Conclave Connections | Dungeon-themed Miniature Horror Showcase

"The Azerai Crusade has discovered the catacombs of a mysterious culture. Lone wanderers are unwelcome guests, easily distracted by the new sculptures they find, and are easy prey for the catacombs’ permanent resident."

The basic structure of this diorama is an off-the-shelf picture-frame with a 35mm-depth box built onto the back of the frame using 1.5mm cardboard. The tiled floor is made from cereal packet card. The two pillars are from a single Pillar of Pleasure cut in half vertically on the diagonal, giving two pillars which are glued in place with a scatter of fine sand, along with a collection of candles and skulls.

The Vilefang Basilisk mini was sliced across the neck at the angle needed to fit it in place, as was the arm, to give the impression of the monster leaning round the corner for a light snack.

The diorama was given a zenith undercoat, focusing light onto the areas where light from the torch held by the Azerai Trailblazer would fall (with a large bit of artistic license for dramatic effect) to assist with painting.

"The ground around the sepulcher of a temple wept in tremors. As they walked through the hallways, reality fractured, and they could hear his insidious whispers in the voices of their dead loved ones. Silently, black tentacles slithered along, always just out of sight. The thought materialized, “We’re all going to die in here.” But their bodies never entered the temple, foaming and convulsing; outside the door they would stay until starvation took them."

For the building process of this piece, the head was first removed and repositioned with part of the neck freshly sculpted. 

Additional tentacles, candles, a sacrificial bowl, and the hell spawn in his arms were all sculpted and added on. Various chains, wires, cheesecloth scrolls, and hammered metal bits were attached around the model, as well as a few skulls. 

The armor was retextured, and pre-weathering was added using a polymer basing material. 

The miniature was painted using the Pro Acryl paint range with some reductive working using enamels and oils. 

The metal was treated using Dirty Down products, both with a new technique and more typical rust and verdigris application. 

The tentacles were painted using a reductive technique exclusive to the Dirty Down rust product. 

The skin was mottled using a CA glue layering technique. 

Pigment powders were added for further weathering, and the eyes were treated with a special new technique just beginning to be explored. 

I finished the piece by adding hair to some skulls, the spoon in the bowl, and some of the armpits.

Greetings all, I am The_Pilgrim_Painter. I wanted to join in on this month’s focus on all things Dungeon and I’d like to present you with my Fungal Thralls from Bestiarum’s Mycena Mortifera collection. Dungeons are where things can nest, lurk, skulk, hibernate, germinate, and fester. Overall, I think dungeons are a representation of the passage of time and that physical form can be represented in many ways. Covered in a damp mold or dry rotted and caked in dust. It comes down to the story you want to tell. 

What drives many of my artistic decisions are story telling details and keeping environmental effects in mind. For my Fungal Thralls, I imagined that these were men sent to investigate the dungeon and never returned, infected by the fungus and remained to putrefy. There’s no soul in their bodies anymore. They’re now a reactionary vehicle of infected violence. 

After applying my base colors (I usually keep the Zorn palette in mind) and moving on to effects, the primary environmental effect I kept in mind was moisture, since this is typically the environment we’d see fungus thrive in. We know moisture causes metal to rust and mold to develop, so those were the effects I wanted to capture. To do this, I utilized products like Dirty Down’s Moss and Rust Effects. I even applied some moss effect to areas of the flesh. I also used a technique (learned from @DarkAgesWorkshop) where I mix Ichor of the Damned by the Grimdark Compendium with gloss varnish to create the oozing Ichor spilling from the Thrall’s mouth. Lastly, I sparingly stippled gloss varnish on choice areas of the model to help represent sweat and other sources of moisture.

Thank you all for checking out my contribution! Keep trying new things and have fun everyone!