Last of Us diarahma
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About the Project
I got two Hasslefree Miniatures that look like the protagonists in a popular computer game. I wanted to have a crack at kitbashing some of the blind and scary "clickers" zombies. The idea came that making a small diarahma would be interesting way of combining it all together.
Related Game: The Last Of Us: Escape The Dark
Related Company: Hasslefree Miniatures
Related Genre: Post-Apocalyptic
This Project is Active
Salute submission.
Entering in Salute diorama category on 12th April.
On display at Salute 😁. Didn't place in the category sadly, but nice to see people looking at it favourably.Faces kitbash help.
These were the heads I used.
Lloyd shotMy first 2 efforts were not as good as the last two, but I guess you get better as the ideas formalise with most things anyway.
The first two I hoped that the clippers cut into the face would give me some great jagged edges for me to make into the fungi mutations. Sadly my technique was off and all it did was cut the eyes away and cut out the bridge of the nose pretty cleanly. So I used a good quantity of plastic cement and some pieces of off cut sprue to make the basic shape of mushrooms to approximate the look of Last of Us clickers. I don’t think I nailed it with the first two, I chose to not replace them and persevere.
The next two came out better because I went back to some source material. I realised that it needs to be slightly more symmetrical, more protruding and more mushroom like. Also as mentioned earlier the colours needed to be more subdued as well.
As you can see on the sprues above there are one or two models with odd looking eared masks. I snipped some of these off and made them park of the faces of the last two efforts and these were improved for it.I think I could have used some mini pinecone pieces as was suggested by Gerry to make the face mutations. I think this could really contribute to the symmetry and mushroom looking feel to the mutation. It would scale well and I might try it if I need more at all.
Some of mine look stylistically like these, but I am OK that they're a little different. If making your own I would advice concentrating on a centre parting type look to the face as a starting point. The more famous images have this style of folds of the mutation sprouting from the nose and eyes area and folding out left and right across the cheeks.
More nature
The extra foliage seemed necessary. I rolled some more creeper lengths from green stuff. I found some card that was thin enough to work in my Green stuff punch. The leaves were stuck over connection points I didn't like the look of on my creeper lengths. They add a nice 3D element to piece.
The mushrooms were awkward to do. I used off cuts of sprue and attached a stem with super glue and let that set. The stems were cut from the thin transparent clothes tags you find on shoes and clothes. When it was set the paper they were rested on needed to be cut away or trimmed off, but thankfully still have me a mushroom/ fungi looking shape.
I think I am happy with the look now of this side of the diorama. I may tweak the paint job a touch more, but otherwise I am happy enough.Progress. Finalising the set up
I am happy with the set up. I hope it looks like the pair are retreating away from the 3 clickers and that they've sadly not found a very safe way out because Ellie is still having to tackle a clicker of her own.
The space above the Fireflies graffiti will need some more foliage I feel. It just looks very empty and off balance as a piece.
The fireflies graffiti came out well. I gave up on the idea of furniture in Joelle's room. Just went for grass beginning to grow in places.Cabinet.
I used some spear hafts to be pill bottle or other thinner can/bottles on the middle shelf. Painted orange, label added, white top painted. I have put the Soup cans and First Aid kit in there too.What are they there for?
Building a cabinet. Loot seems to be the best reason in-game to enter a building.
The magazine printout also has soup can labels. Will probably make this a First Aid cabinet as it was maybe a Fedra centre. If I can see what a typical US AED (defib) looks like and see if I can fashion one.
It was easier to make a first aid box rather than make bandages and components. Still undecided what will be in there.
Storytelling.
I found a picture online of an AI man in a blue suit and red tie. I found a "Fedra" poster and a "Wolves" rebel poster.
This poor soul was in charge in some fashion in this building. 
The poster printed out well. As did some magazines. 
I printed out another copy of the picture and cut out the frame. I pasted it up to try and get some more depth to the frame. It looks good but perhaps I should have done two as the definition isn't stark. More Clickers
I realised that the clickers can look very different as their mutations formed uniquely. That said they all lose their eyes and my first attempts hadn't been fungus based enough.
