It’s only a few weeks away!!!! (that’s if we don’t get locked back down before then, but…)

I’ve been feverishly working on finishing things up!! Funny story before I post a million pics… I asked my husband (non-painter) what he thought of my ogre diorama now that it’s been a few weeks. He had some feedback, but I kind of brushed him off. Whatever, what does he know? So I asked my mentor, an awesome painter…. and he gave me the same feedback. Cue the Great Bearded One doing a happy “I told you so” dance. lol. And me changing things up.

So, just to get it out of the way, this is the before and after. Then the process.

I definitely think its better. How did we get there? First! I had toddler help getting them off the old base. So there were some small casualties that I had to fix up.

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First thing I redid was the base. Found me a 2×4 and took a sander to it. I decided to go with a big flagstone floor. I used egg carton to get the effect. It works surprisingly well, but you have to use the bumpy side on all of them. I accidentally used the cross-hatched side on some and it was a pain to get rid of that texture. Successive layers of PVA glue and more and more dry brushing got me to the end product. Then I practiced with different scatter texture/terrain pieces. 🙂

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I added some fun stuff in the back to have some more visual interest. I knew I wanted a little creature ‘escaping’ the bucket, but I wasn’t sure what else. This piece of wood had a little bit of a defect, so that worked out well! I cut it out more and added some skulls and texture paste. Then they got a little snail guy, and some paint! 🙂

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Then I had to decide (again!) how to place them. After many configurations and questions, I decided on the new angle you saw above.

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I’ve got a few finishing touches to do, like clear up the plinth, and any other touch-ups I find. Otherwise, I’m calling them done! That means I have 2 finished entries for Reapercon. My diorama entry, and my giant monster.

Speaking of my froghemoth, I got a better video of him lately. He didn’t photograph well in my lightbox. Hope y’all enjoy him in all his glory!

Onto further WIP shots. Still fighting NMM. I don’t know why I just can’t grok it. I bought the tutorial, I took the class, I watched the videos… just not working. Gonna keep trying, but…. ugh. Almost done with the froggo! And continuing my sculpting process with Toph!

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We’ve still done a bunch of legos.. it’s definitely not a problem. lol

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Anyways, that’s our excitement at this point! I have 2.5 weeks to get everything done, and I don’t even know what all I’m going to do. lol. I do better when I have pressure, so I’ll go paint more!

Let me know what y’all think and if there’s something else you think I should do!

-marinealRose