Warlock of Firetop Mountain. Part 3.

After a bit of un-illustrated dungeon exploring we get to:

The door opens to reveal a small room with a stone floor and dirty walls. There is a stale smell in the air. In the centre of the room is a makeshift wooden table on which is standing a lit candle. Under the table is a small box. In the far corner of the room is a straw mattress. You may either open the box (turn to 240) or leave the room (turn to 363)

Of course we open the box:

The box is light, but something rattles within. You open the lid and a small SNAKE darts out to bite at your wrist! You must fight the Snake.

SNAKE         SKILL 5    STAMINA 2

If you kill the Snake, turn to 145.


For this instalment I've had to make a very small box with a snake in it. I did consider making it life size, but in the end thought that it just had to be in miniature, as that's what I do and so I can actually game with it. But it was hard to work on this tiny scale (and even harder to photograph properly with my iphone).

I'm not at all sure what manufacturer made the snake and I relise it's more cobra than the original illustration. It's also not attacking in it's pose. Again I considered a scratchbuild, but thought I could actually spend my time better on scratchbuilding the box. I used plasticard, tissue paper, card, a bead and some crackle medium.

And here's the original illustration by Russ Nicholson

My photograph with a Prisma filter on it

And again with my hand in it.

Of course I completed my colouring in exercise too, which helped me think of the colours I wanted to use on the model itself.

Here I've tried to recreate the scene as depicted by the passage of text for page 240.  "The door opens to reveal a small room with a stone floor and dirty walls. There is a stale smell in the air. In the centre of the room is a makeshift wooden table on which is standing a lit candle. Under the table is a small box".

 Some WIP photos:

I had to employ my tweezers on this, as it was very fiddly trying to glue everything into place. Black plasticard for the box, green tissue paper hardened with pva for the lining, a bead for the clasp and some cardboard edging and hinges.

And just for scale purposes, seen here with my Deadcember model.

The box has fallen to the ground during your fight with the Snake and out of it has fallen a bronze-coloured key with the number 99 carved into it.  You may take this key with you (note it on your equipment list) and leave the room. Add 1 LUCK point and turn to 363...

Warlock of Fretop Mountain. Part 2; Sleeping Orc Sentry

There is a right -hand turn to the north in the passage. Cautiously you approach a sentry post on the corner and, as you look in, you can see a strange Goblin-like creature in leather armour asleep at his post. You try to tiptoe past him. Test your luck. If you are Lucky, he does not wake up and remains snoring loudly - turn to 301. If you are Unlucky, you step with a crunch on some loose ground and his eyes flick open - turn to 248.

For Part 1 of this adventure I had to create just a piece of terrain, but this entry required a figure too, which greatly complicated matters (more of that later). For the sentry's post I used the same technique as before, using the expanding foam over a dense polystyrene base and then carving back into the expanded foam once set to create a niche for him to sleep in:

A small torch was scavenged as a left over from my son's birthday castle and some thin wire wrapped around it to make a sconce and so as to hold it to the wall and some greenstuff added (not shown here) to extend the flame upwards. Obviously I was constantly referring to Russ Nicholson's illustration as I was working.

Finding the appropriate model was the most time consuming part of the build. Trying to source a scrawny orc was quite a challenge (so many of them are brawny nowadays) and after flirting with some of the Midlam Orcs in the end I plumped for this crewmember from Notlob's artillery which I paid £2 for:

He obviously needed a fair bit of converting and greenstuffing (on a very minute, detailed scale) to get a likeness, you can see a wip shot below where I've lengthened his nose, added wrinkled bags under his eyes and some tattered clothing. Only the helmet and draping loincloth to add at this stage. The legs were repositioned to make him recline and some mantic ghoul arms were added across his chest to re-create the same slumbering pose as per the illustration.

Yet again I forgot to take photos of the painting stage, because it really is such a quick process for me now. Sprayed grey and brown, dark wash over everything, highlight up and then glaze with browns and greens for the mossy appearance. I had to spend a bit more time working on the lighting effects from the torch, glazing in with some yellows and oranges.

The painting of the orc skin followed my usual recipe and I finally added a few clumps of foliage for some extra detail on the rock face. Here's a few other photographs where I was experimenting with angles and lighting:

The prisma app is a wonderful thing for projects like this, as I can turn my model back into an illustration in the style of Russ Nicholson's originals. Unfortunately my app is no longer working, so I had to interrupt JB's romantic weekend through Messenger, with a geeky favour. And of course the good chap that he is, he came up trumps (hopefully during a lull in the weekend) :

I think the top one works best. Of course I also coloured in the same illustration from my colouring in book, trying to capture the sense of light and dark and a slightly gaudier palette than on my painted model:

I deliberately built this diorama to also fit in with my modular dungeon, as one day I'd like to play the Warlock of Firetop Mountain, with all the re-made illustrations integrated into the layout,  following the actual map from the book:

I do need to make and add a small modular floor that can cover the exposed magnetic strip, as can be seen above.

The next instalment of this will be page. 240..

