Sorondil Part 6

Well, a week away from painting has left me with a lot left to do on Sorondil and not much time to do it.  With the Draconic awards coming up this weekend, I've only got 3 more evenings to work so I've had to make some cuts.  For the time being, I've got to leave off the dinosaur.  I like it, but I think the piece can stand on its own without the dino.  And, when I don't have the deadline to worry about, I can still paint it and add it to the piece.  Instead I'm focusing on getting the base finished (something the figure definitely cannot do without.  If you recall, last time I'd shown a quick look at the base's construction and then tacked on a shot of the primed version.

From there I used a bunch of browns (super exciting, I know) to paint the tree and the dirt.  I used an airbrush to speed this part up... unfortunately I'm still not very good with the airbrush, so I redid a lot with a regular brush so it didn't look terrible.  Since I'm going for a primordial jungle scene the base needed some plants.  For that I used some of the etched brass plants from HassleFree Minis.  Here is a blurry shot from my cell phone camera.  This was for reference so, after I'd primed and base coated the pieces I would remember where I wanted them.

Skipping ahead a few steps, I tried to use the airbrush to give me a head start on the plants.  Again, my lack of airbrush experience did not do me any favors.  After a while of messing with it, I basically just had a green base coat.  Oh well, I'll just have to fix it with the regular brush.  Anyway, at least they're green so I could glue them in place.  Seeing how that looked I then attached a few more pieces.  The last thing I did was great some moss for the tree.  I took this from one of the MassiveVoodoo tutorials.  It's that fine turf used for model railroads mixed with matte varnish and then applied with a toothpick.  I was quite pleased with how it worked and, while not super strong, it holds up pretty well for the sort of handling a display piece would get.

And now back to the real photos.  No more dino, at least for now.  I've gone in and begun to repaint the plants, adding more contrast and using different colors for the different plants.  I'm not quite finished, still haven't touch the ferns.  I also used some washes/glazes to give some color variation and shading to the moss, though the top half of the tree is still untouched.  I wish I could spend more time on the base, but I have to hope the figure will distract from any less than stellar portions of the scenery.

So what's left?  I still need to finished of the rest of the plants and moss.  The figure needs his bow finished.  And I still want to go in with pigments to weather the figure and the base.  Three more nights of painting should be just enough time to do all that (I hope!).