Friday, August 22, 2014

Contest Entries: Diorama

My final piece for the Wyrd contest was a diorama depicting Santana calmly fighting off a Flesh Construct. I bought the one with the hapless victim about to be flung:

Originally, I thought about making the base incredibly fancy, but realized that would just detract from the models themselves. I used a subdued paint scheme to ensure that the few elements that should pop would do so (the blood, the bile behind the flesh construct, etc.)

For Santana, I experimented with using a more illustrative/painterly style, especially visible on her stomach. I was tempted to source light the entire thing, but with the Wyrd requirement (or so I thought) of a white background, the source lighting wouldn't have really worked.

The Flesh Construct (and zombie) was fun to paint: A lot of grey was mixed into his flesh tones, and I used a colder brown than I typically basecoat flesh with. This resulted in a very pallid, 'off' seeming skintone that was strongly contrasted by Santana's warm olive tones. The brass fixtures were done to feel especially steampunk, and to tie together with the eerie fleshtone. His victim was painted very simply, meant to look like just an average dockworker.

Since Santana has such a solid, no-nonsense pose, I decided to imitate that in her painting. The dusty brown trousers and jacket, the functional white t-shirt, and even her guild-approved reds are faded and dulled. This is no flashy gunslinger, this is a woman who gets things done brutally and efficiently. (Even her garb is functional.)

The base was done in my typical Malifaux fashion: Grey stone, washed with various colours to infuse some variety, then re-drybrushed with grey to fade out the colours more. I added some moss and water effects to get across the grimy, dockside nature of this encounter.

Overall, I like the idea of this woman dwarfed by some necromantic nightmare, calmly dispatching one opponent and lining up on another. I have an idea for my next diorama too, so we'll see when Wyrd next decides to swing a contest our way!

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