Sunday 10 December 2023

Moon Goddess statue

OK, this is my first attempt at a photo using a background from one of my new Jon Hodgson backdrop books.

I got two books via a Kickstarter; one is a fantasy set and the other is sci fi. Both are excellent. They are available from a few different places, including Bad Squiddo and Handiwork Games.The figure is from Bad Squiddo, but she isn't available in the Shop. Originally supposed to be Genepil, the last Queen of Mongolia. Annie designed her as part of the Bad Squiddo Community Miniatures project but later withdrew her as it turns out that the source for her was actually a photograph of an anonymous Mongolian noblewoman. So, she is never going to be available and is therefore rather exclusive.

I didn't need a mini of a Mongolian noblewoman but I definitely wanted to use the mini, so I decided to turn her into a statue. I put her on a resin plinth from Fenris Games and then added a couple of MDF squares to create a set of steps. I added some textures to show that the status is of great age, both ballast and, after painting areas of moss and lichens.

For the photo, I simply posed her on one of my Warbases pre-coloured dungeon tiles.

My idea was to create an arcane statue of a Moon Goddess, sheathed in precious metals and with a prominent silver crescent Moon on her headdress. I have slightly overexposed the image to make it look like she is being illuminated by the light of the full Moon. Below is an alternative shot, which was taken without any exposure compensation.


I like both photos, but I think that the brighter one suits the purpose of making her look like she is absorbing the power of moonlight.

Now, all I need is to work out a game setting where she might come in handy. She could definitely be the objective in a Back of Beyond Pulp game.


3 comments:

  1. Nice repurposing, definitely has that votive statue look to it. I'm glad everybody jumped on the backdrops book kickstarter, they're so amazing. (I have the Sci-Fi ones instead and I'm going to get a lot of use out of them. )

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    1. They really are special. I can see me going back and rephotographing lots of stuff I painted ages ago. I'm thinking that I'll need lots of small scatter pieces too, so I can build up the foreground scenes.

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    2. Honestly, an 8.5 x 11 printed with a stone or dirt texture, and a handful of those bark chips people use for landscaping can go a long way. Little scatter pieces like bushes or dead trees also help fill in the middle distance.

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