05-06-2016, 08:17 AM
"Beyond lofty mountains in far-away parts lie the hazardous and infamous Dark Lands, like flayed flesh amid the wrinkled skin of the world. The world's hard crust is thin here, and amid all the earthquakes and volcanic eruptions it does not take much for the earth's surging guts to burst through it in showers of ash, flame and molten rock. Such a volcanic environment rich in minerals embedded in the ground would at first seem the ideal place for life to thrive, as are so many other volcanic landscapes around the world where sentient dwellers eat the rich fruits beneath the fiery mountains in-between divine outbursts of elemental destruction.
Yet the Dark Lands are anything but an idyll. Some say the very air is poisoned, others blame the water for shunning its wastelands out of fear. Others still claim the Dark Lands to be heinously cursed, for what else could leave it such a raw realm of leagues upon leagues of dreadful devastation? What else but an unholy curse could account for the ashen landscapes and foul storms which seek to strangle every ounce of life out of the ravaged Dark Lands? It is a nightmare location wracked by ash and flames, poisoned by sulphur and tar, and choked by black smoke beneath stormy skies. Truly, it has become hell on earth wherever the only imperial power to stand the test of time has put its mark upon the Dark Lands, for the mortal slavers and torturers known as the Chaos Dwarfs will gouge out the landscape in their greed, and leave nought behind but utter devastation.
Even so, life finds a way, even here, where sun and moons but rarely will shine through the polluted clouds. The Dark Lands are harsh, and so are all its lifeforms. Hardy without exception, bristling with thorns and poisons where plant life and fungi are concerned, and little else but ravenous killers in case of the beasts which roam these hostile landscapes. While sinewy herbivores such as goats and aurochs claw a living out of the defiant growth of the land, even they will turn into carrion-eaters and cannibals when necessary. No carcass is left untouched for long in the Dark Lands. Here, many creatures feed off each other, or hunt stragglers from the nomadic Greenskin tribes in the dark of night. They hunt alone, or they hunt in packs, such as the Giant Wolves are wont to do. Some are freaks of nature, others twisted into abominations by millenia of industrial pollution, alchemical filth and sorcerous residue spewed out from Mingol Zharr-Naggrund the Great and all her holdings. Others still are monsters, hulking and savage, clawed and fanged, ever searching for blood and flesh, and who will balk at nothing to sate their ravenous hunger amid the ash and the fire and the desolation.
Such is the nature of plants and wildlife in the Dark Lands.
These are some of its denizens."
Chaos Dwarfs Online Presents: Artisan's Contest XIX!
Flora and Fauna of the Dark Lands
The goal here is to make some plants and animals of the Dark Lands, in the wild! People can enter with any number of models or terrain pieces. As long as they contain animals (some might be monsters) and plant life/fungi.
There are to be no living humanoid creatures (such things as killed Greenskins, torn apart in feeding frenzy, are however allowed), no armoured or armed creatures and no ridden monsters. This is to be the wild stuff, before being captured or enslaved.
There may be ruins in the entry, but these should be shown in a state where some crazy plants have taken over the place completely.
For this contest, entrants are allowed to play around with the entries. As such, you may use sand, earth, terrarium backgrounds and the like. Don't hesitate to put the creepy, crawly monsters on a real display! The landscape setting could be the gross, polluted mud by the river banks; tar pits; the dry ashen wastes; aside bubbling magma pits; the subtropical marshes down south; or even up in the cold, hard peaks of the mountains surrounding the Dark Lands.
Go wild! Your entry could contain anything from big ash scorpions; vultures; Orc-eating, half-starved lions; magmatubers; venomshrooms; or bloodsucking thornbushes.
Prize
Grimstonefire has been kind enough to donate this unpainted evil dwarf hero with a great axe as a prize for the gold winner!
Should you wish to donate a prize to the contest, please PM Admiral or Bloodbeard and they will sort it out with you and the Staff.
Deadline
The deadline for the submission of entries is June 16th 2016 at 11:59pm EST.
Rules of the Competition
Each member may only enter once.
Model and paint creatures and plantlife which you think are appropriate to the Dark Lands, complete with background displays should you wish it.
Bases or no bases are up to you.
Submissions should include four pictures. No overlaid words of explanation or photoshop effects in your submitted photos please.
You may not submit pictures of a model that have been entered into other online competitions or posted in a finished state before.
Don't post your entries in the forum before the contest is over.
See also the General Rules & Guidelines.
How to Enter?
Submit your entry by sending a PM to Staff (a special user that all Staff have access to) with four photos of your entry. Please do not send an e-mail to any of the admin or staff accounts as this is a sure fire way to have your entry missed.
Please note that your entry will benefit if the photos are all clearly composed, since voters will base their judgement upon what they can see in the pictures on their computer screens.
How will this be judged?
Sometime after June 16th we will post all entries to a new thread and voting can commence!
Good luck everyone!
The Staff
I'm out then. For some reason I read the deadline as June 16th, not sure why, must have just glanced at the date. I won't have a moment to spare for this until the 13th lol. Was planning on 4 days of crunch to get it done. Such is life. Ill log on and vote when the judging comes up.