HERCULES (7)

Hey guys,
as many of you asked, I'm preparing a little tutorial on the plaster and cobblestone stuff.
Here you can see the basic mold I'm using for it, as well as the ready-to-use plaster.

It's relatively thick,

but can easily be spread,

and smoothened with wettened tools. Now it needs to cure and then I'll do a tut on how I scribe the symbols and cobblestones into it.

While the plaster cures - normally about 24 hrs -I cleaned some old minis that I had soaked in "Simple Green" for a while - mostly kneeling legs.

Due to feedback from one of the forums I decided to re-position the turret.

It's now more centered on the hull.

With some of the cleaned bits I built another officer,

and a surveyor, that monitors the bridge while the HERCULES crosses it. Both still need some cleanup and GS work.

The diorama nears completion.

But especially the right side of the diorama needs a better, straight corner. So I prepared a basic mold and poured some plaster (this is a different plaster, it's thinner and cures faster)

After it cured and I removed the mold, this looks pretty neat.

After I added some structure it fully integrates into the diorama.

As mentioned, I planned to put up a statue on the bridge mouth.
Late last year I experimented with some 40K characters built in 1:35 scale. I never really got far, but the one commissar was complete enough that I could make a mold and pour it in resin.
Then I added a lot of damage, so it looks like an ancient statue,

and mounted it on the bridge.

Well, going back to the inspiring image,

this pretty much completes the diorama.
The HERCULES still needs about 30 tracks (which I'm currently casting), but other than that, I think it's done.
Please take a look and let me know if there's anything missing...

Thanks

Klaus