Terrain is everything - Sanctum Imperialis - TO DONE!

Aah the Sanctum Imperalis… It's taken a while to get the opportunity to take pictures but I needed some to add to last season's hobby review.

It's a big piece and so it's a struggle to fit it into my homemade light box but I got there in the end.

As you may recall this was a project not without challenges, in particular the 'bold' choice of full verdigris on buttresses, supports and skirting boards.

The red glass lighting also suffered from a lack of contrast that I repeated on my Ravenwing Dark Shroud - sometimes Tamiya Clear Red X-27 is too good.

But the colour choices were made to stretch me, to do something more challenging than just the weathered brassy bronze and as you can see the Ferron Proxima background finally gives it the context it needed.

On the full red/orange background the verdigris provides the ideal framework to break up the monotony of the red rockcrete walls.

With the cream interior adding another dimension.

I can't wait to eventually see these used on my Realm of Battle board, although that could be a long time hence.

I had plans to add some creeping yellow flock up the walls and around the buttresses but didn't get round to it.

I did get the occasional propaganda poster in though ;)

And the white background pics, which aren't totally without merit.

At least it matches the interior a bit, there's consistency and sense of reason that grounds the turquoise.

But as I've maintained buildings in real life are not always colour-matched and consistent.

They often have elements that are incongruous and garish. So whatever the result I committed to the aesthetic and executed it.

Better late than never the [last] Big Teal Stamp of Approval for 2018/19 and completing some terrain!

Terrain is everything - Sanctum Imperialis - Home stretch

By the time you read this the Sanctum Imperialis will be complete. All the finials have been painted,

as well as the buttons and lanterns.

Buttons and screens have been done internally too.

With just some select Tamiya Clear to be added after varnishing.

I tried to keep the button colour limited to warm colours, just didn't want yet another set of colours, it's already garish.

And, having bust a gut to meet the weekend deadline for the store painting challenge it turned out it is next weekend afterall! Still, having that deadline pushed me to finish so I don't mind.

Now what...?

Terrain is everything - Sanctum Imperialis - Slow but grimy

This is becoming somewhat of a saga now. I've got all the stains to do and the shading but staining all these rivets is incredibly tedious and despite it solving my issues with the verdigris my motivation is through the floor - I think I need to do a separate 'where's my head @' post to get that all off my chest/mind

But I persevered and used my Vallejo Sepia wash and as you can see on the left, where I thinned it the wash split exactly like Seraphim Sepia. However, I was washing it again with black so I was not disheartened, in fact the result is great.

I did a fair few panels before I stopped thinning it with water, it's a bit harder to work it into the crevices without but I eventually learned my lesson.

There are a lot of rivets and areas that needed shading.

But the sepia followed by Army Painter Dark Tone managed to bring it all back down to an acceptable level.

The big ruin was a daunting prospect though and it took a fair bit of motivation to tackle all those rivets.

Question: do I paint the scrolls either side of the door like paper, or leave them as carved stone relief?

I desperately want this done, the left hand side needs all the Sepia and black which means there are only fine deatailing to do - wires, rebar, glass FX, buttons and varnishes. It's very close but very much hard work to push it over the line. Just found out this needs to be complete for Friday, as it's the last May weekend and the 'large model' category is due for this month. I had thought it was the next weekend but that's 1st of June. So I need to crack on now!

Terrain is everything - Sanctum Imperialis - I'm getting there, stains n'all

I cannot believe how much this colour choice is challenging me. Luckily after a plaintive appeal on twitter [as well as feedback here] I had enough reassurance from these pictures to keep going.

I mean I still had reservations but folk liked them and ultimately the decision has been made what direction these were going in, that's inevitable now. It was just actually doing it, like magnets sharing the same poles opposing each other.

And instead of taking the big piece to this stage I actually took the medium piece to the next stage - adding shading and stains ot all the rivets and edges with the result I am much happier with where this is at now.

Although the turquoise is still very much in your face that shading on the right hand side is working so much better than the non-shaded left in the pic below.

These three sections, plus the front and the two sections from the small corner piece [more on that later] were shaded in one sitting, so now I have a measure of how long that will take.

I added staining to all the rivets the next night. I still need to do some addtional shading on it but I needed to pick out the red glass finials on the roof so the shading can be applied to those as well. I also felt the doorframe needed to be more akin to the older copper than the newer brass/bronze.

I also picked out the glass in the buttress lights but I've no idea how thats going to work - Tamiya Clear Red X-27 dries super quick and I'm not sure it'll play well with those small areas. I'll no doubt have to touch up afterwards...

The corner piece got grunged up, not much left to do on this apart from Bonewhite chips on the base and some of the debris inside.

I might have had to tidy up some turquoise smudges, but thinned Rhinox Hide covered the worst of it. I'll blend some red in so it makes it fully masked.

The big piece was also taken to the full verdigris with all the finial and lights picked out. Stains and shading next which is just laborious and will make everything work but because it;s a couple of nights work and I've been feeling a bit tired of an evening I've just not got back onto it for a couple of nights. Time for another push.

Returning to my Photoshop concept I wasn't too far off. A little lighter perhaps but I've already identified the shading will help tone it down and it'll better match this when it's done.

I was reminded the other day that this ruin was built coming up 12 months ago. That sound pretty bad but it's not like I haven't worked on other projects or had other prioritiesn not to mention I've had longer projects.

It will be nice to get it complete though, it just requires that push on all the shading, then pick out some interior details and all the lights/glass followed by varnishes. I keep thinking it's half a dozen session's work or so and at this stage it's just doing it...

Terrain is everything - Sanctum Imperialis - The blues [greens and turquoisey bits]

Annoyingly I was beginning to stall on this the raw bronze matched the red walls so well with the  cream interior complimenting it all and I was going to throw all that turquoise into the mix?! But before all of that I needed to gild the doors a little so they were a little more brassy/polished bronze. At least that was all I'd hoped it would be.

I'd already gone full verdigris on the roof top. There had been an original plan to do it rusted steel but if I chickened out of weathering the buttresses [obviously I didn't when you look closely] I'd have explored the effect in the roof at least. Unfortunately, even with my Photoshop mock-up and the reality in my hand I started to doubt this route even more. It was probably what prompted me to build some new figures! The roof is fully highlighted but I'll be putting some shadow washes on as I've been observing some patina'd overhead power cables at some of the train stations on my commute and black shading appears in some areas. Ideally that should have captured by the Warplock Bronze base - at which point we question why I did any of that but I'm a slave to the process...

Ultimately I just threw on the Hawk Turquoise. I came to the realisation I should just not care. If it goes wrong so what? This may well look odd and garish on the battlefield but often reality isn't always colour matched and complimentary, sometimes things just do look out of place. Failing that I could always repaint!

Having thinned the paint down a lot I needed to paint one side of each of the buttresses and leave it to dry properly before flipping to do the other side or the paint would just bleed everywhere.

A bit of a faff but now I'm ready for the highlights which will be mainly drybrushed so it should be straightforward. Just need to crack on and do it.