means all bets are off - it took until the next morning to fully set. 

I incised the stonework pattern into the polyfilla, and sealed it with PVA and water mix. While this was drying, I scratch-built a door from bamboo cocktail sticks with a loop of fuse wire for the handle, then got to work on basing and painting. The base is a Warbases 6-inch MDF terrain base, and the chapel was given the same paint job as the standing stones. Phew! Just in time!

I'm on the property ladder! Iona Chapel!

I'm worried that this is something of a gateway drug for me terrain-wise; I have two standing stones and a chapel, and this more or less dictates other village buildings down the track...

But there's a bonus round just over the horizon, and I am determined not to get caught out like I did the previous two years, so that will have to occupy the majority of my painting time for the next day or so.

What will it be? Who knows...

Stay tuned!

Ev

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Yep, I made Ev go back and do more stuff to fill his cube - I'm a real slave driver.  I'm sure the Romans didn't whine about their cubes. You see them sending in just a couple milestones and calling it done? Jeez, look at that freakin' colosseum for cripes sake! There must be a least few dozen cubes worth there.  ;)

Seriously, beautiful work, Ev. I really like this red sandstone colour you came up with - it gives a very eye-catching effect. I had no idea that the sandstone up in northern Scotland was like this, how very cool!

That scratch built chapel is brilliant. The texture, the door, the groundwork - I think it's awesome. I can't believe you cracked this off in such short order. BIG kudos to you, mate.

25 points with another 5 points for the scratchbuilt chapel. Great stuff, Evan!