The End of the World, as we Know it

Well, I've made it to the second round of Wyrd's Iron Painter competition. It wasn't easy but here I am, trying to go at least one round more than I did last time. The theme for round 2 is "The End of the World, as we Know it". It took me a while to come up with an idea. I didn't want to buy minis especially for this entry so I made use of what I had. I ended up buying some extra bits but those are for sure not elements typically used in the hobby ;)

Very early stage

I got a small picture frame and three Christmas ornaments with LEDs inside. I then cut the "trees" away so that I only had the basic parts. Those were white LEDs so I painted them using red and yellow inks. As you can see, I've also dug out some very old LoTR plastic ruins from the bottom of my bits box.

I knew from the start which miniatures I'd be using for the diorama. Few things in (and I mean it in a good way). They combine ruined human bodies with various metal elements. wires and other random bits. These are one of the best models that Wyrd has released in plastic so far. The design is absolutely amazing, they look grotesque and barely even human with all those random elements protruding from the tormented bodies. While working on this project I painted four of them separately. I used Wyrd Morgue Base inserts as I thought these tie in nicely with the nasty look of Abominations.

The only problem I had with them was pinning as their feet are so thin it's hard to drill through them without doing damage. With the spider one it is actually impossible so instead I just drilled small holes in the base and stuck him in. The chainsaw one had fragments of plastic sprue left below his feet and they served as pins for gluing him to the base. The four used on the diorama were painted in the same way.

Iron Painter is a good opportunity to try something new. You need this extra bit to get more points for the judges. I decided to try creating a smoke/explosion effect. I used some cotton wool, shaped it slightly and then sprayed matt varnish on it. I wanted to preserve the shape I formed and make sure it doesn't disappear later on when I sprayed some black over it. In the end I stuck the LEDs into inside.

The children occupy a center place in this diorama so I wanted to make sure they stand out from the environment and used bright, vivid colors. I also glued a patch of bright static grass around them and mixed it slightly with scorched one around the edges, following by adding a little bit of black. This part of the diorama is supposed to represent "the (...) World, as we know it" part of the theme. "The End" part is everything around and the explosion and smoke was created to reinforce this element. U also used two weathering techniques for that; dry pigments and some glazes of dark colors. The colors of the ruins are generally kept dark but at the same time bright enough to contrast with the weathering I've added to them.

There can really be no other song to go with this post...