Observatory

Well, you may or may not recall the backstory of my Harad army, but to cut a long story short one of the Nazgul has become fixated on astrology as a means of portending the future. I figured for a bit of scenery and some diorama fun I'd make him an observatory. 

Other ancient cultures have studied the stars and one of the more common ways that we know this is from the leftover monuments and buildings.

Here's one (not that Chichen Itza seemed to be designed for astronomical purposes, just that this was a good picture).

Obviously my skills aren't up to quite that level of task (well, even if they were my time allotment for hobby wouldn't allow it) and to add to it I've been sick this last week. In any case, I had some old noticeboard material out the back and cut it into a few layers. The bottom is 12" square, the top 4" square. Each block is about 1cm thick and I'm using two blocks per level.

From the side you can see it's quite tall relative to a person (or mumak). Unfortunately this material is HORRIBLE to work with. It's sort of compressed cardboard/paper with a bit of a plaster finish on top. It frays and pulls apart and just sort of disintegrates at the slightest touch.

The top should be big enough to allow a flying creature to land. Each step is an inch wide for a figure to stand on.

Here we are a short time later, I've cut steps on the sides and used some plaster filler all around it to try and hold it together. Unfortunately it still just kind of falls off and continues to come to pieces, it's messy and too unstable.

So here we are outside with some watered down glue. I've put two nice thick layers of glue over the whole structure. Once it's been spray painted and painted I'm hoping that it'll hold together! Of course, I also etched in some stone work, but I'm a bit worried that the amount of glue I've used has just filled in all the etching! Oh well, better for it to hold together!

And yes, you can see some undercoated Harad warriors there too. I've still got two warbands left to paint (one for the Hasharin, one for the Nazgul).

I'll be going all out on the paint job (not) with a black undercoat and some grey drybrushing =)