Although my Quest of the Ringbearer campaign has not yet left Bree, my eyes are on the road ahead and one of the most significant pieces of terrain I need to create.
Amon Sul. Weathertop. The location of the Witch King's failed attempt to bring Frodo under his spell with a knife in the dark.
This is a 3d print, very kindly done for me by Pete using a free file of the the interwebz. I'm reliably informed that printing it took around 87 hours.
It was actually printed in four sections which needed to be glued together and clamped whilst it set.
I'd actually done the base coat and drybrush before sticking it together for ease of getting things covered. I used a tester pot of emulsion (it's called 'Thunder' from Homebase) that I had in the shed fir the base coat, and then drybrushed with Corax White, which is always a very dry paint that I don't like to use for regular painting.
After that came the process of filling gaps. I used almost a whole pot of partially dried up liquid greenstuff. It's not a perfect seal, but it was a massive improvement.
Then came the rather enjoyable process of adding lichen and flock to give the model an overgrown look. I used the materials I had lying around, and so it's arguably a bit green given that Aragorn and the Hobbits arrived their in mid-Autumn, but I like the contrast.
I also added a Ziterdes statue to one of the plinths, painted in the same way as the test. Ziterdes actually do a good foam not-Weathertop, which I considered buying, but the kind offer of printing from Pete made this not only less costly, but also something I have a greater sense of ownership and pride over.
The Ziterdes model is still, however, massively cheaper than the Forge World one, which seems awkward to actually use in the games I've seen.
All in all I'm absolutely delighted with my Weathertop. Not only is it somewhat movie accurate, Pete's also printed it to be exactly the right size for the scenario in the Quest of the Ringbearer.
There is plenty of space for movement and the hobbits have the option of heading up the stairs or trying to get fallen masonry between them and the Nazgul.
Finally, I feel that this piece has given me a bit more confidence about being able to make some other large terrain pieces look good in the future.
The Chamber of Mazarbul, the seeing seat of Amon Hen and Helm's Deep beckon.
Unfortunately for me, despite its size it doesn't change my tally massively. I'll let Gimli explain...
Acquired: 133
Painted: 171
Great job! Maybe have a new category where large terrain pieces count as 20?
ReplyDeleteIf I do that I won't be able to have 10mm figures count as one each.
Delete