Ever evolvin dio. ft. 'THE INDESTRUCTIBLE TREE' as ft. on youtube.

[Badder]

All going well. The gap between the outer frame and the hedgerow batten has been properly filled with Plaster of Paris, levelled off and squared-up along the visible vertical edge - the cross-sectional face which people usually paint black.

Work will now continue on the stonework around the sluice/bridge.  Hopefully this will be completed tomorrow some time so that the first pour of Realistic Water can take place. From experience I know that this stuff takes an absolute AGE to cure and one can only pour about 1.5mm at a time. So, given that each layer is going to take anywhere between 24 and 48 hours to cure, I wouldn't be surprised if this stage takes a week.

 

All the while the danger will be that Molly the cat, or an errant Cranefly will- stick their feet in! I am therefore going to have to move the diorama to the spare bedroom and quarantine it there. Even then, it will mean that no further work can take place on the diorama base.

 

Instead I am going to create tufts of grass, weeds, more flowers and bushes. I am also thinking about modelling a 'base' for the large tree; a patch of ground which will surround the tree and which can be fixed to the ground at a later date, as a single finished object.

 

TFL

Badder

[Bullbasket]

5 hours ago, Badder said:

I've grasped the bull by the horns, (not you @Bullbasket)

I wondered what was jerking me around!! 

It gets better every time.

 

John.

[Badder]

I've extended the stonework along the hedgerow bank so that it now intersects with the border frame.  Again, I've been lazy and have used bits of plaster of Paris wall left over from the 'buildings' projects earlier in this WIP. But then again, that's why I kept the bits in the first place. I knew they'd come in useful. So is that being lazy, or forward planning?

 

Anyway, I've since then I've raised the ground behind that extension, so that it is now level with the rest of the bank. It will be a simple case of adding a bit of veg to this area and implying a track leading away from the bridge.

 

Visible in this photo is the downstream section of the watercourse, made, as I said, by scraping and cutting directly into the MDF base. The difference in height between the upper water level and the lower will now be about 16mm (or just over 0.5m in real scale) not a huge depth of water, but plenty enough to power an 'undershot' waterwheel down stream. I won't be building a mill obviously, but I wish I had planned for one... maybe that's a future project.

 

I've also re-worked the bridge, doing away with the single handrail and replacing it with two guard rails instead. To my eye this looks much better, and would be much safer for users.

 

 

After posting this, the PoP should be dry and I can now remove the frame and tidy up the sectioned edge of this entire side of the diorama.

 

Oh, and I've decided not to crack on with pouring the realistic water UNTIL the first week in November, when I will have the opportunity to guard the diorama from the cats. So later today I will be starting on the right hand bank with the barbed-wire fence.

 

TFL

Badder

Edited February 17, 2018 by Badder

[Badder]

CHAPTER FIVE

 

Okay, I'm starting on the fence bank. Once again, the bank will be built on a batten of wood. There won't be any bushes and trees growing on it, just grass and weeds, so I can go ahead and grassify it using my static grass applicator. Yes, again, I will be aiding the application process by burying a metal 'gauze' beneath the PoP. My applicator 'earth' wire will be attached to the gauze in various places along its length. I find this so much easier and more effective than the 'nail' method.

 

The process should be fairly quick; the longest part waiting for the plaster to dry. I will be leaving an excess of gauze to cover the ground beside this bank. This area will also be vegetated but will form the verge for a farm track. This track will be the first site for one of my yet-to-be-made AFVs.

 

Anyhoo... here's a very exciting photo of some wood and some metal. You can also see the area for the wheel pit, which I have painted black. I went a bit mad with the black and carried on painting across the base for fun.

 

TFL

Badder

Edited February 17, 2018 by Badder

[bhouse]

This is looking fantastic, Badders. Good luck with the water pour - and keeping your fringe friend away!

Brian

[Badder]

9 minutes ago, bhouse said:

This is looking fantastic, Badders. Good luck with the water pour - and keeping your fringe friend away!

Brian

Thanks Brian,

Much appreciated. The water is a real pain to do... much more of a pain than assembling working tank tracks I reckon.

Molly ran over one of my wife's paintings on two separate occasions this afternoon while the wife was out and I was working on the diorama. Luckily, very luckily, it was just an underpainting and no serious damage done!

 

Reaguards,

Badder

 

 

[Badder]

By close of play for today I've managed to construct most of the underlying structure for the 2nd bank. I will have to extend the wall to the front edge of the diorama, but otherwise that'll be it.

