Monday 9 December 2013

"The dwarves delved too deep" - Inspiration on The Bridge of Khazad-Dûm

Hey everyone, it took me quite some time to get ready to share my second project with you. This diorama features one of the most dramatic scenes from the first Lord of the rings movie: Gandalf confronts the balrog on the bridge of Khazad-Dûm crossing an endless chasm in moria.

I started this project almost five years ago after watching the first movie yet another time. I really loved the scenes where the balrog approaches in this very subtle way when you just see his lights glowing through the columns of moria. I knew I had to do this when the balrog bursts in flames clenching his fiery blade against gandalf´s magic barrier. (© Lukealgonda; Source: DeviantArt)
  
The next day I ordered the GW miniatures, assembled and painted Gandalf and the Balrog as soon as they arrived. This wasn´t probably my best paintjob but I was content at the time with my miniatures.

 Shortly after I started planing the diorama. Two elements I found most important: the contrast of the dark mood of the dwarven mines with the fiery glow of the balrog and the illusion of depth. Both were difficult to achieve in a showcase which size was determined by the vitrine it should fit into. I started with the expierence I gathered on the Siege of helms deep and some resources from the web. (© Flavio Hoffe; Source: www.flaviohoffe.com)

First I did a few sketches and a rough 3D model I made using CAD Tools, which I will cover in the next update.

Saturday 9 November 2013

New splendor for the blog

As you probably noticed I have spent some time to touch up the visual appearance of the blog. I took one of the shots of the bridge of Khazad-dum diorama and made a banner for the page. Thanks to my brother for helping me with photoshop.

Tomorrow I will finish the second video on the mentioned bridge diorama. Stay tuned.

Sunday 27 October 2013

"Ten thousand strong at least" - a commented slideshow of the finished Diorama

Finally I finished the very first video. This is a slideshow of the finished diorama. Took me quite some time (again) because I couldn´t do the voiceover due to a cold.

I hope you like it. Feel free to leave comments here or on the youtube channel. Next in line is the Bridge of Khazad-Dûm Diorama, my first diorama incorporating LED lights.

Tuesday 24 September 2013

"So it begins" - Work in progress of The Siege of Helm's Deep

I finished the showcase of Helm's Deep a while ago. To explain some basic techniques and materials I used I will show you some work in progress pictures. First off I have to apologise for the quality of these photos. At the time I did not intend to show these pictures to anyone rather than myself but today I hope they are sufficient to illustrate my work.

After gathering material and inspiration I usually begin my work with sketches visualising my ideas. These sketches are rough and not to scale or perspective but you have to start somewhere. As the next step I build up a 3D scale model with a CAD Engine. This is quite unusual for a wargaming hobbyist because it takes some time but I learnt how to do this in college and it grants me two valuable benefits:
  1. A 3D model gives you an idea of scale and proportions. For instance you can estimate if a door is big enough that a model could walk through, if a staircase is too steep or if a miniature can be seen from a specific viewpoint. I can arrange the miniatures and other elements on the diorama until I am content with everything without ever reworking the building materials.
  2. When I build stuff that is not rectangular I use templates to create the shape of the foam board, wood or other materials. With a 3D model I can easily generate these templates and print them on a sheet of paper. Templates are always handy especially when building elements that should be very similar to each other like columns or arcs.
The model does not have to be very detailed. I work things out to the point where I can use the details for some templates. And to be honest I like modelling in the 3D CAD environment. Here is a picture of diorama.

After printing the templates I started to build up the structures with expanded Styrofoam (I will explain the different types of Styrofoam and its properties in a tutorial in the future. Stay tuned!). This material is cheap and fairly workable with a hot wire cutter (which I will show you in a later tutorial as well). I glued the basic structure onto an MDF board stiffening it with toothpicks.

To get a rocklike surface I could have carved some lines into the foam but I used another very simple technique here and glued rectangles of cardboard to it with PVA glue. This is a very easy way to resemble masonry and it adds some depth and texture to the surface. I used some tape to cover the biggest gaps between the pieces before applying the cardboard.

I left some areas blank where I wanted the mason work to be heavily eroded. The cardboard and Styrofoam surface will be coveredwith texture paint at a later stage .

