The Dogan Part 1

This project is a work in progress, tying together 3D printing, a model kit, and base building.  It is a dark future that takes place in this world or one not too terribly far along the beam as this one.  There are relics of a world gone by strewn across the landscape and not all of them are broken.  I’ve just finished my fifth or sixth reading of the Dark Tower series by Stephen King.  It got my creativity juices flowing.  This borrows some themes from that epic.

I used TinkerCad to design a 3D rendering of the robot I am using for this piece.  It takes inspiration from various movie robots you can probably recognize.  It also contains a healthy scoop of the robot named Andy from The Wolves of the Calla, the fifth book in The Dark Tower series.  I used my printer to bring him to life along with a coat of paint and some brown and black washes.

The horse and figure are a 1/35 kit from Master Box.  It’s part of their Gunslinger series.  The kit goes together well, but the seam lines are a real nuisance.  I haven’t painted horse flesh before and expect that to be a fair challenge. 

I used foam for the base with Sculptamold to build up some terrain.  The rocks were made using tile grout poured into rock molds from Woodland Scenics.  Usually, plaster is used for these molds, but I wanted to see what would happen if I used the grout instead.  I think it gave them more of a rough surface but made cleaning the molds more difficult.

After some surface weathering, the bunker wall and Sculptamold got some tile grout as well.  The bunker wall was lightly sanded down to give a more even surface.  The rocks, ground, and bunker received base coats followed by dot washes.  I mix up diluted colors into different containers then apply them randomly with an eye dropper.  This dot washing technique makes the surfaces look more interesting then a plain brown or gray.  When the dot wash dries, I dry brush everything to tie it together and follow up with a black or dark brown wash.  This technique is pretty fool proof as you can always reapply the base coat to cover up your crimes. 

Surface paint in place, I applied my homemade mix of ground litter.  I take handfuls of leaves and stir them in a strainer.  The grindings are collected in a container.  I find this much easier than using leaf punches and much cheaper than buying small bags of it.  It provides a wide variety of colors and textures and I haven’t had a problem with the color fading.  You can also target leaves in various colors to make batches that match a specific time of year or environment.

The rest of this project should go together quickly.  Stay tuned to find out what these two are up to and why they are holding palaver in this cursed place.  Thanks for stopping by!