When My Mini Factory asked me to collaborate with them on a diorama, I knew exactly which designs I wanted to use as I had been looking at the Meso American collection by Iain Lovecraft for over a year. They screamed Tomb Raider to me and what could be more fun than a lava filled tomb with Lara jumping her way from pillar to pillar to cross it?

The first challenge was to find a design that would show off the glowing lava whilst sending Lara on a journey, all using the STLs provided. Thankfully, the files included plain floor tiles that I could remix to produce the walls and stone columns I needed. An altar was cut up for the stepping stones and the Toran was shortened to fit.

Once the designs were sorted, I printed everything full size on my Peopoly Phenom using Peopoly Deft resin and the default settings. This is a large resin printer and even the pyramid fitted in one go. All would have been perfect if I had remembered to fill the resin up on the 26 hour pyramid print!

A key feature is the glowing lava and that needed lighting. I used a string of fairy lights with 100 LEDs and a picture frame base to give the effect I needed. The clear Perspex in the frame allowed the lava to really glow from underneath. I did end up adding another string towards the end as 100 LEDs were just not bright enough though.

Any 3D print is made infinitely better by a good paint job and for this lava chamber I painted the light directionally with a cooler brown from above and a reflected lava glow from below. I also added in fluorescent paint so that the stonework really glowed with light even without the LEDs turned on.

Once everything was painted, I assembled it on the base. I heat formed transparent worbla for the lava streaming down the walls and to avoid the LEDs behind it being too spotty, I added a diffusion layer from some packaging material. I needed the lava to be crusty and for that I used three types of acrylic texture gel to fill gaps, build up the cooled lava and add a little bit of texture to the flatter areas.

I painted the flowing lava with a mix of model and fluorescent paints. The fluorescent paints are fairly translucent so they needed some extra coverage from mixing with a model paint. I sprayed two layers of each colour to slowly build up from yellow to red. I then dry brushed a small amount of a darker colour to bring out the texture.

For the lava crusts on the floor of the tomb, I hand painted and dry brushed the cracked shapes. I highlighted every edge to represent the light and the hotter lava. This was time consuming but really makes the diorama come to life.

Finally, I put a fluorescent orange wash over everything, including where the light reflects on the stonework, to really make the lava pop and when that was dry, I touched up the yellow cracks with a fluorescent yellow.

The Toran entrance was painted a stone colour then weathered using enamel washes. It’s deep in a jungle so the green toned everything down.

Finally, I printed a mini Lara Croft and a golden idol for her to steal. I painted Lara in model paints and washes then used Alclad lacquers for the idol. They both got liberally doused in fluorescent orange to give them the reflected lava glow.

All I needed to do then was turn on the lights and enjoy as Lara makes her way around the tomb.

You can find more details on the materials used on my blog post: https://www.kathymillatt.co.uk/2020/10/15/the-tomb-of-glowing-lava-diorama/

And I have a free guide to painting lava:

https://www.kathymillatt.co.uk/product/painting-guide-lava/

Kathy Millatt Modelling