Then I can cover it with PoP, then PVA and get on with the grassing-up. The grassing-up will be very quick indeed. Then I can add the barbed wire fence (another quick job) and maybe a telegraph pole.

The black area of the base (the bit where I went mad) will now feature the foundations of an old water-mill; just a couple of courses of stonework and a bit of old cobbled floor. But then the 'present day' farmer may have used this area as an animal pen/sty/storage area, or something. I will have to see. So another evolution possibly?

 

Anyway, here's the bank in position, complete with supporting wall along the left edge (This will require some additional work but will mostly be hidden behind the rushes) The farm track will be immediately to the right of this bank.

 

And here's a plan view of the 'cattle wade' area.

TFL

Badder.

 

Edited February 18, 2018 by Badder

[Cadman]

This is a quite incredible work of art.

Following with interest.

[Badder]

5 hours ago, Cadman said:

This is a quite incredible work of art.

Following with interest.

Cheers H,

Coming from you I take that as the highest of praise! My figures are probably going to let this diorama down. I will be trying oils, which I've not had any success with in the one previous attempt. At best they are going to be 'okay'. Nowhere near as good as yours!

 

Rearguards,

Badder

[Cadman]

6 minutes ago, Badder said:

Cheers H,

Coming from you I take that as the highest of praise! My figures are probably going to let this diorama down. I will be trying oils, which I've not had any success with in the one previous attempt. At best they are going to be 'okay'. Nowhere near as good as yours!

 

Rearguards,

Badder

Och behave yourself. There's really only one way to improve and that's constant practice.

After ten years of messing around with W&N series 7's and every other paintbrush in between, I have my off-days just like anyone else and have lost count of the amount of times I've resorted to the paint stripper after coming up with yet another figure that looks like an extra out of a Hammer Horror movie.

 

[Badder]

The stonework has been finished to 'an acceptable level of vagueness'. For the most part the stonework is well hidden behind the rushes so I regarded colour and texture more important than detail. Where the 'wall' is exposed then detail will obviously be heightened.

 

And then I thought I'd add the Plaster of Paris to the bank.

I made a boo-boo, covering the screw heads with plaster, forgetting that the screws were fully screwed in and sticking out of the bottom of the batten. Derrrrrrrrr! After considering various options I went for digging down into the plaster to reveal the screw heads and then unscrewing them. Some plugging will be required once the batten is fixed to the base.

 

Washes with green and dark earth weathering powders 'primed' the bank. A coat of PVA will follow, and then the grassing will take place. I will be using a mix of 3 different static grasses, cut to a variety of lengths.

 

TFL

Badder

Edited February 18, 2018 by Badder

[Badder]

The mix of grass has been applied all along the bank. Now I can add all the details. It will be much easier to add the details now, while the batten is detached from the base.

 

The photos were taken immediately after the grass was applied. I always like to give the grass a brush once the PVA has set, removing unfixed fibres. But I also like to dribble thin CA in amongst the 'roots' and add some scatter as well.

 

TFL

Badder

Edited February 18, 2018 by Badder

[Badder]

Close-ups of the grass after it's had a good brushing to remove the excess.

As you can see, by applying a mix of three different coloured grasses all cut to varying lengths and all in one go, these patches have a very natural look. The overall effect is heightened by the uneven plaster of paris which underlies, and by the fact that that PoP was painted with greens and browns. I'm well pleased.   

Right, the grass is fairly short all the way along this bank, but by no means 'closely cropped' by cows, sheep, goats, elephants, or the like.

But it's obviously been grazed in the not-too-distant past. So I'm going to have a go at adding plants which the animals would not eat and those plants which have 'sprung up' since the last grazing.

 

I'm going to try making nettles and attempt a more realistic cow parsley. I'm also going to try to hint at purple clover, and add more 'Black Eyed Susan' in the gap between the stonework and the rushes.

And in between I can go ahead and drive in the posts for the barbed wire fence. UNLESS ANYONE INFORMs ME THAT FRENCH/BELGIUM FARMERS DIDN'T USE BARBED WIRE FENCES BACK THEN?

 

TFL

Badder

Edited February 18, 2018 by Badder

[Major_Error]

That grass looks like the lawn outside in my garden....
It could only need some snails and rotten apples!

8-D

[RichO]

Not quite the kind of grass I prefer, but very impressive close up photos.  Nice color and texture.  Great job!

