I seem to do more terrain work on weekends vs painting for some reason. Looking at my existing gate I did when I was in my Moria phase



I decided I wanted to do something more for the East Gate of Moria. Didn't have to cast much, had existing pieces to put together.



Have a piece of pink insulation board I will cut into and add to, tentative look



Need to sand some, etc.

Will see where this goes.

_________________
"Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer."

Cut out the gateway in the insulation board, gave it all a quick spray of grey paint to see how it is working.





Thought I had put the symbol on top of the gate straight - oops.

_________________
"Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer."

Awesome effort there buddy! Pretty funny about the symbol though

Will you adjust it?

Just tacky glued on, used an x-acto to loosen it off, already straighten. (I hope) Since it wasn't the final paint, easily fixed.

_________________
"Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer."

Worked on the gate itself, build the steps

_________________
"Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer."

Felt my first attempt was too linear once I built the steps. So as usual, broke some things apart and put them back together in another manner.

Keeping everything separate and depending on my whim, how to put back.

The pieces.



Some different ways they go together.













Need to recut my insulation board and still have work to do on the stone work on the base and the stairs.

_________________
"Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer."

Painted/weathered/dirtied - hated taking the nice white/grey structure and making it weathered but that is part of the process





Need to work more on the gate itself and hope to have time this week to work on the mountain (insulation board) behind.

_________________
"Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer."

Nice work. Can't wait to see it with the backing board.

A master terrain craftsmen at work! This looks excellent! I think the terrain looks much better after the weathering as the moss and dirt shows the age of Moria If you don't mind me asking, where did you get the statues? They really have an LOTR feel and I don't think I've ever seen them before. While I don't know if I'll ever build Moria for gaming, I've thought about making some kind of diorama similar to this so you may have gotten some inspiration going for me!

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You can find me at: https://KuribosPainting.com/ and on Instagram @kuribospainting.

DaveT - me too! I haven't worked with pink insulation board before so I imagine I will make some mistakes along the way. I noticed on my first test that the spray paint melted the board somewhat. I don't know what to use to glue pieces together, how long paint needs to dry, etc. Will see how it goes.

Kuribo, thanks! the Dwarf statue is a Gimli LOTR Chess set piece I made a mold of. The other statues are from a mold that is no longer available that I added some gw fantasy dwarf heads to.

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"Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer."

Cut the hole in the insulation board, put the first of ? layers next to it. Plan is to have the gate between two spurs of the mountain face. (need to recut the right side ) Plan is to build up the spurs just using blocks of board, gluing them down then carving.

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"Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer."

> I noticed on my first test that the spray paint melted the board somewhat.

Yeah, you need to coat the board before using spray paint on it, unless you use a special kind of spray paint. I generally don't use spray so I can't offer anything specific, but maybe someone else can chime in.

> I don't know what to use to glue pieces together,

I use Aleene's Tacky Glue, which I picked up from Michael's. Seems to work pretty well. If you're not in the US those brand names won't mean much, though.

Thanks, I was going to use tacky glue (Michael's is my go to craft store)

I was going to add pumice also to the board so I will probably do what I do to my plaster of paris pieces, and cover it all with gesso to fill in cracks and give it an over all surface to paint so I should be good.

_________________
"Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer."

Looks great! Is this meant to be the inner side (for a First Hall and Bridge board) or the outer wall (for a Mirrormere and Lothlorien outskirts board)?

Allivar - outside.

I have been having internal debates on how to do the face and spurs of the mountain, looking at woodland scenics and other terrain examples in games workshop publications. The debate between realistic (model train) vs gaming. I have some woodland scenics shaper and plaster sheets or using rock molds and was experimenting with that but didn't get the result I liked.

I went with gaming. What really influenced me was looking at this old publication of GW.



and specifically this page



I had trying to see how I could have goblins on the walls of the mountain and seeing this picture really decided it for me.

Thinking of how I could do more design above the gate I was playing with printing off designs, taping to the insulation board and then carving it out. Didn't work too well on the insulation board but did ok on plaster.

My take on Durin's stone.



The top piece is a block from Hirst Arts egypt mold, the rest I taped the design to the blocks, took a pointed tool and punched dots on the design, took off the paper and connected the dots.



With Murin and Drar and their Iron Guard squad.

_________________
"Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer."

I have some experience with pink foam, surprisingly. Mine is ancient (ten plus years old) and the hardest to cut foam ever made but I've had great luck with PVA/Wood glue if you have some. I use that to attach the foam to MDF and it works well. I'm really looking forward to seeing how you get on with it and I hope you find the process enjoyable as well

Durin's stone look's awesome. Really nice work on that piece. It looks ancient and sacred to the dwarves all at the same time. I really like how you based it as well.

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You can find me at: https://KuribosPainting.com/ and on Instagram @kuribospainting.

Initial placing of the blocks on the right hand spur. When placing the blocks of insulation I decided to leave the middle looking like a rock slide happened.

I had did two blocks glued with tacky glue and two with wood glue, both seemed to work. Ended up using the wood glue when attaching to the mdf and tacky glue for the majority of the pieces.





As I plan to have the spurs removable to allow them to be used as individual pieces on the edges of a board, I added another entrance.



Still a lot of work to be done; filling spaces, carving, adding rocks & sand, base painting, etc before I can start adding details.

_________________
"Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer."

That is shaping up really nicely! You're going to have some really awesome looking terrain when this is all done, I bet. Can't wait to see more updates on this project as it is both ambitious and being executed at a high level!

_________________
You can find me at: https://KuribosPainting.com/ and on Instagram @kuribospainting.

Started using a blade to cut the blocks, found it simpler and faster just to use my thumb nail and break pieces off. Still used the blade to score some pieces. Used the broken pieces to fill in cracks and add debris. Coated it all in gesso to fill in the cracks more and strengthen it, then painted it all. Finally, used grey spray primer having to turn the piece several directions to get into all the crevasses. I used the gesso and first coat of paint in hopes that when I sprayed painted the primer on, it wouldn't melt the insulation board. Seemed to have worked.









The middle gap was going to be a rockslide, thinking now I will use water effects on it. I like how it works, might have to make a stairway on the other spur.

Next will be adding a wash to darken the recesses, then dry brush etc. Unfortunately for my hobby work, fortunately for real life, I won't be able to do anything on this for awhile.

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"Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer."

This is looking really good. It really looks like an ancient dwarf gate. I can't wait to see what it will be like once finished.