Temple of Skulls (Citadel Miniatures)

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Temple of Skulls (Citadel Miniatures)

So this is the largest piece I’ve finished in… well, ever.

Temple of Skulls (Citadel Miniatures)

I’ve actually had this thing for quite a few years now. First it sat in the box for ages. Later on, I assembled it, but was terribly unhappy with the way that the entire thing was smooth as a baby’s butt. So it sat for ages. Years, actually. Eventually, I covered the stone/dirt sections of the thing in textured paint. I left the stone slab and standing stone sections alone though.

Temple of Skulls (Citadel Miniatures)

I had a different idea for the skulls. I covered them in watered-down acrylic thinner, in order to give them a texture (and cover the glue joins!) I also added some filler to the tops of the broken pillars – again – both to add texture and also to cover the plastic joins. I didn’t yet know the trick of using liquid greenstuff to add texture, so when I sprayed it black, I went a little overboard, and then left it in the hot sun to dry so that the paint would wrinkle in some places.

Temple of Skulls (Citadel Miniatures)

Still, even with all of that, it took literally a couple of years to get the thing done. The plan was to get it finished back in September as a Neglected Model, but now I’ve finally managed to finish the thing tonight as something towards my monthly minimum.

Check out the box art. Look at that lovely texture!

Pic taken by Crumbreaper via CMON forums.

Now look at the smooth, smooth plastic of the actual kit. Not my pic here, but just imagine my disappointment!

Temple of Skulls (Citadel Miniatures)

I filled the silly skull-hole with Woodland Scenics’ Realistic Water product. Might still need a little more touching up with that over the next day or two, due to drying shrinkage. One of the things that really got me going on this thing again recently was Mark Morin’s work on his Armorcast craters.

Temple of Skulls (Citadel Miniatures)

I was pretty unhappy with how the textured paints and drybrushing had turned out. As you can see here between my pics and the boxed kit, a lot of the “stone” areas in their cover photo turned out to pretty much become dirt on my version as I attempted and failed to give it a rocky-dirty texture on the thing. I’ve usually been pretty conservative with my weathering powders, but seeing how good Mark’s craters looked when he just went to town with the things finally got me going again, and that’s what I’ve done on the dirt and stone textures. Sure, it still took more than a month even so – but the bloody thing is finally done!

Temple of Skulls (Citadel Miniatures)

As you can see, the terrain is a decent size, and it’ll work just fine in either of the Fantasy or Sci-Fi Warhammer settings. Sure, it looks bloody ridiculous, what with the gigantic skulls.

But it’s Warhammer – it is what it is!

51 thoughts on “Temple of Skulls (Citadel Miniatures)”

  2. I think you’re being too hard on yourself here, I think it came out looking great! Personally I don’t mind the kit, but it sure is very “Warhammer”. Looks good though, and glad you got round to finishing it.

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  3. Very cool stuff Azazel! I think the weathering powders make a big difference. Definitely have an impressionistic feel to them, but a great little tool to have for stuff like terrain. Thanks for the shout out, glad and a bit humbled to have given a bit of inspiration that helped you to finish off this beauty.

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  4. Sounds pretty painful, but you ended up with a really nice looking piece there. Yours looks much better than what they did on the cover photo. From the cover photo alone, I’d probably pass on buying it. Doesn’t help that they shot a pic of it on a grassy field.

    This reminds me that I have so much to learn about painting stone. I’m always pretty impressed with how you’re able to get a really nice stone effect. This is a great example, as you have several different stone techniques. From the columns to the smooth stone platform, to the aged and weathered skulls, just looks awesome all around.

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    • I think they did a great job on it in the cover photo, honestly. The only thing I’m not enthused about is the colourful chaos star/eye.
      I guess the “trick” to getting different textures of a similar thing on the same model is to paint them discretely and as their own separate things rather then trying to do them all at once.
      Kinda like how I know *how* to paint orange slayer-hair or ginger viking-hair, but never write down a recipe or the exact paint colour combo – I just grab a set of colours that look right each time – so they still look similar enough, but not 100% uniform when the larger group are combined.

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      • Yea, I never keep track of hair or terrain.I wish I did sometimes though. Sounds like I do the same thing with hair. I grab several bottles, try to get an idea of what they will look like and lay them down as bases. If a color doesn’t look right, I drop it out of the mix. Then try and figure out what to use for wash, highlight, etc. That’s often where I will trip up though, as Vallejo doesn’t have a triad system. So if I used one of their colors, I have to pretty much guess, or just add white, etc.

