Badder

Ow do chap. Thanks very much, it is appreciated. If I had any idea how much work was involved in setting up a channel, filming, producing, editing, subtitling and processing videos, I honestly don't think I'd have bothered lol It's almost as if all these 'shiny, sparkly, beautiful-people videos' you see on there are professionally produced, or sponsored by companies, or that someone gives you a helping hand to do the work for you................. oh hang on....... But seriously, what sounds like a simple thing, to explain in writing how to 'do things' can actually be very involved when you think about every little detail of WHY you do things a certain way, AND try to answer any questions before they are even asked. That compulsion I feel to answer questions before they are asked is why my threads and posts tend to be long, like this one. QED. lol Not sure of the topic of the next vid cos I have to remake the 'tiled roof' one at some point, after Youtube cut the last 8 mins or so off the last one. grrrrrrrrrrr. Rearguards, Badder

Hi Steve, I put on my 'best accent' for 'public broadcasts' just for people like you who have more discerning 'shell-likes' that might shatter otherwise. Usually I have an even thicker Wilshur axunt. Also, when I'm writing/typing I use big posh words, but tend not to use them when talking in 'real life' because it just doesn't go with the accent. I think it makes me sound pretentious lol. I manage to slip a few into the narration though. I did think about mixing up my accents for a bit of comedy now and then, but I will stick with deliberately mixing metaphors, such as in the vid for the 'indestructible tree' where I say: 'you spiral up and up to the top and the last one is like sticking a fairy on top of a cake'. I could have edited it out, but I think it's funny, even though some may think I'm just dumb lol Thank you for your thoughts, as always. TC Rearguards, Badder

With 95 percent of the 'Dil blob' removal having been done, I was ready to start improving the trunk and the joints between it and the boughs. Previously when all of this was hidden by dense foliage, it wasn't an issue, but now it is. So I had to gain access to the trunk, boughs and branches by removing entire clumps of foliage. In all 6 clumps were removed. This wasn't 'carnage', the clumps now existing exactly as they were, but just separate from the tree. This also has another benefit, because I can now spray those individually with adhesive and much more precisely when it comes to reapplying the foliage. First then, I CA'd lengths of twine from the bottom of the trunk up to the joints with the boughs and slightly beyond. The excess lengths were then formed in and around the boughs to improve the joins and 'No more nails' was used as a filler. I used the same to smooth over any branches that were obviously made from twisted twine. I continued working my way up the tree, colouring the bark as I went. I then reached the 'heart of the canopy' where most work was required. I had to remove more of the tree in able to 'get in there'. However, the chunks which were removed, are again 'whole and undamaged'. Once work on this 'heart' has been completed, it will be a simple case of adding foliage to the clumps and reattaching them to the tree. Here are some 'leafless' clumps dry-fitted to the tree.......... TFL Badder

DOH! Silly me! Les Dawson did the proper piano-playing and then threw really duff notes in here and there. lol

Hi Dennis, Result! I love the camo scheme: very 'octopussy' - and they know a lot about camouflage! Nice result with the tarp too! I've not yet succeeded with that method, probably due to using the wrong type of tissue. Bog roll. lol. BTW, I NEVER join the ends of the tracks together 'on the sprocket wheel'. That's the part of the track that gets seen most, so that's where you don't want to see any slightly awkward fit. I always join my tracks behind side-skirts/Schürzen, or, if the vehicle doesn't have them, on the length of track laying on the ground and directly under a wheel. If it's going to sit in a diorama then a bit of grass or mud will hide the join if it's a 'bit messy'. Rearguards, Badder

This is not just a Stug. This is a Stix Stug. Super job all around, and above and below. Rearguards, Badder

Thanks Stix, In the process of stripping off the Dil Tops and thinning the canopy out, I've realised why the canopy was so thick. There are bits in there that are NOT fit for viewing lol. I am having to tackle those issues now. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to chop the top 1/3rd of the tree off and re-build it. It's really not as drastic as it sounds though. As Les Dawson might have said 'All the parts are there, but not necessarily in the right order'. TC Rearguards, Badder

Hi Moondrome, Nice progress. The 'small details' like the net are always a good idea. The more the merrier. Children did fight on both sides as things got desperate, so I'd think one much smaller figure could be explained away.......... The face is fairly 'fresh' an young-looking so that's a help. Rearguards, Badder

Work is still in progress, but I thought I'd show what this tree looked like before I started re-working it, and then a series of photos showing progress right up to the present moment................... So, how it looked a couple of years ago, after I had 'ruined' it by adding Dil Tops. How it looked after the removal of some branches and a lot of the Dil Tops. More branches removed removed for cleaning. And the current state of affairs: There are still a lot of Dil Top blobs to remove, but I am getting there. Once done some of the cleaned parts will be replaced and I'm going to improve the trunk add some branches around the bottom of the canopy. TFL Badder

