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Sunday, 16 June 2013

Shrine of Rigg - Ground Floor



Its been a while since I had any updates on my Shrine of Rigg build. I must admit that the LPL certainly slowed construction down, although I have now completed the outer wall for half of the ground floor and begun work on the second half of the ground floor - if you remember I split the model in half in an attempt to reduce the weight of each piece.


One thing the LPL did do to spur me on was get what I had built of the shrine painted to use as a back drop for the Amazon Sisterhood minis I planned to enter for Round 8.


Of course I also needed to make a raised dais, some pillars to break up the space a little and a plinth to mount the gold statue of Rigg on!


Here you can see the girls getting a bit too excited over their latest offering to the Goddess.

What you can see here is the basic shell of the ground floor - the pillars, dais and altar aren't fixed in and will actually be used in the floor above. Once I have finished the other hand of the Ground Floor I'll be looking at putting the interior walls in, as well as the stairs that lead up to a side entrance in the shrine.

The Sisterhood has a firm grip of the political, religious and technical power and makes up the ruling class in Amazon society. This excerpt from the Second Citadel Compendium goes into a little more detail:

The Sisterhood originates from the High Age of Southern Lustria, a golden age of science and technology. Even then, Amazonia was a wild and fiercely independent land. The technocratic and wise old Slann accepted this and respected Amazon territory. While other humans were regarded as inferior, enslaved and treated little better than cattle, the Amazons retained their freedom.

Old Slann and Amazon were able to exist, almost entirely peacefully side by side. There was even a measure of trade and cooperation between the two races. Amazons were particularly valued as Acolytes and as Thralls by the High Age Magii.

These Amazon emigres were the ancestors of the present day Sisterhood. They were to gain, through their work and their studies, a close familiarity with the High Age sciences.

Eventually the Old Slann fell,  their civilisation was destroyed and their knowledge lost even to their descendants. Modern day Slann regard any trace of the old days with suspicion and fear: the Old Sciences have been lost to them. Not so to the Sisterhood, who retained and preserved much of their knowledge. Whilst they could not hope to recreate the products of the High Age they could still use and maintain many of the artefacts which they had salvaged from its fall. 

This knowledge became the basis of the Sisterhood's power and authority within Amazon society. The careful organisation, fanatic devotion and above all, the secrecy of the Sisterhood ensure a continuing hegemony in the religious, political and scientific spheres of Amazon life.

The Sisterhood Mage is one of the high ranks within the Sisterhood - those who rise to such greatness are formidable magic users and are able to call forth the living embodiment of the Goddess Rigg.


Mother Samantha is one of the only named Amazon characters, apart from the rebellious Kara Lakota.

Samantha's birth place lies somewhere in Eastern Amazonia. Born into a Nomadic tribe, she eventually became a member of the Kalim and from here joined the Devout.

She rose with remarkable speed from the Devout to the Sisterhood and then upwards through the ranks of the Sisterhood. She is now a High Priestess, the Head of the Holy Shrine of Rigg.

Samantha is still surprisingly young. Because of her Nomadic Amazon background she is an agile and able fighter as well as a powerful magician.


The Goddess herself!


Rigg, Goddess of War,  is the leading figure in the Amazon pantheon - the result of the mythic union between her and the Sea Elf God of wealth and happiness, Amex, was said to be Kalith, Mother of all Amazons.

Although she is of neutral alignment,  her spheres of influence lie in warfare, blood, Koka and violent death!

Should the Great Hall of the temple be violated, Mother Samantha or any other Sisterhood Mage can summon the Goddess herself with a summon demons spell. The Goddess will manifest herself, standing on the altar and obeying the wishes of the summoner for 2D4 turns. She appears as a 9 foot tall giant with red eyes and hair and is armed with a knife and four throwing knives - all magical.

Huge thanks to Zhu and his excellent forays into Amazonia, both for his great posts on the subject but also for inspiring the colour scheme I chose for the Sisterhood. I was so taken with the costume design for none other than Diana Rigg herself, in her role as Klytemestra in the BBC adaptation of The Serpent Son, that I had to pinch it!


You may recognise the face paint design I've used on most of the Sisterhood.


The design on this dress also shows up on the backs of the cloaks of Rigg and the Sisterhood Mage.




The next models aren't from the Amazon range but make nice Sisterhood Acolytes or Novices.

The evil Priestess from the Fantasy Adventurers range. I had a go at making her robe seem a little on the sheer side by adding faint flesh highlights where the cloth was drawn tight. I figured red hair would be pretty in vogue too if it was good enough for Rigg herself!


I figured that a Goddess like Rigg would probably be wanting some kind of blood sacrifice so the Houri with dagger, also from the Fantasy Adventurers range, would also fit nicely.



And finally another Samantha - this time Samantha Phox from the later range of Wizards. She's obviously had a little too much Koka or gotten a bit carried away with the rituals...


So to finish off I thought I'd mock up a few shots of what a game might actually look like once the Shrine is done!






Not too far off the Cover art on the Second Citadel Compendium?!


28 comments:

  1. Excellent!

    An great temple, and a clever use of miniatures for the Amazon Sisterhood, and of the barbarian for the victim.

    I like the way the Norse came out too, never a fan of them, but they look good there.

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    1. Well the beginning of one - there's another 4 floors or so to built yet!

      Should be some more Norse on the way over the next month - 25 to be precise.

      I do like these "smaller" scale projects after Orc's Drift!

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  2. Really wonderful scenes here, Thantsants! I especially love the mock-battle tableau(s). Hard to choose which side to cheer for though, so I think I'll just cheer for both...Yay, Amazons! Yay, Norse! Yay, Thantsants!

