Third and final update for today, test fit of the 3 floating icons and stairs all fitted along with the spire glued in place, I've deliberately left a tier out of the Mausoleum for composition of the overall diorama. I still have green stuff work to do on the various parts but couldn't resist a test fit!!

Second installment of update with some green stuff work, I traced a template of the Mausoleum's spire and cut one from foam board, covered that in foil and glued a hemisphere of green stuff in the middle. I use small metal kitchen measure spoons to make the hemispheres, flatten a bit of green stuff, coat the inside of the spoon with a small amount of hand cream and squidge it in! I then back fill that with Aves 2 part epoxy putty and leave to cure before removing.

Mixed up some more green stuff and added Aves to it in a 50/50 mix, this gives a much softer medium to work in. First started with the eyelid flap to the right followed by the lower eyelid and finally the upper, each section is flattened using a small blob of hand cream on finger and thumb then placed across the hemisphere, I use metal dental tools and more hand cream on them to flatten, smooth and add the ridging textures to the putty, starting with light pressure to get the flow of the lines and then going back over to add depth, join lines together etc. A lot of people use water or Vaseline with green stuff, but I prefer the hand cream, I don't have any problems painting over it at a later date with a quick rinse off and have found Vaseline can interfere with paint if not fully removed.

I didn't want to sculpt straight onto the resin cast purely to avoid getting green stuff into the joins in the brick work pattern, as the green stuff is pulled out on the foil is should blend into the brickwork when I glue it on once cured, a small amount of liquid green stuff will be used anywhere it doesn't!

Bit of a flurry of uploads having been on holiday for a week - armed with foam board and cutting gear mind you!! I cut a stack of  oblongs measuring 2cm x 2.6cm (width of the metal ruler), then marked them up with a mix of the following combos, all top left corner marks are 5mm in, bottom right marks are 5mm, 1cm and 1cm left to right. Middle lines are then 1.5cm from the top on the first 2 followed by 1cm from the top on the last. The scalpel is then inserted flush with the card at the corner point across to the surface of the middle line and cut across the foam, leaving a sloped edge to give twist to the stairs.

Once I had that lot cut up it was a case of wait to get home before gluing in varying combos of the 3 types to give different twists to the stairs, adding in the occasional flat area too.

A bit Escher like with changes in planes of gravity etc, this will be added to by humanoid figures on upper and lower surfaces of the steps - pic of one side installed

The mausoleum base is 2 sheets of foam board glued together with added BBQ skewers underneath - this goes right through the backboard supporting the resin model kit in mid-air. Once the stairs are completed the underside of the Mausoleum will have chunks of foam added to build up a rocky look as if it's been ripped from the ground - at least that's the plan!

First of the right side stairs added, one more to build! all the foam board is stuck using superglue, this one pictured is from a £1 shop, seems fine for this sort of scenery build but highly advise windows open for this quantity of gluing!!

One weeks worth of sculpting update, real world 9 to 5 seriously hampers play time!!

Just a bit of fine tuning polish on the largest and the smallest to go and on with the final 4 faces on the medium size one, will have this all buttoned off for the weekend and should be about spot on for the Fenris order landing too :-D

Really pleased with how the angles interact with each other and looking forwards to getting some paint on too!!

Weekend and Monday evening progress with greenstuff and beads of different sizes over the foam card body. I prefer to use hand cream rather than vaseline in my greenstuff mix and to help the tools smooth over without sticking, washes off the finished sculpt better when you want to paint onto it IMHO.

Plenty more work to do yet! I use a set of various size ball ended nail art stylus for the detailing work, the otherworldly rune symbols come from my head which is another worry altogether!

Meant to upload these last Friday, working on 3 different size "monoliths" or "living icons", I roughed one out in thin sheets MDF to get the angles of each triangle and then the internal angles to
make the 2 interlocking halves.

This shot should show the internal angles better plus the small angled card pieces that brace the corners, all the infill is simple decorators caulk.

As another strength precaution, without wanting to add a lot of weight, I've pushed up a set of BBQ skewers from the base up into the back piece, these will get a quick hacksaw flush with the bottom and then it will be left to fully cure overnight.

Here's a set of 3 angles with today's start on the mammoth project!!

Sometime ago I sculpted a bas-relief Cthulhu tomb sarcophagus lid around an intersecting triangle pattern, again it's the weigh up between what I can achieve and what goes on in my head! Marking out the same shape onto the foam I then cut using a metal saw blade to avoid ripping up the material too much. To break up the outer lines I used a fine tooth hacksaw blade and marked out some semi-circles for removal.

The back edge of the base piece is angled backwards, I'm hoping this will act as a cantilever support for the mausoleum, although I've got some thin MDF which I can put right through the back piece to assist with that if needed. A good bead of no nails to hold the 2 pieces together is now required!

day one - well day three but I digress already

Having seen Fenris Games post for a world building diorama competition info here I ordered some parts from them to include the Copp's Hill Mausoleum. I'd been chewing the ideas over in my head during the daytime having had an eye on the resin scenery piece for a while.

In keeping with the Cthulhu mythos I imagined a non-euclidean diorama and then worked backwards from that to get something I could build in the time allotted, while still maintaining an other worldly feeling. One large sheet of extruded polystyrene insulation foam would supply the basis- here it is doing a good impression of the 2001 Space Odyssey monolith! I've done this with the comp page in the background to help time stamp it as a new build.