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At the Mountains of Madness - F I N I S H E D ! ! !


billn53

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This update is a short "creature feature". The giant blind albino penguins are done. I wanted these guys to look rather mangy, after all, they've been living underground with only shoggoths for company:

 

46344487634_5271980c1f_z.jpg  47016180902_80cc3aac64_z.jpg 

 

Speaking of shoggoths, mine is also finished (except for tentacles, which I'll add after the shoggoth is safely tucked away in its lair):

 

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The multitude of eyes were made using aftermarket decals for the irises, and UV-activated acrylic gel to form the corneas:

 

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Next up: finishing the shoggoth lair.

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This evening's objective was to finish construction of the shoggoth lair. I added columns framing the entrances, made from rolled Milliput that I shaped with a file after the Milliput had hardened:

 

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I used CA gel to glue the columns in place, then filled and blended the gaps with Apoxie Sculpt:

 

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I believe this compares favorably with my reference model:

 

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Mr. Shoggoth seems pleased with his  new digs!

 

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Keep coming back, there's still lots more to be done.

 

 

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Aww, the little Shoggoth looks so cute in his little hidey-hole! On a more serious note, very nice work on that structure. This is really shaping up into a unique diorama.

 

Regards,

 

Jason

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Progress on my diorama seems to be being made a few small steps at a time, but at least everything is moving forward, and eventually I'll see the light at the end of the tunnel.

 

I textured the shoggoth's abode using a rattlecan sandstone-texture paint from the local hardware store, then weathered it with washes and dry pigments. Although it wasn't my intent, the resulting structure reminds me of a spider, which is appropriate for this horror-based diorama:

 

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It's hard to see the detailing on my shoggoth inside its lair, so I installed a LED:

 

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which was a great improvement:

 

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The shoggoth's bottom did not conform to the irregular floor of the lair. I fixed this by putting a layer of black Milliput on the shoggoth's belly, which also served the purpose of fixing the shoggoth in place. All that's left now to complete my shoggoth is add a few tentacles:

 

33222987928_c981c0da8f_c.jpg 

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So far i would say excellent work. Sadly im not familiar with Mr. lovecrafts works. I have to say i followed this build by connection to your beautiful Ford Tri-motor. The walls look the part of a haunted insane city ? And from the description your Shoggoth is bar none. The light in its lair truly adds to the effect. 

 

Dennis

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On 2/15/2019 at 5:20 AM, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

 Sadly im not familiar with Mr. lovecrafts works.

 

Treat yourself - if that's the right word - to some of the works of the eldritch master. Mountains of Madness is good place to start, or The Call of Cthulhu. There are some good audio book versions on Youtube to help the modelling hours pass. And don't worry about the sanity thing, that's quite... normal.

 

Edited by TallBlondJohn
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  • At the risk of hijacking my own thread, I must admit that At the Mountains of Madness is not a favorite of mine. Lovecraft's prose can sometimes be a chore to read -- I can tolerate it in a short story, but Mountains of Madness is more novella length. That said, my favs include The Call of Cthulhu, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, The Dunwich Horror, The Colour Out of Space, and Haunter of the Dark (along with its prequel, "The Shambler from the Stars", by Robert Bloch). 🐙

 

I also recommend checking out the offerings from the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, http://www.hplhs.org/

 

My votes for best Lovecraft-inspired films include "Dagon" (2001) and HPLHS's "Call of Cthulhu". 

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1 hour ago, billn53 said:
  • At the risk of hijacking my own thread, I must admit that At the Mountains of Madness is not a favorite of mine. Lovecraft's prose can sometimes be a chore to read -- I can tolerate it in a short story, but Mountains of Madness is more novella length. That said, my favs include The Call of Cthulhu, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, The Dunwich Horror, The Colour Out of Space, and Haunter of the Dark (along with its prequel, "The Shambler from the Stars", by Robert Bloch). 🐙

I'm pretty fond of AtMoM (though not, it must be said, of the Call of Cthulhu RPG's Beyond the Mountains of Madness adventure, which is just execrable); it, The Dunwich Horror, Whisperer in Darkness, and Shadow over Innsmouth are probably my favourites.  In any case, the good news is that most of HPL's originally published work is now in the public domain, though the definitive versions, ably-edited by the insufferable S T Joshi, are not. 

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I believe my two favourites are two of his longest works - 'At the Mountains of Madness', and 'The Shadow Out of Time'. The ones PC mentions are all excellent. To be honest, I like/love all of Howard Phillips Lovecraft's work, purple prose and all. In a moment of madness (several actually, helped along by a truly heroic intake of bourbon), I wrote a sort of pastiche/homage short story in the style of Mr. Lovecraft. 'Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.', and all that. Now, back to our regularly scheduled programme...