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    1. Cheers - its making little scenes like that that get me all excited about the project and will see me through the tedium of casting another few thousand Hirst arts blocks!

      The game itself should be a fantastic combination of the Norse dungeoneering through the shrine and attempting to escape, the Amazons desperately protecting their Holiest of Holies, while a pitched battle takes place outside as various other factions like Gurgyll Greenwake's gang and the rebel Lizardmen arrive hot on each other's tails - all with their own agendas of course!

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  3. Stunning temple, stunning painting, brilliant work. So nice to see the old old figures like the houri and evil priestess painted up and part of the sisterhood. Any chance of a basing tutorial as I am hoping to start on my oldschool bases soon and need advice. Colours used, materials etc?
    cheers

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    1. Cheers Springisfield - glad you liked them! There's still a few of the old Fantasy Adventurers range that I could do with tracking down to swell the ranks of the Sisterhood.

      As for basing - I paint PVA glue straight from the bottle onto the top and rim of the base, dip in sand (sharp builders sand I think as it was all I had at the time). Once that is dry the base gets a slightly watered down (only to make the ink go further) Vallejo brown ink wash. Once this is dry it gets a dry brush with Vallejo Earth, then Vallejo Desert Sand and a final one with Vallejo Buff. If I'm being lazy I might leave out the Earth stage. Then its back with the PVA, applied in blobs for a mixture of dark green and summer green static grass - I forget the manufacturer. I've started using more Autumn or Jungle tufts and adding the odd bunch of flowers here and there too.

      Hope that helps!

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    2. Thanks, it certainly does. I was trying to work your method out, the bit escaping me was the application of wash straight onto the sand. I tend to texture my bases before painting the figure so the base gets undercoated partially with the figure, then of course I have to waste vaaluable time and paint on the entire base... I must review my method.

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    3. I've often thought of texturing the base early on as well but because it'd probably end up with all sorts of colours splattered on it I've figured its better to do it towards the end. I just need to touch up the feet sometimes if I haven't been careful enough drybrushing the sand around them,although sometimes it looks quite good as muddy boots!

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  4. There are very few words one can employ to express the wonder of the scenes above. Having skimmed through the ones that I consider appropriate, I thought simple would be best:

    Nice.

    Okay. Have an exclamation mark as well:

    Nice!

    Won't you do the internet (and therefore the entire population of earth) a favour by putting all your Slann together in one place (say, your temple?) and then taking some photographs? I'm sure by now you must be able to put together 700-1000 points of the fellers?

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    1. Gaj - you're too kind. And that exclamation mark... it means a lot!

      I reckon the force must be around the 1000 point mark - mostly because of the Wizard and Cold One Riders. Might have to see what I can rustle up...

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  5. Replies
    1. Thanks Steve - glad all those hours spent up to my elbows in dental plaster are beginning to pay off!

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  6. That is a thing of beauty Sir.

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    1. Very kind Michael - its beginning to shape up but its not even 1/5 of the way to being finished though!

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  7. Nice one!

    Loving the colours on the Amazons, its almost enough to make me get mine out an paint them....almost.

    May the godess bless this project and bring it to a speedy conclusion.

    ttfn

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    1. Thanks for the blessing - probably should be offering up the odd blood sacrifice every now and again to keep the Goddess sweet!

      I wonder what will make you paint your Amazons up..?

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  8. Wonderful! You're an old school trail blazer is what you are. When it's all finished, will you do tours of the temple?

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    1. Actually this fine chap got there first!

      Tours I think I can manage - and on your right ladies and gentlemen, a fine collection of High Age weaponry and on your left a pile of Norse unfortunates they were used upon in the name of the Great Goddess of Murder and warfare!

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    2. Sounds like a delightful day out!

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    3. Don't forget to stop by the gift shop for your Rigg statuettes, ritualistic sacrificial kitchen knives and limited edition, hand crafted in human bone, Koka pipes!

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  9. Cool concept and execution. I also like how your photography has been looking in the last few posts.

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    1. Thanks Sean - that'd be the move from 2 megapixels to 16 megapixels now that I got my new camera back! :)

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  10. Good stuff man! Really like the way you've pulled in the source materials into the paint-schemes, think it all works together really well. The temple looks amazing in the turquoise-ish wall (a tough job to pull off) with the warmer yellows in the foreground it really creates a sense of depth (or is that lighting).

    Not sure how the feminist would feel about the scantily clad novices but The Houri figure as a sacrifice maker is really cool, never knew they did one!

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    1. Thanks Zhu - and thanks for bringing that material to light.

      Actually the stone work was fairly easy - just a series of thin layers of a watery drybrush (if that makes sense!) of green artist acrylic over the stone colour. The tricky bit will be maintaining it and matching it between the sections as they're built...

      I think the scantily clad ones are the most feminist of all - they've clearly already burned their bras ;)

      Either that or a bit too much Koka and all that Religion has got them a bit too carried away!

      Thanks to Steve Casey for the Houri - spotted her on his Bring and Buy table at Vapnartak earlier in the year.

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  11. Looking great Thantsants, this project is coming along very nicely indeed! I have been away for a couple of days and have come back to about half a dozen of your excellent posts, fantastic!

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    1. Cheers Paul - I have to admit there's a bit of repetition in some of them as I had to take better pics than I'd managed previously.

      Back to the dental plaster now though I suppose!

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  12. Hey Thantants! The Serpent Son is being shown February 26th 2016 at Nottingham Lakeside Arts Centre. More info on their website. Thought you might be interested if you were around the area at the time.

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    1. Thanks foe the tip Zhu - didn't make it in the end but would have been interesting to see it!

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