Category: Dio-Bolical Monday

I began this diorama at the start of December last year and here we are just over ten months later and the project has been completed.  It has been a marathon. 

The theme was a simple affair and nothing more than an excuse to paint more of Tabletop Worlds incredible buildings.  A village setting where the merchant and the peasants stop to watch the Earl and his entourage pass by.  Even the beggar got in on the act in the hope of getting a penny or two.  Does it work?  Well really that’s for others to decide rather than me but I’m pretty happy that the idea in my head transferred to what you now get to see.

Inevitably as a project it has had its ups and downs but for the most part it has been an enjoyable experience.  Is it my finest work?  Personally I don’t think so but it is certainly the biggest model I’ve undertaken and has required me to use just about all the knowledge and skills I have acquired over many years of hobbying.

The model itself measures 3 feet wide by 1 foot deep and 1 foot high.  There are 12 mounted knights, 11 other figures, about half a dozen each of pigs, rats, rabbits, ducks and chickens, a badger, 3 wolf hounds, 3 buildings, 1 large tree and a fair number of sacks, boxes and tools. All in all it has kept me amused.

Thank you all for sticking with the project.  Now for some photo’s, lots of them!  Some of them are of a better quality than others but the primary aim is to show you around the model as best I can.

The first three photo’s give you an idea of the model in its entirety.

All the following photo’s get in closer to the model and hopefully provide some detail.  You might need to zoom in on some of them.  Obviously if you have been a regular follower of my progress then some of this you may well have seen before.  They have been taken from various angles, are of mixed quality and pretty random in terms of how they appear below.  I dare say some images have been duplicated as well.

Finally the time arrived to put the cover on over the model and display it next to the one some of you will be familiar with.

I guess the question now is what next?

To start with my modelling desk and work space needs a very serious tidy up but for now I’m taking a break for a few weeks as She Who Must Be Obeyed and I go on holiday.  While I’m away I’ll think more about what I might do next.  My initial houghts are to simply paint some single figures, some for Ebay maybe as well as for myself.  I do have some ideas for future dioramas but I won’t be starting anything soon and certainly nothing as big.  I need to think about Telford to as I have little time now to get anything else done.  In any event I’ll keep you posted.    

As for this diorama, I hope you enjoyed the journey.

TIM

 

This week, like the previous one, proved to be another good one.  I’d hoped to get the diorama fully finished this week but I still have a few minor bits to do, specifically a couple of banners and lances for four of the knights.

What I did achieve though was getting the rest of the surrounding Barn area complete.  The pigs and rats I’d painted a while ago along with the remaining figure.  Some of the barrels I had done too so I was left with only a few bits to paint and the ground work to do.

The ground work was straight forward and easily accessible which was key.  The only minor difficulty was getting the ground work to blend seemlessly to the areas of ground I had previously done.

A little bit of fence work and some more tools suitably positioned and the diorama is now just about complete.  That said you will have to wait until the big reveal next week.  In the meantime images of the remaining Barn ground works appear in the photo’s below.

TIM

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I got a lot done this week, well more than I thought I would.  After placing the Barn on the base I drew around it to determine the area where I needed to lay down the initial ground work.  Ideally I wanted to get as much done as possible before I stuck the Barn down as this would make access much easier.  I followed the same technique as I’d used when basing the horses and likewise stuck to the same colour scheme too.

I had already planned in my head to create some visual interest at the front of the Barn and had settled upon a section of a veggie patch along with some chicken’s, sacks, tools and a wood pile.  I also remembered that I had a small wheelbarrow and a water trough to include at some point as well.

A few of the bits I’d painted much earlier on so I didn’t have that much to paint other than ground work and plant life.  You’ll see I also added some grass to break up the earth ground work.  I also fixed one of the pairs of doors to the Barn as well.

Progress pictures below.  Next week I’ll work on the sides and rear of the Barn and get more of the base edging painted black.  If I achieve that then the diorama will be almost complete but for a few minor bits to do.

TIM

This week I started on basing the mounted knights.  The first task was to determine the position of each figure.  For aesthetic reasons I decided on having the horses with Comparisons all near the front where they would be the most visible.  The Knights I liked least would be in the more obscure positions.  So each knight could be seen I also decided against having them completely side by side, choosing instead to have them slightly offset.

Once this was determined I needed to base the inner row first, let things dry and then paint before doing the next row.  The reason for this was purely for access.  I also decided to base each horse in its own right just to make things easier too.  This way I only had to deal with gaps and joints and making sure the ground colours blended in.  When I hit the outer row I needed to add the wolf hounds as well (remember them?)

Last week I posted what I thought was my final knight.  Well in some ways it was but when I did a count back I realised one of the mounted knights I had never posted on the blog!  Not sure how that happened but more to the point I didn’t take any photo’s either.  If you can’t work out which one it is it’s the one to the right of the yellow and blue knight in the penultimate image below (not that all the photo’s are that clear!).

