Cult of the Moth & Swamp Terrain | Grimdark Project Log

For starters, I painted these models using my usual Nasty Flesh recipe, which you can read in detail here in my Nasty Flesh Painting Tutorial. This effect leans heavily on the contrast between gloss and matte finishes, which I think really shines on these Acolytes. The robes stay dull and muddy, while a gentle application of gloss on the skin helps them feel clammy, alive, and a bit unsettling.

Lately I have been pushing myself to integrate bolder colours into my grimdark palette. Enter the blue wings. If you have seen my other work, you will know I lean hard into grungy greens and browns. They are a great fit for dark fantasy miniatures, but after five years it can get a little samey. To break the habit, I try to add at least one bright, saturated colour into each scheme, something I really pushed with the Demonettes I painted earlier this year.

For the moth wings, I started with a base of Army Painter’s Caribbean Ocean Speedpaint, which is vivid without going too dark. From there I added a fairly sharp edge highlight with pure white, then finished with a watered-down glaze of the same blue to blend everything together and hide my sins.

The Waybeacon was a special piece for me, as it is the first time I have provided art direction on a sculpture myself. Massive thanks to Sebastian, the sculptor, for working with me on this and making the piece look exactly how I imagined it.

I love working on terrain projects, especially anything with overgrown ruins and wild vegetation. I picked up a bunch of techniques here from the amazing hobby folks over at The Weald, a collective of makers creating incredible forest-bound miniatures for a great indie game.

The goal with this terrain piece was to build an eye-catching centrepiece for a skirmish board, something that would sit nicely alongside my existing forest terrain without eating too much playable space. It needed to feel tall and important, without being a huge footprint.

I printed a roughly 20 cm lozenge-shaped base on my FDM printer, then gathered some scrap cork board, tin foil, and my shiny new hot glue gun. I did not have a strict plan, but I kept a 25 mm base on hand while building to make sure the levels and elevations could comfortably fit a miniature or three.

The ruined pathway was made from a thin piece of foam board, cut into squares and then ripped and chipped for texture.

Once I was happy with the cork and glue, I used plaster filler to hide any ugly gaps and break up the obvious “corky” shapes. I applied this roughly with my finger, then dabbed off the excess with a paper towel. When it dried, I covered almost everything with a sprinkling of rough sand and sealed the whole piece with PVA glue, ready for painting.

The printed 3D parts had already been airbrushed. The rest of the terrain I hit with a black basecoat. For this kind of large piece, I like using masonry emulsion. It is thick, chunky, and helps soften and unify all the terrain textures.

From there, the scratch built areas were painted with cheap craft acrylics, lots of drybrushing, and fast, dirty washes. For most of this stage the piece looked pretty awful, but that is normal for terrain. It was not until I started adding foliage that everything really came together.

The foliage was built up in layers, from large shapes down to tiny details. It is an iterative process that really rewards patience. Here is what I used:

• Green flock for moss patches – sealed with PVA and drybrushed with a light green
  
  

• Large tufts – coconut fibre twisted into clumps and fixed with hot glue, then washed with speedpaint and drybrushed
  
  

• Bushes – small-scale miniature bushes, attached with superglue, sealed with PVA, then lightly drybrushed

After that, I dug into the tuft collection and pulled out three styles that suited the piece: a dark green bushy tuft, some brown grass tufts, and yellow and maroon flower tufts. These were fixed with superglue, with a dark green wash around the base to help them blend into the ground.

That just about covers the terrain build. I am really pleased with how the Waybeacon turned out. I wanted it to feel like an immaculate yet ancient pavilion lurking in the depths of a foetid swamp, and I could not wait to get it onto a table surrounded by the rest of my grimdark terrain.

The final stage was photographing the project. Alongside my usual black background, studio-style shots, I love experimenting with more narrative scenes. With a new photography space waiting to be tested, I was itching to crack on.

Over the last ten years I have slowly built up a collection of photography gadgets: colour-changing lights, magic arms for grip, and my new prized possession, a handheld smoke machine. While there is a lot of gear here, many of these effects can be replicated using a few household lamps and some affordable kit. Equipment isn’t a barrier to entry, and that is a topic I definitely want to explore in a future blog post.

Here is a quick breakdown of the setup I used:

• Front lights to illuminate the miniatures, brighter on the left and darker on the right to avoid deep, hard shadows
  
  

• A strong yellow backlight on the subject to sell the glow of the Waybeacon
  
  

• A green light on a grey backdrop to push the forest vibe
  
  

• Tree terrain scattered all the way into the background to add depth and layers
  
  

• Shot on a 50 mm lens, fairly close, to mimic a more “true scale” perspective
  
  

The narrative photos had some post-processing in Photoshop, mainly masking and brightening the Waybeacon to keep the light looking intense, oppressive, and central to the scene, just as I imagined when writing and designing this piece.

Overall I am really happy with the results, but there are a couple of things I will focus on for the next shoot:

Depth of field and focus stacking
The depth of field is a bit too shallow in some shots, with important foreground elements fading into blur. Next time, I will experiment with light focus stacking to “cheat” a more realistic sense of scale and keep more of the scene sharp.

Background colour and depth
This was my first time using a lighter backdrop. I like the general effect, but it still reads a little flat. For the next project I will try a painted backdrop with some loose branches, silhouettes, and maybe a hint of skyline to add more atmosphere.

Here is a look at the finished project: a gallery of clean studio-style photos, and a second gallery for the narrative, atmospheric shots featuring the Waybeacon terrain and the Cult of the Moth warband.

I hope you have enjoyed this project spotlight. I had a blast working on it and learned a lot that I will be taking into the next batch of grimdark miniatures and terrain builds.

Let us know what you think in the comments, especially if you have questions or specific areas you would like more detail on.

Cheers,

Marcus from the Bestiarum Team

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