[Badder]

4 hours ago, RichO said:

Not quite the kind of grass I prefer, but very impressive close up photos.  Nice color and texture.  Great job!

In the interests of faked naivety, yeah, I prefer sedge and bamboo as well.

 

Thanks for your kind comments. I took these photos in direct daylight which is always better than taking them under the usual low-energy light bulbs!

It's a strange thing though, when close-ups of dioramas details make them look better while the opposite is nearly always true when it comes to the actual vehicles/figures. I guess it's because nature is 'rougher' and more scrappy and that's enhanced in close-ups?

 

Rearguards,

Badder

 

[Badder]

All attempts to make nettles have failed. The problem is not one of accuracy in form, but accuracy in scale.

The topmost leaves are simply too small for me to be able to cut them accurately by hand.... at least with the paper I've been using. And that is the one variable I haven't explored fully.

So, I'm going to try a couple more possibilities over the weekend.

1. Rizzla tobacco rolling papers, which are extremely thin and may cut better.

2 Blades of Astroturf, which are thin strips of plastic and stronger than paper.

 

Meanwhile, I've come up with a handy method for reproducing leafy groundcover, much like the method I used for the 'ivy', using my Origami skills. The chain of 3 snowflakes can be folded in particular ways to form satisfactory clumps. These clumps can then be used as the base for further foliage, or can be arranged together to form larger clumps.

 

Here is a clump made from a single chain and paced on the grass bank.

 

This clump is more 3D than those of the 'Black Eyed Susan' (formerly known as Marigold) having more 'space' within the foliage. I may actually replace some of the plants I made previously.

 

TFL

Badder

Edited February 18, 2018 by Badder

[Badder]

I started this diorama almost a year ago now, and since then the base hasn't left the living room table. Today we have the chimney sweep around, so I'm going to have to move it to safety. I have no idea how much it weighs (the diorama base, not the table) but it's going to get a lot heavier! For the moment though it should be easy enough to tilt up and get it through the door!

 

Yes, I know, my wife has been a saint all this time.

 

But it will all be back in its place later on today and work will recommence.

BTW, I've found several tools that I forgot I own!

(I MUST try to be more tidy!)

 

Badder

 

Edited October 27, 2017 by Badder

[Cadman]

34 minutes ago, Badder said:

I started this diorama almost a year ago now, and since then the base hasn't left the living room table. Today we have the chimney sweep around, so I'm going to have to move it to safety. I have no idea how much it weighs (the diorama base, not the table) but it's going to get a lot heavier! For the moment though it should be easy enough to tilt up and get it through the door!

 

Yes, I know, my wife has been a saint all this time.

 

But it will all be back in its place later on today and work will recommence.

BTW, I've found several tools that I forgot I own!

(I MUST try to be more tidy!)

 

Badder

 

Get some help moving the base Badder -- these things can be surprisingly heavy.

[bhouse]

I'm really enjoying seeing how much life there is in your scene.

I spoke to our neighbours here in France - a little way south of Poitiers. They have lived in our hamlet since the early 50s and said there were certainly barbed wire fences around then. It seems likely that several of the barbed wire fences on our land are at least that old, despite the wire itself having been replaced. Here are a couple of shots of a 'typique clôture de fil barbelé ' 

 

 

 

 

And in case you need any more references for the kind of plant life next to streams these ferns are absolutely rampant:

 

 

 

In the odd areas where we don't have ferns, the scene is more like this:

 

 

All pictures were taken at the end of October. The greens are all rather more vivid in the Spring. 

 

Oh - and there are quite a lot of squirrels but don't forget that red squirrels are much more common in France!

 

Brian

 

[Badder]

2 hours ago, bhouse said:

I'm really enjoying seeing how much life there is in your scene.

I spoke to our neighbours here in France - a little way south of Poitiers. They have lived in our hamlet since the early 50s and said there were certainly barbed wire fences around then. It seems likely that several of the barbed wire fences on our land are at least that old, despite the wire itself having been replaced. Here are a couple of shots of a 'typique clôture de fil barbelé ' 

 

 

 

 

 

And in case you need any more references for the kind of plant life next to streams these ferns are absolutely rampant:

 

In the odd areas where we don't have ferns, the scene is more like this:

 

All pictures were taken at the end of October. The greens are all rather more vivid in the Spring. 

 

Oh - and there are quite a lot of squirrels but don't forget that red squirrels are much more common in France!

 

Brian

 

Thank you very much for the photos and the info on the barbed wire fences Brian.

