Diorama-rama part 2

With the build complete, it was time to get painting!  The miniatures would be attached to the scenic base via the miracle of magnets, but I also left the trees off to paint separately, making sure to mask their position with lumps of blu-tac.

Once all the glue was completely dry, the board was given a coat of black spray undercoat.  The ruined bridge, Genestealers, and sides of the display base, were then masked out with tape, paper and blu-tac as the diorama was given a brown spray basecoat.

The bridge was drybrushed with increasingly lighter shades of grey to bring out the rough stonework.  Several washes of watered down brown were used to blend it into the muddy ground, with spot washes of brown and green ink to add depth and detail to the recesseses.  The Genestealers were painted in my preferred green/bone scheme, something that I'll go over in a later blogpost.

The rocky patches were painted in the same way as the bridge, then the ground was given a heavy wash of Devlan Mud and drybrushed with lighter shades.  The swampy ground cover is the same light green turf used on my Chaos Lord, with irregular application of dark green ink to create variation.  The small pools are just loops of greenstuff with the center painted dark green, the reeds that surround them are cut down scrubbing brush bristles painted in bone and white.

I don't remember the exact colors used for the Sorcerer, it was probably a Mordian Blue base over a black undercoat, highlighted towards Regal Blue.  The gold is Burnished Gold with Shining Gold highlights and several Gryphonne Sepia washes. I tried a little OSL* on the staff, originally it was going to be much more dramatic, but I decided to keep it fairly simple.

I'm particularly proud of how his cloak turned out, it's simple, clean, and contrasts well with the rest of the figure.  This photo also shows the placement of the small magnet that secures him to the diorama.  The other figures have theirs hidden under their bases, but there was no way to integrate a circular base into the Sorcerer's position.

The Horrors were an experiment, they're almost entirely blue, red and purple washes over a white undercoat.  The colour schemes of the Sorcerer and Horrors are meant to stand out against the natural colours of the scenic base as well as being complementary to each other.

The process of painting the Hive Tyrant is definitely a topic for another post, so have some action shots instead!

And that's that! Technically, the diorama isn't completely finished - it needs a coat of matte varnish to fully protect it, then water effects added to the pools and river.  But it's complete enough to display, and was enough to win me some vouchers.