        I’ll typically do all of one hair type, and then the next. So, ‘those four guys are going to be blond’, grab a bunch of blondish paints, ‘those four brunette’, etc.

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      • Yep – a good way to do it. There is one exception, though – Black hair – where I generally use Duncan’s YouTube guide or a simpler form of same (Depending on how much/where/type of hair).

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      • Oh yea, had watched that one before. It looks like it probably turns out really nice, but a bit of effort to get there. Might be able to get away with a brighter highlight and applying Nuln oil last, but I think it will likely still dull down too much.

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      • That’s why how far to take it is defined by how much hair is on the figure (and the type of figure). Dark Elf Sorceress? The works. Imperial officer under the hat? A touch of the dark blue-grey.

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  5. Great rendition of this scenery piece, as said above much better than the cover photo. Reminds me I need to paint mine, maybe one day ! I’ve only had it since release ! LOL

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  8. Nice one on getting it done at last. I missed out on it, was a bit gutted when I wasn’t still easily available but hey ho, thus is life eh? Looking at those pictures the plain plastic is very smooth but you’ve done a great job adding texture to it, the whole thing looks much more organic now.

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    • Thanks mate. I may not be 100% happy with it, but I’m happy enough, and it does look a lot better than it was out of the box. Also glad I managed to get one while they were still around, and to finally have it done.

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    • Thanks Pete. Just means it’s a little more limited in use than the more generic pieces – but that’s no bad thing. I can’t use a WWII bunker in a game of fantasy or an Elven Tower in a game of SAGA, and yet everything works out.

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  10. I’ve never had one of these, but one of my regular opponents does, and yeah, I’ve always had very mixed feelings about it. On one hand, it looks really cool in general form. On another, it is very lacking in texture. On yet another hand, it’s also a serious pain to fit Models on about 70% of it with them falling off, which can be a big problem when you have hand-to-hand combats going on on top of it.

    You’ve done a good job adding texture there. I wouldn’t think of the areas between boulders as dirt so much as gravel and scree and such. Small enough stones that they wouldn’t be individually distinguishable at this scale. The static grass really helps, too.

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    • I think that makes it just like any larger piece of scenery that’s not all flat, even ground, though. It’s always been the trade-off – right back to the differences between flat, stepped hills and rounded ones.
      The thing isn’t large enough to have too much scree in and of itself, but it depends on the wider environment of where it’s located from game to game. On a mat like the one I’ve photographed it, sure – on a jungle or grassy mat – notsomuch, which is why I’ve gone for a combo of earthy and rocky mounds. Agreed on the static grass, though. It was always the plan, but the difference before and after I added the tufts and static is huge.

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  11. Well, if you should have any misgivings about the finished piece, let me tell you they seem to be totally unfounded! The temple looks great — and actually makes me wish I had picked up the kit when it was still available…

    The smooth texture is often a problem with GW’s terrain kits, though, and the trick of stippling on Liquid GS has been a lifesaver for me more often than once.

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    • Thanks, KS! I can only imagine what you’d have done to the stock kit to improve it, especially these days! Agreed on the Liquid GS trick – something I’d have definitely used on it if I were working on it today. Still, it does work a bit better on some of the newer kits. Not quite as large and uniformly smooth, I guess…

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    • You might get lucky and find one on eBay/Secondhand or nesting in a dusty FLGS corner I guess, but yeah – I wouldn’t hold much hope. I’ve missed out on some of their terrain kits myself so I know the feeling. Missed the old Imperial Sector by literally a couple of weeks earlier this year as it was suddenly discontinued right when I finally had the money to buy it!

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  13. That looks pretty awesome, the texture and the stone colour looks great. I nearly bought this when it came out, but decided against it because of the Warhammery kind of symbol, I did consider covering it up, but in the end gave up on the idea.

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  15. Very nice work there, I like the end result immensely, yes as you say it is a bit of a silly thing, but hey it’s fantasy there are lots of silly things there just because they look cool, I’m almost tempted to have a go at making one myself, even though I have no use for one at the moment!

    Cheers Roger.

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    • Well, I guess you have a full Dungeon Saga set at the very least with which you could play Song of Blades and Heroes or any other Fantasy Skirmish game – and that’s just for starters!

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    • Thanks mate. It’s that trade-off for terrain and terrain kits really. Working on another GW piece right now that’s really just a very attractive LoS-blocker rather than something you can actually game *on* or *over*.

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    • Hm, now that I’m a bi more removed from it, the rocks don’t bother me nearly as much, andI can even say that I think they look pretty decent. I’d rather be my own worst critic than have someone else do it for me, though!

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