Brush With Death 2019 Entry

In the past, I’ve only ever done scenic bases on miniatures intended for gameplay, so the idea of building a diorama was daunting, to say the least.  Step one was browsing the Mantic webstore for (at least) two miniatures that not only looked interesting to paint, but also seemed like they would fit together in a world.  After a while, I found them, and they demanded I build…. a sewer!

I had a basic shape for the diorama in mind, but the first step was to make sure I adhered to competition rules.  The diagonal line through the “L” is the longest side, and it’s exactly 11 inches.  The rules state the diorama can have a diameter of no more than 300mm or 11.81 inches.

(Please let me know if something here is off – I don’t want to get disqualified!)

I cut out the “L” for my base and added walls.  I wasn’t sure how tall I wanted it to be, so in the end I just went for 5 inches.

Throughout, I’m using PVA glue and straight pins to make sure everything gets a good seal.

The next stage was constructing a walkway running along the back walls.  I measured the wall lengths and, again, eyeballed a width I thought I would be happy with.  In the end I gave myself a little extra room to work with by adhering the sides on level with the top surface, instead of beneath (which was the original plan).

As you can see, I didn’t attach the walkway straightaway.  Instead, I drew a line between the wall corner and the far corner of the diorama and used this as a way of how I should shape the ceiling pieces.  I want to try to for a curved sewer ceiling, and the only way I could see going about that was using long strips glued into the correct shape.