I think I got the mutations looking more like the games.
All Mod. Cons.
I am keeping in touch with an old work mate who is a hobbyist too. We've decided to enter the Siege Studios Iron Skull painting competition. We set up a WhatsApp group with a few more friends interested in entering. I asked for suggestions on what I should add furniture wise and a rotten chair was suggested.
Used scissors to cut the shape of an old style comfy chair out of miniature storage foam. The grey foam inserts to remove to place your minis in. I then cut the suggestion of cushions into it. It has become very spongy and worried it may even look like a rough concrete finish.I painted it off white. Then painted it with Army Painter Dark Tone. Then added some Sepia Wash. The dying grass growing through it was from Gamers Grass. I added some Nulin Oil to really emphasize the cushion edges and a mouldy look and threw a line of blood spatter. Just to give the chair a violent past.
Then I added some onion skin leaves to cushions and across the floor to set the chair in its environment more.
Love the thinness and texture of onion skin as good leaves. Put through my green stuff punch they come out well and with plenty of PVA added they shouldn't rot.Building a wall
I found the box from a screen protector. The card is strong and takes paint and things are nice and uniform. The crease down one edge seemed like a good enough height for a skirting board and didn't need me to measure or cut anything too precisely.I painted one side with DeathGuard Green and one side with Corax White. Sprayed with just a spot of Dirty Town Dark Brown to knocked it back a bit and look less pristine.
I used green stuff to make vines / creeper plants on one wall. Anything that didn't look right on the base tile got covered in urban / rubble flock and flint or forest floor brown flock.Painting Clickers
I had seen some bold colours used, especially orange in my memory of clickers.
But when I started looking at some reference images I realised I had remembered wrong. Very few had the orange I imagined and looked far more rotten and grey and fungified. 
I also realised that just a clicker each seemed to lack drama. I knew I would need some furniture. I decided I would have them back to back in a door way. The diarahma started to take some shape in my head.Kitbash clickers
My original Idea was to have the heroes back to back, facing off against a clicker each.
The heads were from the Cultists 2 Frostgrave/ North Star box. I built some zombie cultists and had a lot of heads left over per sprue.
The Warlord Games zombie (Project Z) sprue was a impulse buy during a sprue sale as I didn't want to buy into the game. (I already had my favourite Walking Dead game and minis to play with.) the zombies came up a bit more true scale than the Mantic Walkers which put me off integrating them into that collection. I had occasionally decided to cut the helmet off of metal or plastic head and found that my clippers were a bit blunt / pinched instead cut and left interesting shapes in the disfigured head.
For my kitbashed clickers I used my GW clippers and cut the faces through the eye line just above the nose. I then added slivers of sprue as the disconcerting fungus that grow out through their eye sockets.
Where there was an exposed limb I added mushroom type bumps to nod to the grotesque way they have been malformed.
Dust trap
My concern with diarahma making had never been a lack desire to be creative in that direction. Initially I was worried that any mini not painted to play games with could be wasted money. And a big factor of where to keep the piece afterwards and whether it would just become a forgotten dust trap. Minis broken, scenery destroyed.
Then I realised that a clear box would be a good way of keeping things dust free. It also gave me a good space constraint to work within to tell a short story.The catalyst
It was the board piece that I photographed my minis on that inspired the idea of a diarahma.I preordered the Here’s Negan boardgame. When it arrived it had no minis. Just all the card components and rules etc.
I let Wayland and Mantic know and they sent me a complete set, rather than just the missing minis etc.
I kept hold of all the card stock because there were some great designs on the tiles and thought they would be good for terrain ideas or for expanding to bigger games of Here’s Negan.
Painting Joelle and Ellie
They were fun to paint.
Particularly liked the shirt design. It’s distressed and small, but the shirt design is faded and grimy in the game also.
I tried to use similar colours to the real game, but didn’t get too bogged down with it.
Primed black and did a heavy drybrush of Wraithbone and used Contrast paints to start. Then used more conventional basing and highlighting to improve the look. I think I had already committed to the idea of making a diarahma because I didn’t commit to any basing.
