A Kind of Magic

As some of you know, I have spent the last few weeks working on a diorama of silly proportions for Golden Demon. All my good creations start off as a silly conversation with someone else – in this case, it was with Chris Frosin. We discussed how silly it would be to have a bunch of Ahriman dancing about pretending to be in a boy band. One flippant comment later and I am entering the idea into Golden Demon.

It was not a small undertaking.

I had to acquire three 30K Ahriman models, for the Ahrimen and one 40K version for the centre piece. Then I had to figure out how to paint them. I already knew I was going to do galaxy capes on them, they are psykers after all but I had to decide on a paint scheme and colours. It took a bit but I eventually settled on this:

The next challenge was the 40K version. He was going to be the centre piece of the diorama so he needed to be perfect. Deciding to paint the Eye of Terror on his cloak was perhaps one of the crazier ideas I have had but I had to give it a go. It took an hour and a half but I managed to surprise myself with how well it turned out.

After completing Ahriman and his Ahrimen, I then had to turn my thoughts to the stage. Originally, I intended to build it from a range of different kits that we had kicking about but as some of them were not made by Games Workshop, we abandoned this and went for a different idea. I purchased one of the forge scenery kits and some crates that Games Workshop do and, with the assistance of Dave, we built the stage.

The hardest part of the stage was getting it to light up and make music happen. we went for A kind of Magic and Another One Bites the Dust… Fortunately, Dave knows enough about programming to be able to make it do as I wanted it to. While I worked on painting the stage, he played and fiddled about with an Arduino board and its related pieces. Magic happened. Lights were then attached to the stage and the two songs programmed in. A control was attached to his phone and we were ready for the next phase.

The final part was attaching Ahriman and the Ahrimen to the stage. Before we knew it, we were placing the diorama in the hands of the staff at Golden Demon and there was nothing more we could do… except sit close by and have the entry light up and pay music as unsuspecting people walked passed. The looks on people’s faces was amazing and made creating this piece worth it. The enthusiasm of the staff who saw it was a pleasure as well. I did this for the laughs and I certainly got a lot of those. Even better, was the commended entry tab and the finalist pin I came home with. I know I am not the best painter in the world but to be able to go through with this to completion and to make people smile was a real joy. I am glad they got as much of a laugh out of it as I did.

All that is left to do now, it to work out what I am going to do next year…