Hi Harry, YES, it definitely looks more natural with just 2 figures. Now you have 2 to use elsewhere! Win, win. Yest to the 'footstool' base (apologies if that's NOT what it is) Yes to the 7 samurai, and yes to the beer. I had my first drop of beer in almost a year today! 1 can lasted me 7 hrs. lol. I will try to catch up with your other work when I can. TC Rearguards, Badder

Hi Harry, I hope you and yours are well? LTNC, I know, but I'm afraid I don't have as much time to get on BM much nowadays, well not for much more than 'flying visits' anyway! So, I've been feeling quite guilty about not viewing or commenting on others people's work for a while. I have noticed you've been posting a fair bit again, so I was looking forward to seeing your latest vignettes/dios and having the time to comment rather than just hit 'like'. I am not surprised to find that your work i as beautiful as always. I'm particularly liking these 90mm figures. I've been watching a hell of a lot of both Chinese and Japanese 'historical dramas and fantasies' of late and every time I do I think of your figures. Except for the film, 'The Myth' starring Jackie Chan, which is pretty naff lol. I shall now pop to the RFI and hit like! TC Rearguards, Badder

Hi Wayne, That's a corker! Beautifully photographed too. I know it was a pretty naff tank, but I do love the look of them. My father and I were both in the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry (T.A) although not at the same time, so I know a tad about the history of Crusaders. During WWII The Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry were equipped with various tanks including Crusaders and fought in the middle-east against French Vichy forces in Syria. Later they saw action in North Africa during the SECOND battle of El Alamein, leading the breakout of the 2nd New Zealand Division, After the war the RWY adopted the New Zealand fern leaf pattern for their vehicle markings. David Shepherd, famed for his wildlife paintings, painted 'Crusaders at dawn' in commemoration of their feats. My father received a signed copy when he retired. It's a very atmospheric painting. Rearguards, Badder PS. Just searched for the painting on the net, and it's called ''El Alamein, 2nd Nov 1942''. But when I was a kid I saw Shepherd's signature at the bottom and he'd written 'Crusaders at dawn' underneath.

Ok peeps, the tree has been given a good raking over to remove those unsightly blobs of Dil Tops. In so doing I've also been separating strands of fishing line which were glued together by those blobs, and have been able to splay them out and take up a bit more room. I have removed 2 large 'foliage-twig-branch' assemblies in order to clean those up, and at the same time give me room to get to foliage deeper within the tree canopy.. So, all is going well. This is the kind of job one can do by feel alone, so I've done most of it whilst watching films lol. Now though, I'm at a stage where I'm almost ready to replace those 2 large assemblies and call this tree done.......................... Except that I am going to improve the trunk and lower boughs now that they are exposed. I will be using the same garden twine as before, to make the bark, but will be making the trunk MUCH more Yew-like. I suspect I'll be using some No More Nails as a 'filler' as well. Reference photos will be used for.....er..... reference. Hopefully I will be at a stage to post photos later. TFL Badder

High Cesar, Your work is always perfect, and this KT is no exception. It's not often one can say that a killing machine is beautiful, but your KT really is. There really is no better candidate for 'ambush' camo either. I have a KT in the stash and it'll be getting the same........ if I can master it. So, own up, did you use half of a very small potato as stamp to print the dots, or what? lol No, really, what did you use? Rearguards, Badder

Still in the process of removing some of the bad bits, and improving some of the not-so-bad bits. The tree is much more open now, and the last of the worst of the Dil Top blobs are being crushed with pliers. Once that's done, the bits I've removed and improved, will be re-attached to the tree armature. I will then have to think about what to do with the foliage, if anything. If I were to decide that this is DEFINITELY a Yew Tree, it may in fact be fine just to leave the leaves as they are and give the tree a few sprays with some very dark greens. The dark greens will have only slight differences between just to highlight the leaves exposed to direct sunlight, and those in shadow. I can then move back to the trunk, boughs and larger branches making them a more orange/brown colour. I dunno why but this photo makes the tree appear taller and thinner than it is. TFL Badder

Thanks Pete, There is now a Youtube video showing how I made it, and what I'm doing to it now as I 'tidying it up'. I'm marketing it as 'the INDESTRUCTIBLE TREE, and I think most people will be shocked by what I do to it in the vid lol. For those who don't know, there's a little clue as to where to find the vid at the bottom of this post. Rearguards, Badder

It's the same here Rich, including moss, algae and lichen on our cottage's once white walls and mold on the inside walls! lol. The drawbacks of living in the countryside in a cheap house made for 19th Century labourers. Still, I have woods almost at 'the bottom of my garden' a great source of inspiration and moss! I am really going to try and up the amount of greenery in this dio and get the undergrowth, hedgerow and tree(s) looking much more realistic. Imagine Hobbiton lol. Rearguards Badder

That's a real treasure trove, full of lovely little and not-so-little gems. An incredible amount of work has gone into that fine-detailing. If that were mine, I'd be making little doors in the backs of all the buildings where I could place a camera and photograph the square from inside the rooms, looking out, ground floor to top. May I suggest the addition of some 'greenery' though.......... maybe a tree in the centre of the square and potted plants either side of people's doorways, window-boxes, that kind of thing? And maybe some clothes-lines with washing hung out to dry? Rearguards, Badder

