Monday, June 11, 2018

Temple of the Sorceress of the Sea: A Ghost Archipelago Terrain Build

        Over the past few weeks I've slowly been assembling and painting a terrain piece made up of various toy and craft bits, that I call the Temple of the Sorceress of the Sea.
     It all started back at Cold Wars in March, where I found a large action figure of a unidentified female sorceress or superhero.  So I stacked some pieces together, not gluing anything, just getting a feel for how I like the arrangement.  The base is a sand mold form the Dollar Tree, and then figure is standing on an orange juice lid and a wooden base.

     I liked how it looked, so I began the assembly. I mounted the sorceress to the wood disc by putting screws up through her feet.  I then glued the wood disc to the juice lid.     After that, I superglued together the scepter, and added a little seashell to the top to help sell the sea soreceress theme.  I also superglued all her arm and leg joints to help hold them in place.

      I had ordered a pack of cheap sea creature charms on eBay for this project, and glued some as decorations onto the base .   At that point I decided I wanted to get some small conical seashells to top the crenelations on the four corners.
      They didn’t have the ideal size I was looking for, so I settled on something a little larger. I had to trim the bottoms down anyway so they’d sit flat, and that reduced their size.
I then glued them to the four crenellations, and put it all together to see how it looked.
  I then primed the top piece with Army Painter "Necrotic Flesh"  (It's my go to spray primer for unknown plastics), and I primed the temple with Rustoleum Paint and Primer "Flat Black".  With paint on it, I realized there were a couple problems I needed to correct on the statue; first there were noticeable gaps between her thigh joints and where they connect to her lower body which I needed to fill, and secondly I noticed the hinges on her elbows were very obvious now and needed to be covered over.  So I greenstuffed the elbows and thigh joints of the statue, as well as a large gap in one of the shell crenelations on the temple. I also applied a Mod Podge coat to the temple base to give the smooth surface some texture.
      Then, when the Mod Podge dried, I did the dry-brushing on the structure and the statue base.  Dark, medium, and light gray; followed by a last white highlight application.
     I then painted the statue, crenelations, and sea life decorations all with a verdigris bronze look. Then I did the doors as weathered wood, and the chains and hinges as weathered metal.
     Here is the final results.

      I always pictured in my mind, the temple standing above a cliff face with the giant statue looking out over the waves.  There's a door in the back for access, and another on the front which, drawbridge style, opens out over the sea providing a platform for the acolytes to stand on and do their magic.
     I'm really pleased with how this turned out.  I may add some vines or such to the walls, but I would hate to mess it up some way.

2 comments:

  1. That is great! Although if I were a player, I might worry that it was going to come "alive" and crush us all...

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    1. Thanks! Half the fun of having big statues is threatening players with the possibility of them being animated. The other half is revealing to them at just the wrong moment that, yes, it is in fact animated! :-D

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