 

Regards,

 

Jason

 

Edited by Learstang
Slight change. Really just a trifle. Hardly worth mentioning.
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It is indeed an unimaginable terror torn from the unfathomable depths of space and time, of forgotten aeons and dimensions which should not exist... Actually, that's some nice Lovecraftian prose there Kallisti! Old Howard Phillips would be proud, or perhaps even driven insane from the foul hints contained in your mad mutterings.

 

Regards,

 

Jason

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Well I have ventured down the terrible path that leads to madness and hysterical purple prose before, during my endeavours as a craftsman to the Great Old One himself! I speak, or course, of Great Cthuhlu under whose blasphemous influence I produced a work of unspeakable horror depicting the sleeping god in all his eldritch glory

 

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I am perpetually haunted by this presence which observes my every movement and invades my subconsciousness with the whisperings of nightmarish insanity which forces me to visit this site on a  daily basis to witness the horrors therein! I am beyond redemption, cursed to continually talk boll... rubbish and expose my perfidious gibberings...

 

Oh no the geometries are transforming....

Edited by Kallisti
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That is an amazing rendition of the Great Tentacled One! I can well imagine that terrifying survival of ages long gone, limned under a gibbous moon. I am overcome by sheer horror, and the walls and floor of my humble abode are changing and transmogrifying into inexplicable shapes, insane non-Euclidean geometries from a forbidden dimension... I have to say, I think I may have met my match in pseudo-Lovecraftian prose, bettered only by the Master himself, H.P. Lovecraft, or perhaps Abdul Alhazred, in his more opium-fueled musings.

 

Best Regards,

 

Jason

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34 minutes ago, billn53 said:

Looks to me like the big “C” has a bit of a beer-belly. 

 

Watney's Red Barrel, I think, if the Unaussprechlichen Kulten is to be believed.

 

Regards,

 

Jason

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I was following the Trimotor but I've missed loads of this because I don't come over to the Diorama forum very often. Lovely work. I can just see the full sized article  glistening in the Mexican sunshine, I'm sure there's some form of bio weapons program that will provide the real Shoggoths :) and frankly with the state of the global ecosystem it ought to be easy to find some ratty looking mutant penguins.

 

I have also invested (I say invested but afair it was £0.49 on Amazon) in the complete works of HP Lovecraft and will at least read the Mountains of Madness once I finish off the Pip and Flinx series (I'm up to number 8 of 14 (I think) ) averaging one a week so that would make it some time in April by the time I get to it.  I do remember reading Lovecraft as a teenager and being somewhat unnerved by it :) 

Edited by Marklo
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It's been a few days since I last posted progress on my Mountains of Madness project. Let me bring you up to date.

 

With the wall and shoggath lair complete, I turned my attention to the snowy base. The foundation consists of a 14" square wooden platform, over which I added a layer of rolled-out Das air-hardening clay. From past experience, I know that this product shrinks  when drying, so I made my layer larger than the frame, intending to trim it to size once it had dried out:

 

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I used wood glue to ensure the clay would adhere to the base, and weighed it down while drying. After the clay had hardened, I trimmed the edges and cut out the backside for my wall and shoggath lair:

 

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A test fit shows everything going together well:

 

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I've also started working on the various "props" that I'll need. Here you can see the expedition's tents. I've wired the tent on the left with a flickering, yellow LED to simulate a lighted lantern:

 

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Watch this space for more madness!

 

 

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I've made some good progress on my base over the past couple of days, and it's now nearly ready for the snow & ice effects.

 

First, I firmly attached my big, beautiful wall to the base using Gorilla glue and copious clamps:

 

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Gorilla glue foams up when working, and clamps are essential to prevent the foaming effect from separating the parts being glued together. Here you can see where the foam found its way to the join between the wall and the base:

 

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Normally, I would have cleaned the foam off, but in this case I took advantage of situation to simulate wind-swept snow accumulating at the base of the  wall:

 

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I also carved a rock face from a piece of foam sheet to fit over the shoggath lair, and used expanding foam to blend in the rock face with the wall:

 

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With a little paint and weathering, everything is falling into place:

 

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I also finished up the expedition's tents. PE table and chairs, and a few 3D-printed bottles add interest:

 

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As I progress with this build, you'll see a theme develop... namely, that these professors from Miskatonic University are real lushes!

 

 

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