The ground work mainly comprised of filler mixed with fine sand, grit, ground cat litter and just about any texture I had lying around.  I mixed water and PVA to the mixture and in some instances added paint too to make some of the painting easier.  After it had dried I mainly used diluted oils because the capillary action works so well and makes it  very easy to get paint into indifficult areas. Thereafter it was all about dry brushing until I considered the job done.

Numerous images below, not necessarily in the correct order but sufficient to give you an idea of how things currently now look.

Next week I’ll start basing the Barn.

TIM

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Another post, another mounted knight.  The good news is that with this one done I can begin work on basing them all and with that start to bring this diorama to a finish.  As I mentioned in a previous post, the take away from painting these knights is I ought to have staggered painting them.  I’m no fan of batch painting and I do like variety in what I do so, in the unlikely event that I do something on this scale again, my approach will be different.

Another relatively plain painted figure but it should nevertheless fit in with the others.  Time will tell of course and that time starts this coming week.  Until then though some images. 

TIM

The last of the four knights whose mounts had Comparisons.  Although it is much slower to paint these figures I much prefer them to the plainer horses.  They feel more unique, which I guess they are, and as such the end result is more rewarding and personal.

I decided I’d go for red and black as a colour scheme and chose a large diamond pattern to paint.  Compared to the much smaller check pattern on a previous knight this was much more straight forward.

TIM

Another simple paint job this week and a return to the colour green.  More importantly though another knight down!

I confess it has been tempting at times to simply go with less knights in the diorama but then I started feeling guilty about being lazy and decided I had to finish what I started. It isn’t painting knights which is the problem, in fact once this project is complete I will almost certainly be painting some others, it’s more a case of wanting to see the project come to an end.  This one has been running for months and months now and I’m growing impatient to see it completed.  That said I’m equally conscious that the last 10% is where most mistakes happen so I need to remain focused.

Only a couple to go now and then I can have more fun doing base work.  Meanwhile images below.

TIM

This week sees a return to my outstanding mounted knights.  The good news, for me at least, is I am on the downward slope and in a few weeks time they will all be done and work will begin on the final phase of this diorama.  Until then though it’s one knight at a time.

To be honest I can’t think of much to say about this one and will probably have even less to say as I paint and subsequently post details of the others.  Essentially it’s now just a case of picking a colour scheme, preferably something I haven’t done before, and then getting the job done.  On this occasion I went for two shades of blue.

Photo’s of my latest offering below.

TIM

I thought I’d start with a recap of where I had got to with the Barn.  Basically the lean-to and its roof had been completed as had the bottom of the Barn, both on the inside and the outside.  The images of the state of play are below.

I should also point out that the foot knights which you will see in the background of some of the photo’s don’t relate to this diorama.

The next step was to start painting the roof.  The roof comes in two parts and the images below are the of the lower section which is where I started.  The “construction” of the Barn roof is essentially all wood – planks, beams and tiles.  As paint jobs go it was pretty straight forward.  Plenty of browns and dry brushing with some inks thrown in along with some oil washes.

I added the wheel as an accessory for good measure and applied some moss texture to break up the colour repetition.

The second section of the roof is essentially constructed in the same way so the colour scheme was essentially the same.  A feature of the upper section is a pully wheel which I decided to drill through so I could l add a rope and there was also a sign to be fixed into place and painted as well.

As you can see from the photo’s below the top section sits on top of the lower one and the fit, as is the case with all these Table Top World buildings, is perfect.

Surprisingly this was a relatively quick paint job given the size of the areas involved.  I added a couple of lanterns which were also part of the kit but as yet the doors and various other bits have still to be done.  Put together the Barn is, in my opinion, a great looking building and I enjoyed painting it very much.  The images below show the Barn both with and without the lean-to.

In due course the Barn will be fixed into place on the main base but that can’t be done until all the knights have been properly positioned first.  Eventually there will be plenty of accessories and scatter stuff added to the Barn but that too will have to wait for now.

The next priority is to get the remaining knights done.

TIM

Motivated by the idea that I would allow myself to get more work done on the Barn if I got one more mounted knight done I set about achieving that aim.

I wasn’t feeling the love for this figure which to some extent is reflected in the end result.  I got lazy with the heraldry and chose to go for simple lines.  I suspect I might do the same on a couple of the others.  In some ways it is more realistic anyway, not every knight or his entourage had detailed and flamboyant coats or arms.  Still, I’ll leave you to decide if you like him or not.  For my part he will fit in just fine and although he is predominantly white he will add appropriate contrast once the base mounting starts.

Well, if you haven’t guessed already then the aim for next week is to get the Barn as near as possible completed.  Looking at where I’ve got to with it then I’m only left with the two sections which make the roof.  There are all other bits to do as well though, the doors which come seperate being a good example, but these can be done further down the line.  If all goes well you’ll have a more or less completed Barn to look at next week which, if nothing else, will make a change from looking at a mounted knight.

TIM