Step-by-step tutorial for making a Hogwarts corridor

Hi,

My apologies for straying into my other love, the world of Harry Potter, but it won't happen too often.

I always try to make some scenery as a backdrop for taking pictures of my painted miniatures but this time I wanted to make something that could be used for game play too. You may have seen my Chamber of Secrets and other corridors from Hogwarts before but this time I wanted to recreate the scene where Umbridge issues her proclamations and they are all added to the wall.

My main problem was that I needed some frames for the proclamations. I've been using a few bits from Eddie's The Alchemist's Workshop like his windows on other projects so I approached him about making the frames.

 

He has now made the 'PosterSign Boads' available for sale and are great quality and very reasonable too.

https://www.thealchemistsworkshop.com/

It took a couple of weeks of hard graft but he definitely came up with the goods and was kind enough to send the prototypes.

On to the construction :-)

I use foam tiles from Firedragon Games based in the UK. Again nice quality and relatively cheap.

Here's a link 

 

https://www.firedragongames.co.uk/materials

The plain tiles are 11" square, so cutting them in half still works as a decent height for each of the walls.

 I used a metal ruler and a dental tool to score the brickwork, each brick was 1/2 inch high and 1" long. I then primed the tile using acrylic paint. Warning do not use rattle can primer, trust me you'll be sorry!

Luckily the floor tiles are molded so I just had to prime them.

I noticed on the game boards that came with the core set were 7 squares across so I used this as a guide for the width. They were cut to size with some left over for the walls to sit on leaving 7 squares visible.

I wanted to jazz up the walls by adding windows.

Here's a link to the ones I used.

https://www.thealchemistsworkshop.com/product-page/10-pack-ornate-round-arched-window

Place them on the tiles at the height required, I measure an inch from the floor and traced around the window frame

I traced around the inside of the frame too. This is because I wanted the windows to rest on the walls rather than fit inside the holes.

Carefully cut in between the inner line and the outer line.

Remove the cut out blocks.

You should cut away inside the outer line, this will allow some room to glue the window.

Apply the glue to the outer edge of the frame. I used quick drying PVA.

Leave to dry.

I glued two walls together

Then prepared to glue to the floor.

I used cut paper clips as pins to hold the walls in position whilst they dried.

The proclamation frames were fixed to a spare bit of board using some blue tac and primed. You can use a rattle can primer for this stage.

While they were drying I found some pictures online, saved them and printed them out. I got the correct size on the third attempt. After copying the image in a word file so that I had enough proclamations and then hit print.

The frames were painted with Vallejo's Woodgrain but any dark brown will do. I cut out each proclamation and fixed them to the bottom part of the frame using PVA glue and glued the top part of the frame in to place and let them dry.

Back to the board.

After about 3 coats of white paint, most of it is absorbed by the foam, I had an opaque layer to paint.

I've been using Citadel's Zandri Dust for my miniature's bases so I thought I'd continue the theme. I thinned the paint to about 1 part paint and 3 parts water. Once that had dried I used a brown wash to outline the bricks. The arch in the doorway was made with very thin 'fun foam' from a hobbycraft shop, cut out four staggered layers and glue together.

Glue the proclamations using PVA glue.

Done :-)

Step-by-step tutorial for painting Ratcatcher - Part 2

Ratcatcher

N.B. I used Citadel paints unless stated other wise.

The miniature was prepped and primed, a pin was inserted in the foot and attached to a cork base.

I used Skrag Brown for the trousers, gloves and hair. A 50:50 mix of Warpstone Glow and Moot Green was used for the jacket. Mechanicus Standard Grey mixed with Black for the staff.

The trousers, hair and gloves were shaded with Agrax Earthshade. The green jacket was shaded with Biel Tan Green.

The top layer of strapped clothing and gas mask were base coated with Tau Light Ochre. The lantern, shoes and staff tips were base coated with Ironbreaker and later shaded with Nuln Oil. I used a light grey for the gas mask hose.

The dark brown strap across the chest and the layer under the trousers was base coated with Rhinox Hide. The strap continues around the top and bottom of the canister on his back.

The strapped clothing was shaded with a 50:50 mix of Agrax Earthshade and Seraphim Sepia.

The green jacket was layered with the original base coat mix of Warpstone Glow and Moot Green with about a 50:50 ratio of paint to water. Try keeping out of the recessed folds.

The first highlight to the green jacket was using Moot Green, again keeping the paint thin and only painting the upper parts of each fold.

Another highlight using Moot Green mixed with a little white and Yriel Yellow.

The trousers and gloves were layered with the original Skrag Brown.

The trousers and gloves were highlighted using Deathclaw Brown.

The trousers and gloves were highlighted with Deathclaw Brown mixed with a little Ushabti Bone.

The hair was highlighted with Skrag Brown mixed with a little Ushabti bone. The straps on the trousers were painted with Rhinox Hide with a thin black line either side to add definition.

The buckles for the leg straps were picked out using Leadbelcher and lined with black.

The lantern was highlighted with Leadbelcher and then again with Runefang Steel.

The gas mask hose was shaded with a thinned Nuln Oil wash as was the bottom half of the rat’s body.

The staff was highlighted using Mechanicus Standard Grey and then again by adding a little Administratum Grey to the mix.

The canister was base coated with Tau Light Ochre.

The deeper stripes were shaded using a mix of Skrag Brown and Agrax Earthshade.

The top half of the raised stripes were highlighted with Tau Light Ochre mixed with a little Ushabti Bone. It was then highlighted again with a thin glaze of Ushabti Bone to the top third.

The top layer or strapped clothing was highlighted by picking out the raised straps with Tau Light Ochre. The goggles were picked out with Runefang Steel and the l used a dark grey for the lenses and pushed a black glaze towards the top of the lenses to get a transition. The gas mask hose was highlighted with a light grey. 

The rat was highlighted by drybrushing Dawnstone mixed with Administratum Grey and again with the same mix with some white added in. Finally he was glued to the brick base.

The finished Ratcatcher...