The Spire was commissioned by Para Bellum for the GAMA 2020 Expo booth display for their game Conquest, Last Argument of Kings. It falls into our terrain table category, but since it is a seven feet tall it is more in the floor category. This particular terrain piece was created at quite a different scale than usual. Since these Spires rose thousands of feet into the air and housed a city of inhabitants, a miniature would stand about 1-2 mm high. These towers are actually grown from a biomass and as such they take on a bone-like quality. The history of the Spires is very unique.
The Process
The tower took just over 3 months to finish and included LED lights in the upper city as well as the lower base. It stands a little over seven feet tall, is made of wood, PVC, and metal. 18 cans of Great Stuff foam to cover the armature. The foam was then shaved and shaped for the base form. Several coats of joint compound were applied to both strengthen the structure and to allow finer detail to be sculpted in. Once the joint compound was applied and the final details were put in, everything was sealed with a wood glue and boiling water mixture. The heat allowed the glue mixture to better penetrate the joint compound, giving very durable hard outer shell. Next came lots of painting and LED installation.
In the end, we made a customer crate for secure shipping and the tower came apart in 3 pieces for better shipping and storage.
Full Tower
City Lights
Painting 1
Painting 2
Base coat
Glue Coat
Armature
Foam Base
