I wanted some color, but nothing too bright that will conflict with the buoys. The house in the game is monochrome drab and super boring. I went with a few weak washes of heather blue on the shutters and door for a small splash of color on each elevation. Followed it up with a black wash to fade it out more and a light silver dry brush on the cross braces.
Pulled the tape off the windows, though I can’t say I’m super stoked with how they turned out. The plastic panes worked ok, but I really need to consider other ways to opaque glass as I had the same issue with the porthole. The builds are passable, but maybe next time I’ll print something to glue to the inside of the pane. I also need to decide which side of the glass I want the supports on. For now, relying on an extra coat of grime and the exterior trinkets to hide the starkness.
Dry-brushed some brown back into the patches to make them look newer and installed the chimney up top. Now that I’ve worked with the turf more, I think I’m going to use it to add another layer of moss to the roof, maybe bring the tone down a tad. The turf is also less…grainy than the static grass, which is feeling rather spiky now.
First attempt at securing the shack did not go great. I think I have to break out the glue gun after all. I was hoping to avoid glueing the house to the turf, which will inevitably separate from the base, but I think I’m going to have to hope the glue gets decent penetration. If it doesn’t, at least I’ll know exactly where to reapply the glue, once I peel the cooled flock from the base of the shack for round 2.
I originally tried pinning it and ended up with a pin coming through one of the window frames, but no solid hold. The plaster candy shell doesn’t receive pins nearly as well as a sculpted foam base would have. The plaster is also harder to flatten, leaving several significant gaps to be filled around the base of the house.
I probably could have glued the house in place first, but it would have made the turf a serious pain in the ass. Then again, maybe it would have looked more natural with bare patches close to the house. Things to consider for next time – this build was about testing flock and findings. On the bright side, the clump bushes look more natural than the undergrowth, so hopefully I have enough to disguise the worst of the gaps.
Rather than obsess over the crazy I’m too tired to fix properly, I decided to skip to the fun part. The hooks and chains went up as expected, but the buoy strings were too long. Fortunately I restocked headpins, so I was able to restring them to not drag the grass, which gave me a chance to vary the shapes and colors a bit more. I probably should have painted the new jump rings, but it seemed like very little return on investment. I tried to find opaque ones, but not that hard.
The nets were snipped to fit and installed along with the rest of the verdigris bits-and-bobs. I was hoping the oars would cover the roof line gap better than they do, but they’re still pretty cute. If it were for a digital game, I would use the net and hook out front as the flag, along with a little chimney smoke. If the gear is here, the fisher has information for you, otherwise he’s out chasing the whale.
Damn. I forgot about the whale. Pretty sure there were two versions of it. There is the interior view when it swallows you, featuring the most annoying climb in the KQ series, up his stupid tongue. But I think there was also an intact set of whale bones on the fairy island, like it got beached and they left it there to rot. So less late edition Grimm and more classic sidhe.
Tomorrow…
- Finish paint job on the replacement porch support and install it — original was too short to fit the curvature of the cliff face
- Attach house to base
- Fill in flock to blend house with landscape – add darker moss to roof
- General weathering
- Build scale test boats & piers
- Install boat, pier, and sundial if it fits
- Pour realistic water
The water will need to cure for at least day between layers before I can cut away the cardboard. One the water is in place I can detail the surf and call it done. Thinking the ogre cottage is up next.
