Ballroom Blitz

The ballroom was still looking a bit bare in places, so it was time to get the feast installed, along with a couple of other extra little details.

Amongst them were 2 tiny picture frames. I painted them gold and then glued them onto some old Magic cards to make paintings. Once dry, I cut them out and stuck them to the wall.

The dining table and chairs were fun to work on. I’d never painted a teeny roast chicken before. ? Again, I stuck to those rich, jewel colours to tie in with The Beasts taste in interior decor.

I was liking how the dungeon entrance at the rear of the castle was looking, but it still needed something more. I found a cool wooden post with a lantern, and got that painted up and glued.

I wanted a tree, a spindly dead kind of tree, but we only had really nice pretty ones which were too big anyway, or the chunky molded ones from GW that were also way too big. I found some nice thin wire and bent in into the shape I needed. I did the same to make a couple of branches, before covering it all with a bit of tin foil and then paper mache. Once dry, it was a quick black undercoat, dark brown base layer, and 2 shades of lighter brown drybrush. I added a little mossy dirt and voila. I left it all to dry completely before adding it to the diorama.

Today I focused on some of the furniture pieces that Darren kindly 3d printed for me last night (I’m so spoiled).

For the long mirror, I used a layer of clear water effect over a silver white background, and mixed a little nuln oil into it while still wet to create the illusion of shadows and reflections.

It’s all coming together nicely now.

Tomorrow I’ll work on the turret, and finish off the furniture.

I had a dig around in the bits boxes out back and managed to find a fair few pieces that I wanted to incorporate into the ballroom.

I wanted a big potted plant too, so I used a cut-off piece from an old aquarium plant stuck in nice urn-type thing I found on a Dungeons and Lasers sprue. I glued it in and sprinkled dirt-flock on top to look like mud. I painted the leaves just so they didn’t look like plastic fish tank plants anymore.

I hung some little banners on the wall, and added a bookcase, little table, and a treasure chest.

Round the back of the castle wall, I installed a dungeon, complete with desperately reaching inhabitant.

Tomorrow, it’s time for a turret!

This morning, I set about getting the last two inhabitants of the ballroom painted up – The Creep and The Revenant. Another two gorgeous minis from the Moonstone range, who were lots of fun to paint. I stuck to the rich, vibrant colours I used for The Beast and The Duchess, as I want the models and furniture to really stand out against the grey tones of the backdrop.

Whilst still pondering the dilemma of bricking the towers, I painted up the next model for the display.

She’s beautifully detailed as you’d expect from a Moonstone mini, was was really enjoyable to paint. I chose green for her dress as I wanted to steer clear from her looking like Belle when next to The Beast. Glad I did, because I love how the green turned out.

Remember all the plasticard side panels and front edge pieces I cut for the stairs? Yeah, I ripped them off.

I decided I wanted them to look like stone instead. I did a nice layer of paper mache to create a bit of texture on the stairs, then base coated black, followed with drybrushes in dark grey, light grey, and cream. I stuck the rear railing on and painted that black, too. And I also found a couple of cardboard tubes that I’m gonna use as turrets on each side. Just need to decide how to create the brickwork on them (very much open to any suggestions here).

OK, focus Bexx!

With that random interlude finished with, I turned my attentions back to the ballroom. I wanted to make some kind of ornate banister type thing to run along the back of the first little landing. I found some weird bendy plastic things and thought “they’ll do!”. And indeed they did. They cut like a dream with regular clippers, and glued in place with a couple of dabs of superglue. I trimmed the lengths to make a nice gradient with the middle being highest, sloping down to either end. I want to find something to stick on the ends to make it more ornate, but that’s a job for tomorrow, cos it’s time to close the shop and go home to eat pizza.

I left everything gluing, propped up with spray cans (which absolutely aren’t stock, promise), with the counter looking a right mess. And if Darren says anything, I’ll just tell him Gerry said it was OK 😛

I have the attention span of half a dead goldfish at the best of times. And today, I had the plastic dome thing from an individual Flake ice cream on the table next to me. And Darren is playing a weekend of Those Dark Places soon. Seems obvious, right?

With my scavenging instincts sharper than a truffle hog on RedBull, I dove once more into the bits box. I was going to make a rusty, broken up, dangerous bio-dome. Yeah. How cool is that!

It took me 2 hours, a load of weathering powder, and almost an entire bottle of Nuln Oil, but I did it.

I wanted to make sure I had a nice, flat surface to work on, so I cut pieces of Plasticard (also found in the carnage of the store room bits box) to size, and stuck ’em on top of the stairs. I made a mini flight to connect the main stairs to the balcony level atop the walls, and added some side panels to cover the messy cork.

Sorry for taking so long to get back to this one, Gerry!

Anyway, today, I dragged out this project from its dusty shelf in the store room at work, and got back on it. I decided I wanted a grand flight of stairs leading into the ballroom for the Beast to stand on looking all impressive and stuff.

I had a rummage through the bits boxes, and came up with a nice sheet of thick cork tile. Happy with my find, I set it one side and went a-burrowing again. This time, I found some old wooden castle walls that never actually saw a terrain board since I bought the damn things. That’s the ballroom walls sorted, then.

I played around until I found a position I liked (ooh-err missus), and then set about measuring the gap to cut the cork to size. I wanted at least the first few steps to be usable terrain, so I made sure the treads were large enough  to accommodate the base of a mini. I curved the fronts to make an interesting shape, and cut two for each step to make them tall enough when glued together.

When I discovered Moonstone last year, there were so many models I wanted to paint. We got a demo kit in for the shop, and I was tasked with painting the goblins, so they kind of automatically became my troupe. I loved them, and I love playing them, but there were still models left that I wanted to paint. So I’ve decided to create a little diorama for them, based on the idea of a creepy masquerade ball. The models I wanted for it are:

• The Beast
• The Duchess
• Creep
• The Revenant

So I smiled nicely at Darren and promptly took those boxes off the shelves.

First up, I wanted some nice bases for them. I wanted them to look like they were actually in a ballroom. I grabbed the Green Stuff and filled the top of the base with a nice, even coverage of it. Then, I took a craft knife and scored out a chequered pattern on the top. As it started to dry, I kept going back and cleaning up the scoring, until I had well defined squares on each base. Once completely dry, I painted them in traditional black and white.

I also found a couple of candle sconces in a random bits box, so I painted those up too. They’ll look great in the ballroom.