Hi Dennis, The only things I've ever built which had wings on them are the Space Shuttle and the original BSG Viper back when I was in my late teens, but I do like military aircraft and do occasionally browse what's on offer. Nice work on the 3 shown above. We do have a few things in common............ the use of coke bottle lids as palettes, mixing paints, holders for varnish etc being one, and the 'tidiness' of our work-stations. Mine would look similar to yours on a 'very tidy' day. lol Rearguards, Badder

The trunk is short of touching the bottom of the jar by about 20mm BTW. I may shorten it and thicken it up a bit, making it more gnarly and interesting, with ivy and whatnot. I must confess it's great to be able to work on some 'greenery' for a while, as opposed to stone, bricks and mortar. TFL Badder

There's been a change of mind on the 'Tree front'. It would be silly to 'move' this tree to the Pit Stop WIP. The tree started life as a 'nut' here, and so it should reach its maturity here. Otherwise, readers in 2250AD will miss out on seeing the finished article, what with the 'Great Deletion' of 2249AD and the loss of inter-connectivity between WIPs. So, I shall continue posting progress of of the tree here. Thinking about it, when finished, it might be worthy of its own RFI? Then I can swap it over to the Pit Stop diorama and add snow to it. lol The tree has been mostly 'de-blobbed' and a lot of the overly-thick foliage has been removed by crushing. The tree is now much more 'open', which does raise a few issues in that the upper trunk and boughs are more open to view. With the original thicker foliage much of this didn't need to be 'beautifully made'. So I will have to address that. I will do that by adding branches and foliage to the bottom-most areas of er... branches and foliage Otherwise, the tree is looking much more realistic in form and interesting. TFL Badder

The realism was always beyond doubt lol. Anyway, I'm one to talk, I've always pronounced 'dio' as 'deo', knowing full well that I'm pronouncing it wrong, and I've never been able to break the habit. So calling the flooring of that site 'tiles' is but a mote in the eye of a gnat. But then again the flooring on your diorama IS made up of 'tiles'. ............ I'll shut up lol. Great to see things moving along. Rearguards, Badder

Hi Rich, That took several minutes for the pics to load up on my laptop, but it was worth the wait. Brilliant 'stuff'. I do wonder if the floor would be covered with 'tiles' though. I could be wrong, but I'd think they are more likely 'squares of poured concrete'? TC, Rearguards, Badder

Hi Stix, Thanks, I've been worse, but not so consistently lol. Nothing surprising to see in your last update, just the usual superb base and the 'finished' article beautifully photographed. The photo from the rear and the one from the front are my favourites, with the fence helping to give that depth of field, the perspective. But the side elevations (Technical drawing term) are great too. Yes, I'm sorry I didn't mention the CA'd 'thread' in time. Well, I did, several years ago when I made this barbed wire fence in my Ever Evolvin' dio WIP. Serves you right for either not seeing it in the first place, or having forgotten it. lol I suspect some might find this useful................. So, I use braided fishing line, several strands of Dacron or similar, twisted together and is VERY strong. I can't remember what the breaking strain of this stuff here is, but I just bought 150m of a more modern braided line of 0.06mm diameter which has a breaking strain of 9lb. !!!!! So, you can basically do anything with it and not have to worry about it snapping. The 'trick' is to work out which bits of the 'barbed wire' to apply CA to and in what order. Here it was a bit more complicated because I 'doubled-up' the line to get the braided barbed wire look and then decided to thread the barbed wire through holes in the fence posts! And whilst not perfect, the stuff is JUST ABOUT okay for using as the barbs themselves. Rearguards, Badder

One of the advantages of using fishing line to make this tree, is that it's extremely resilient to almost everything but fire. I knew that I could, if I was determined, remove all of the 'foliage' from the tree and replace it. That would be a long and at times fiddly job, but it would be possible. As I said, it was MEANT to be a deciduous tree, but for some reason I thought sprinkling Dil tops on it made it look better. What it actually did was make it look like a coniferous tree. That would be fine for this diorama, but it would be even better for a winter dio.............. um................. yes I'm in the process of making a winter dio! lol. So guess what? Yes, you've guessed it. I'm going to switch this tree over to the Pit Stop diorama and continue work on it there. I will obviously have to make a new tree for this dio and I will do just that. It will be far easier, and quicker, to start a new one rather than try to 're-leaf' this one with deciduous leaves anyway. So, say 'good bye' to this tree................. As you can see, there are lots of 'blobs' of 'foliage' to be seen, which I've never been happy with, so in my 'breaks' I'm crushing those blobs into powder with a pair of pliers. . BYE BYE TREE! If you want to see further progress on this tree, switch to my Pit Stop dio. Meanwhile, I will start progress on the new replacement tree with paper-punched leaves. I've decided to use the same punch as was used to provide the 'ivy' on the walls of the building, but this time cutting the 'snowflakes' up into individual leaves, plus a different punch which punches out similar, but smaller leaves. TFL Badder.