Sunday, February 1, 2009

Jungle and Martian Pools

I've been re-working an old piece of VSF (Victorian Science Fiction) terrain I made over a year ago. I was never really happy with it, but it looks much better now.

Essentially, it's a piece of thin plywood, on which I smeared a fair amount of wood putty, forming some slighty uneven terrain and a depression in the center, for the pool. Sprayed the whole thing in various reddish-browns, then hand painted the center in the blues you see.



Sorry about the blurry shot. Some days I just can't take a decent picture.

What I had to re-work most was the sand/flocking around the pool. Originally, the ground looked more like a hard baked but way too smooth mud plain, not the desert-like surface I envision on a dying Mars' surface. I also added about three additional thin layers of the water to the pond for greater depth. Finally, I had glued in the small cluster of holly berries as some sort of alien reed plant in fruit. I have some more work to do on it, like reed bundles at the edges and some sort of game trail leading to the edge of the pool (maybe scraping away the sand and going back to that mud pack look), but I am much happier with it so far.

The second piece here is one I mentioned a few weeks ago. Its going to use a pot-topper for the grass around the pool. I have a few shots showing how I built up the pool, then primed and painted the interior of the pool and the rest of the base.

So, you can see the progression through the process. I poured water (first layer) into it late yesterday evening, so I have to wait until tonight to add more. It will also get three or four layers of the water. I have even thought of painting in a little green on one of the middle layers, after it dries, to get a little of a scummy water effect. What do you think? I'll poll it, I suppose, since I like to keep polls up anyway. Let me know, and make comments on what you think I should do.

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