Reaper's Baba Yaga's Hut

 Back in the fall of 2023 I started working on Baba Yaga's hut. It came assembled, and while the chicken legs are great, I wanted to be able to use the house on its own. So I started the process to remove the legs in a way that I hoped would allow me to use them in the future. Ideally I'd be able to put the house on the legs and take them off as needed. They were very tight, and practically soaked in super glue, so I knew this was going to be a process.

First I boilded some water in a pot we no longer used for cooking.And while the water was heating up, I got some heavy duty gloves.

Into the water it goes. I think I ended up soaking this thing half a dozen times total. After each soak, which got the legs wobbly soft, I would take it out of the water and pull as hard as I could. That was enough for one leg, and it popped off, but the other leg I had to get my xacto knife to cut at the glue

Eventually I got there! 

Of course there was then so much water in the house itself, I needed to let it drain. 

But I could get the legs back on! Success! 

It would then be more than a year before I actually started to paint it. 

It started with a coat of Brown Liner, followed by Redstone Shadow for the walls. 

The roof was a succession of Desert Stone, followed by Desert Sand dry brushes, which were also done to the walls. I wanted this looking as dusty, rotten, and in desperate need of some TLC as it could. 

I went lighter on the roof support beams, and then began splotching on Olive Drab, followed by Olive Drab plus more and more Pure White

Then it was onto the windows. I made sure to repaint them with Brown Liner to get them dark and clean up any stray brush strokes from earlier steps. and then hit the glass parts with Kraken Ink. Initially I kept the highlight on the broken edges of the glass small, but it didn't look as good as I wanted. 

So I made the glass less dark overall, and that worked. 

Finally it was adding a few details to the doors and the chimney, and it was done!

Actually painting the hut only took a few evenings worth of work. Dry brushing once the main colors are blocked in made it go really quickly, and then it was just a matter of going back and cleaning up the details. 

Now I just need to do the base and the legs so it can be a proper hut for Baba Yaga!