Wednesday 21 February 2018

Rotshroud Manse - the Wortbad sky-ship dock

Wortbad is an isolated village in the middle of the Harrowmark, deeply troubled by the undead and corrupted by dark magic. It is surrounded by endless haunted forests that stretch on for 10,000 leagues in every direction and overlooked by the jagged, foreboding Everdark Peaks. The Harrowmark is a land of perpetual autumn, where what little farmland there is lies fallow and untended, with crops rotted in the fields.

The villagers' only connection to their neighbours is by the flying ship trade routes overhead. Few dare to set foot in the forests, the risks are just too great: the creatures within too terrifying. But the galleons of the merchant fleets plot a wandering course over the treetops, stopping at as many villages on the ground and settlements on flying islands as they can to trade, to pick-up or drop-off passengers, to deliver letters and to pass-on news.

Rotshroud Manse is the Wortbad skyship dock - a landing point above the level of the trees used by traders and transports (and the odd sky-pirate) that stop-off at Wortbad in their journeys over the endless, malignant forests.




Made from a Skullvane Manse (now known as a Warscryer Citadel, but I bought mine years ago!) with wooden platform as replacement for the observatory tower (which I had already used for another project), made from Watchtower top floor and Ruins of Osgiliath floorboards.

I also added a corner the "Ruins of Osgiliath" kit, from the Lord of the Rings scenery range, broken paving using Shattered Dominion Large Basing Kit parts and candle-covered gravestones from Spirit Hosts and the Coven Throne.


I undercoated the whole model with Chaos Black spray, I brushed on Dryad Bark onto the rocky outcrop parts then used Mechanicus Standard Grey spray to add a zenithal base colour over the whole thing.

I sprayed the platform with Mournfang Brown (using a sheet of paper to crudely "mask" the bits I didn't want to get brown paint on. This only partially worked but I wasn't too worried at this point). Then brushed on Mournfang Brown to the other timber parts.



Once that was dry I very lightly dry-brushed the entire thing with Ushabti Bone with a one-inch brush and painted the "bone" skulls (not the "stone" ones) with more Ushabti Bone






I painted all the metalwork with Leadbelcher. Once that was dry I started washing with Shades.

  • Athonian Camoshade on the lower stone parts, concentrating on the areas closer to the ground and painting a "ragged edge" further up, so there wasn't a "tide line" where the green stopped. Also Athonian Camoshade on some random patches on the woodwork, especially the platform.
  • Agrax Earthshade on all the wooden areas, most of the metal areas and at random on some areas of stonework.
  • Drakenhof Nightshade on all the slate tiles.
  • Nuln Oil to all the metalwork, all the "cut stone block" areas and some of the deeper recesses of the other stone areas.




I painted all the sanded areas of the base with Steel Legion Drab Scenery Paint, then dry-brushed it with Ushabti Bone and dry-brushed a little Ryza Rust on all the metalwork.







I painted on free-hand angels of death (like the ones on Fallow's End House) into the shrines I added over one of the windows.



I glued on leaf litter (actually silver birch seeds - I bought a bag from Antenociti's Workshop) with PVA and Citadel Dead Grass with superglue. Finally I gave the whole model a light coat of Purity Seal.

Edit (11th March 2018)
The sky-dock is featured on the Warhammer Community blog today!



8 comments:

  1. Looks brilliant.

    Love the conversion into an 'air port'.

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  2. Fantastic!! I love how you placed the dry leaves on some corners. I wish I had the patience to start and finish a project this size! xD

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    1. Thanks!
      I had a week off work with flu. I powered through this project as a way to take my mind off how awful I felt! It worked surprisingly well... =D

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  3. Dude, that looks amazing! Looking back through the other posts you linked, I think that the way you've swapped parts around between the various kits has tied them together really nicely. In and of themselves, each one feels a little too different to really gel together, but mixing them up like that did the trick.

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    1. Thanks WestRider! Mixing up kits is so satisfying. It makes them much more interesting to work on than just building them "out of the box". And I definitely wanted them to look like they are all from the same place. =D

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