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain

For me Fighting Fantasy is where this whole obsession with my hobby began, way before GW etc entered my life. And during my blogging life I've made a few scratchbuilt models to re-create the wonderfully evocative illustrations from the books. Recently I re-visited (with some trepidation) the first Fighting Fantasy book I ever read; The Warlock of Firetop Mountain.


 I say trepidation because I was slightly worried that it would now not be quite as exciting and amazing as it was when I first read so many years ago in the local library. I was not disappointed. Ok the actual dungeon is not very difficult to explore and it's actually quite hard to die but the map I drew as I was exploring was relatively easy to construct (more on that later), the story is still great and the illustrations by Russ Nicholson are still as wonderful to pore over as they were back then. Now I can further appreciate his sense of a light space in a dungeon and the detailed textures and wonderful expressions on the often dim-witted monsters that are encountered (who can forget the sleeping Goblin sentry or the frightened orc slave taking a whipping?)


I read the book several times, both in story mode to help make my map (because you just have to make a map) and in numerical order just to get to read every passage and see every illustration. But also because I want to recreate this dungeon in my model making. Yes that's right, I'm going to start on a crazy project that will see me re-create the illustrations from the book, so that a dungeon explore game can actually be played within the setting of Firetop Mountain, with familiar foes, landmarks and puzzles.
So to kick this off, where better to start than with page 1:


At last your two-day hike is over. You unsheathe your sword, lay it on the ground and sigh with relief as you lower yourself down onto the mossy rocks to sit for a moment's rest. You stretch, rub your eyes and finally look up at Firetop Mountain.


The very mountain itself looks menacing. The steep face in front of you looks to have been svaged by the claws of some gargantuan beast. Sharp rocky crags jut out at unnatural angles. At the top of the mountain you can see the eerie red colouring - probably some strange vegetation - which has given the mountain it's name. Perhaps no one will ever know exactly what grows up there, as climbing the peak must surely be impossible.


Your quest lies ahead of you. Across the clearing is a dark cave entrance. You pick up your sword, get to your feet and consider what dangers may lie ahead of you. But with determination, you thrust the sword home into its scabbard and approach the cave.


You peer into the gloom to see dark, slimy walls with pools of water on the stone floor in front of you. The air is cold and dank. You light your lantern and step warily into the blackness. Cobwebs brush your face and you hear the scurrying of tiny feet: rats most likely. After a few yards you arrive at a junction. Will you turn west (turn to 71) or east (turn to 278)?


And here's my interpretation of the original illustration through using some of the descriptive prose from the above text:

But of course this is a photograph of my 3d model, so to align it even further with the original illustration I used an iPhone app called Prisma which puts a filter over the photograph, here I used the filter named Light Summer Reading:

 And here I used Heisenberg:

And here you can compare it to Russ Nicholson's original drawing:

Next I'll show you some WIP photos of the model-making process, using just a few tools and materials:

An MDF offcut created the base and backing (screwed together with some brackets for support). A citadel tree was chopped down so as to curve further to the right, as in the illustration and mounted on a bit of cork for some rocks. Expanding foam was then built up for the side of the mountain (I used too much, it really did expand more than I was expecting!)

I added a few brass leaves to the tree and carved away the cured expansion foam, trying to recreate the "steep face in front of you looks to have been svaged by the claws of some gargantuan beast. Sharp rocky crags jut out at unnatural angles."  Sand was added with some pva to the ground.

I added some skulls to cocktail sticks to recreate the entrance, added further sand to the craggy mountain side and then tested some grey primer onto the foam. It distorted it slightly and created a further textured dimension to the rockface (even occasional drips like stalagtites from the ceiling of the cave entrance. Pure chance!

 

I got carried away with the painting and forgot to take any wip photos, but after the grey primer the rocks were washed with a dark grey to get into the nooks. I then drybrushed with a loaded brush, successive lighter greys, ensuring the lightest was on the most raised areas. Lots and lots of washes were then applied, mainly ochres, greens and browns to introduce some moss like colours and a bit more interest. The ground was sprayed brown and then highlighted up with drybrushed lighter greys and browns. Finally some gloss varnish was poured down from the top which created little streams of water and pools of moisture. A couple of swamp tufts and liberal scattering of bitch seeds completed the vignette.

Here you can see the structure.

And the map which I drew up as I was exploring the dungeon. This took me right back to being a kid and will help me as I re-create each illustration throughout the book. To make it easier upon myself, I'll choose a route that actually gets me to the end, but a route that has the more interesting illustrations in (hence the page numbers to help me reference the illustrations):

Finally as I was doing some research on this I found two nuggets. First of all I discovered that the illustration I've work from was not the initial sketch submitted, apparently this one here was (I think it is much more interesting and even slightly Ian Milleresque...):

but it was decided that it did not fit the story as well - perhaps a bit too scary for the little ones? And then amazingly when I was completing my research, I found this Warlock of Firetop Mountain colouring book which has given me a chance to add colour to the original black and white version, kind of a reversal of what I achieved with the Prisma app on the photograph of my own model!

My colouring in! I wanted it to be quite mute but with some patches of colour, which is kinda how I painted the model. Here I've used pencil shading, pretty quickly applied for the rocks and tree and then blended in a few colourful hues (greens, yellows and browns) to represent the natural, outside feel to the drawing.

So until next time....