Temple of the Winds Part 3

This weekend was busy as it was Mother's Day. Besides my wonderful wife and my awesome mother, I have a very nice new mom-in-law as well, so it was a full day. Also had time to work on a zine of song lyrics for the band.

I worked for an hour and a half on the Temple, and I'm getting excited because the inner sanctuary is almost ready to paint.

I have a huge bag of old game pieces and little toys and decided to sacrifice a couple of my knight figurines to provide statues of the Temple guardians flanking the arch.

I also glued down my "dragon head" statues by the main altar, carved some wall reliefs with a pop bottle lid and a marker pen cap, and used joint compound to fill in the circular impressions in the chamber floor. I added cornices to the pillars by carving them and then using the compound to fill in the gouges and round the pillars out. They have a slight rough appearance but its fine because this is after all an ancient ruined temple.

I decided to leave one impression in the corner near the arch as an ancient sacred pool of Illuvion which will likely be made into a fountain. I realize that the compound will have a different texture than the rest of the walls and floor but again, being a ruin, even this might not compromise the realism when I paint, though if any experts out there have suggestions on a step before painting or with paint to unify the texture, I would love to hear from you.

I will be spraypainting the model completely matte black and then a somewhat heavy dry brushing of a gray over this (black will leave shadows in the cracks and crevices) and then mottle it a bit with an even lighter gray.

I must also cannibalize a suitable dragon head from a toy or carve one for the altar-part of the Quest is that the Dragon Cult has set up their images upon the altar of the Ineffable Flame, so the head must be removable should the heroes complete their mission!

Hopefully will have a pic of the painted and finished sanctuary to show soon, though I still have to construct my mountains for the exterior ruins.

A thief stands in the mystic arch, perhaps frustrated at the ancient locks and wards within the sanctuary, as the impassive stone sentinels keep their ancient watch.

In the Second Age, the age of the Jennerak, San'seriaat's main altar held a perpetual fire and the dragonhead statues were not present. Illuvion has no carven image and is not depicted as anything but a circle of flame. When the Dragon Reign began in the Third Age, and the elves abandoned Rysanthis, San'Seriaat was the first place to fall because it was the sacred site of Illuvion. An image of Gehennos the Dragon Lord was set up there after the priests were slaughtered. It should be noted that the Temple Keepers at this time were not Jennerak, as that culture had long vanished by the time of the Third Age. The stone altar was also added by the Dragon Cult to honor Gehennos with the unspeakable rites that transferred the Dragon Magic to men.