The Eternity Gate (diorama)
30x30x40cm Warhammer 40k diorama based on the legendary illustration of John Blanche: The Eternity Gate.
Feel free to use these images, as long as you refer back to my page here, or Instagram or Twitter accounts!
This diorama is 6mm scale (1:300, close to z-scale trains), with components from Warhammer 40.000, Age of Sigmar, Adeptus Titanicus, Vanguard and Onslaught and lots of plasticard
Mentions
White Dwarf!
The Gate got featured in White Dwarf 495, the December 2020 issue, on page 9!
Hang out and Hobby
The Gate got mentioned in the Hang Out and Hobby stream of April 1st! Around the 1:59 mark.
More Words on the process (There are lots, so click here to expand)
You know the illustration, right? If you’ve played 40k for some time you must have stumbled across this one at some point. I first saw it when I cracked open my brand new 3rd edition rulebook. The illustrations on the first pages were ordered in such a way that you would make the pilgrimage to the Emperor on his golden throne, with the Eternity Gate being the first thing you came across. I have stared at it for many hours. I really love the characters that Blanche draws, but his scenes really are something else. The sheer enormity of the stuff he draws is so impressive. That drawing of the Eternity Gate pretty much sums up 40k for me: dark, gothic, baroque, oppressive. Together with the Dark Templars piece from the front of 3rd ed box and rulebook, that door defined my view of the galaxy in the year 40.000.
Questions I got asked the most while posting on Social Media:
“Why do you have two Knights there? Aren’t they supposed to be Warhound/Reaver/Warlord/Megatron/Megazord?” Well, mainly because the Blanche piece has no titans in it whatsoever. Different fluff sources have different titans near these gates, with Warhounds being cited the most if I listen to Instagram. I thought having titans there would detract from the door itself, which is why I decided in the end to leave them out entirely. Fluff wise my answer is: Only so few people have actually seen these doors that all accounts are myth and legend, with every story being changed and made grander as it passes through the Empire. This is my personal interpretation of that myth.
“Is that gold leaf on the door?” Believe it or not, it’s just paint! Vallejo Game Color Glorious Gold 72.056. The lighting in these photo’s helps a lot as well.
“Where did you get those tiny people?” GW no longer produces 6mm figures (besides the awesome and wonderful Adeptus Titanicus of course) and I didn’t like the detailing of the original Epic figures enough for this build. So I started looking around and found the fantastic Vanguard and Onslaugt 6mm ranges, which suited my needs. Sculpts and casts are great, highly recommended! You can find them on http://vanguardminiatures.co.uk/
“How many flags are there exactly?” & “How many hours did you spend on the flags?” -HA!
Work in Progress
Here you can see the building progress as the diorama comes together.
Cardboard mockup
Testing out some sizes with cardboard. The requirement was that the base couldn’t be bigger than 30x30cm
Statues
Metal miniatures from Vanguard and Onslaught. Statues from GW
Wood
The base structure was built from multiplex hardwood
First steps
Testing out some layouts with stairs and statues
big steps
The bigger steps are finished. All the white sheets and details you see here are cut from Evergreen polystytrene plasticard.
More testing
Walls are going up. Testing the atmosphere with some miniatures
Small steps
The smaller steps were built by cutting strips of polystyrene at the appropriate length, then gluing them in place while propping them up with smaller strips.
cut and glue
Atmospheric shot including the artist.
Door sketch
I cut the door into the correct curvature by looking into gothic arc theory. Made a quick sketch in pencil onto the door.
Greenstuff
I had some pieces of greenstuff that I wanted to use. Especially the Emperor himself.
Final build
Most of the basic build is now in place. Not everything is glued though, the decorations at the top are held in place with BluTac
Greenstuffed dragon
As I had no greenstuff parts available to build the Dragon, I decided to sculpt him myself.
Sculpting done
All the parts on the door are in place! Time to move on to the next phase
Drilling
This was a nice step. Drilling all those holes for the banner poles by hand…
Holes and a snapped drill
And then at 2/3rds my drill snapped of course, with no replacement bit. Oh well, time for a break!
Glueing step 1
After cutting all the poles by hand from 0.7mm metal wire (!), I then had to glue them into the holes…
Construction Complete
Construction Complete
Top view
Painting starts here
After priming, first step is washing the steps with some Contrast!
Checkerboard
As you can see, the artist regrets his decision to paint checkerboard floortiles.
GOLDEN
a very shiny golden emperor slaying a copper dragon. All paints, no gold leaf involved.
Red floors
I was doubting about the color of the top floor, until my youngest son said: why don’t you paint it red? Yeah, why don’t I?
Gold Dark
Lighting does a lot…
GOLD
This gold is pretty amazing. Just Vallejo Game Color gold, no gold leaf involved.
Guardian
More atmospheric shots while working
Bannercut
I collected loads banners on my PC from various sources, resized them to 4mm width and printed them in strips, which I then cut into individual flags.
Glueing banners
Superglue to the rescue!
Knights
One of the questions I got most often: Why are those Knights instead of Warhounds/Reavers/Warlord titans???
painting 6mm
Painting the 6mm figures is a lot of fun. First sawing of the metal bases and then pinning them with 0.7mm wire is a bit less fun though…
Banners
It’s coming!
Gluing flags
Every flag was individually cut and glued onto the poles…
Guardian
Taking some atmospheric shots while working.
Gluing step 2
Almost there! Final flags.
Doorpainting
The most scary phase: washing the door. I always have a love/hate relationship with washes, as it makes the paintwork alive, but the first layers are terribly ugly.
Light at the end!
Of course I had to build a small LED into the door, as the original illustration had a bright light shining from the doors as well 🙂