On a diorama I like to merge my miniatures as seamlessly as possible into the terrain without cutting them from their bases. Therefore I lower them just a little into the ground so that the edge of the base aligns with the surface.

 After that I work out the last details and filled the remaining gaps with a filler. One or two layers of texture paint were applied to all stone structures to cover the paperlike texture of the cardboard and bubbly structure of the expanded Styrofoam. Small rocks and stones were added with PVA glue to the ground followed by coarse and fine sand to coverup everything.

After that I primed the whole showcase in black acrylic paint and used mainly drybrushing techniques to add some color to it. As I wanted the soil to be muddy and trampled by the uruk-hai I added only a little flock and static gras here and there.

Next up will be a slideshow of the finished showcase and some shots of the miniatures that are display in the showcase.


Monday 23 September 2013

"Let them come" - Inspiration&Ideas on The Siege of Helm's Deep

Every project starts with an idea. I loved the battle of Rohan and Isengart in the books and savage appearance of the fighting uruk-hai in the movies. As I had a reasonable isengart army at the time I could figure out a better scene for a diorama than the dramatic siege of Helm's deep.

I started with gathering materials, mostly online but watched the battle scenes from the film in the process. The second film was an excellent resource but as helm's deep is a huge fortress I had to decide which elements I wanted to use. Here are some pictures from the scenes that I tried to incorporate into the showcase.

 The main siege assault with the uruk-hai climbing the walls with ladders. (© New Line Cinema)

 King Theoden and the captains of his royal guard awaiting the attack. (© New Line Cinema)

 Brave rohirim maning the battlements of helms deep. (© New Line Cinema)

A uruk-hai captain command his troop into battle from a huge rock. (© New Line Cinema)

The next update will contain some work-in-progress shots aswell as information on the materials and methods used to build the showcase. Stay tuned!

Sunday 15 September 2013

The Siege of Helm's Deep - Showcase Review

This is a review on the very first diorama I made a while ago. I loved the dramatic yet heroic presentation of the siege of Helms Deep in the book and second lord of the rings film and had a fair uruk hai army at the time to fit into a showcase.

I will walk you through the stages of design and crafting process starting with the collection of inspiration and ideas of the showcase scene. In a second step I will show you some work in progress pictures and which materials and techniques I used.

Here is a sneak peak of the finished showcase. I hope you like it and look forward to a more detailed  review.

Friday 30 August 2013

My first attempt at macro fotography

Unfortunatly things move on a lot slower than I had hoped for. My first attempt for a cost-efficient set of photo and video equipment wasn´t such a good choice as the quality of both pictures and videos doesn´t meet my own expectations. As better equipment costs (a lot) more money I borrowed some equipment to test its capabilities (and my own, photography is a science of its own).

The first tesst were promising, but I will do a couple more in the near future and share the results with you before I settle for a new set of equipment. Here are some work-in-progress shots of my miniature from the heroes of helms deep. Haldir was converted to a melee dualwield from the original bowmen.



Please keep in mind that these pictures are work-in-progress concerning quality, background and lighting. I am still working out how to take decent macro pictures.

Saturday 13 July 2013

What is it all about? What's coming up?

I recently finished the "About me" page to share some facts about me, my thoughts about the wargaming hobby and intentions and motivation about this blog. I will include some pictures later when they are ready.

So, what's coming up in the next days? I am currently working on my technical equipment for photograpy and video recording and editing (Yes, there will be videos in the future). The first content to come will be a review about the projects I did in the past. As these pieces are finished completly I hope to add a lot of content in a short time.
After that I will show you my recent project with a lot of work in progress. To ease up things I am going to add some tutorials and How-to's about materials, tools and techniques. I like to invite you to attend my projects, comment, make suggestions and feel free to ask questions. I wish exchange my ideas with you and i am really looking for your comments and questions.

Let's get started

Hello everyone and welcome to my new blog. I am really excited about finally starting the blog I was thinking about for quite a while now. I am currently setting up things and start arranging the first content. The layout is still a draft. I hope to improve the appearence in the future. Stay tuned, there is a lot to come.