 

It's good to see that the flora there is pretty much identical to the flora here. I think the differences would be greater if your were photos taken in Spain, or North Africa! The same could be said of the fauna!

 

There was a modeller I found on the web who produced vegetation to match that in the photos above... honestly, I thought his diorama hedgerows were REAL. Sadly, I've forgotten his name, but if I ever find him again I will share the photos with all.

 

If I could come even half-way close to his work I'd be totally thrilled, but IS my intention to concentrate on vegetation in future, hoping to emulate his work. At the very least it will take the eye away from my mediocre AFVs!

 

BTW, Red squirrels will not be appearing in my diorama.... unless they are being squashed under tanks. I hate Red Squirrels almost as much as I hate those red, long-legged, blob-bodied, arachnids known as 'Harvestmen'.

 

Rearguards,

Badder

[Badder]

15 hours ago, Cadman said:

Get some help moving the base Badder -- these things can be surprisingly heavy.

 

Cheers H,

The move went well, much easier than expected, and the move back was no harder. The table now looks like a table with a fledgling diorama on it, rather than a table heaped with the contents of a fly-tipper's trailer.

 

Work will recommence shortly.

 

Rearguards,

Badder

[bhouse]

24 minutes ago, Badder said:

honestly, I thought his diorama hedgerows were REAL. Sadly, I've forgotten his name,

I think he's called Badder...

[Badder]

All the messing around trying to make realistic nettles has been a non-productive usage of time, but nevertheless worth the effort. I now know that it's impossible, for me at least.

The leaves are just too small, and even if I could make them that small, they'd be too small for me to be able to glue them to the stem in the correct formation.

 

The ONLY way I can see it being done is if the leaves are cut out as one set of opposing leaves. (Nettle leaves branch out from the stem in pairs, with one directly opposite the other and then with each of these pairs rotated by 90 degrees from those above and below) This would double the size of the 'object' to be handled, half the amount of 'punching' or cutting to do, and make gluing them to the stem a lot easier. However, I know now that even this would be impossible for me.

 

So, I've come to the conclusion that if I am to produce SOME realistic leaves of ANY sort, I am going to have to purchase some PROPER leaf punches!

I've had my eye on a few for some time now, and tonight (this morning) I have settled on RP Toolz leaf punches. And I'm going to purchase the full set of 4, covering Maple, Oak, Lime and Birch in 4 scales from 1/48th to 1/16th. Each punch 'contains' one leaf 'species' in each of the 4 scales. A bit of a chore punching out all those leaves and having to sort out the desired sizes, but the 2 smaller scales can at least be used in conjunction to produce size variation. The larger leaves may prove useful as other types of vegetation.

 

So, hopefully I should have the set in a few days.

 

My ONLY concern is that the resulting leaves will be SO GOOD that I will be tempted to spray Agent Orange on my finished trees and bushes and then spend weeks 're-leafing' them all!

 

TFL

Badder

 

P.s. I've had a look around on the web and have found that the prices for the punches vary considerably -  purchasing through Amazon being the most expensive at somewhere around 50 quid for the set... while a certain stockist listed on this site offers the set for 34 quid including P&P. I know which I will be using!

If all goes well, rest assured that the stockist will receive praise in the relevant forum, and a mention here!

Edited October 29, 2017 by Badder

[Badder]

Having decided to purchase the leaf punches, I am hanging fire on adding feature plants on the new bank. It may be that the leaf punches will provide much better foliage for such things. And with that decided, I thought I may as well get on with the barbed wire fence.

 

Rather than use real wood for the fence posts ( usually my preferred option) I thought I may as well use the plastic posts from Tamiya's Barricade Set. It meant having to chose those posts that weren't too thin or bent and then drilling 3 holes in each to take the barbed wire. I had already decided to thread the 'wire' through the posts rather than 'staple' the wire to the posts in the more usual fashion.

I then painted the posts with Tamiya XF12 Japanese Naval (Navy?) Grey. A faint green wash was applied to the foot of each post, and a bit here and there on some to create some variation. A dark brown wash followed, and then 'taken back' in places with a damp brush.

 

Next came the fixing of the posts to the bank. It is much easier to thread 3 lots of 'wire' through the posts when they are already fixed in place... tangles and swearing will result otherwise. So I drilled 6 holes along the bank and CA'd the posts in place. I wanted the fence to be old and broken, so the posts were deliberately fitted wonkily.

 

Next came the wire.

I used Drennan Micro Braid with a 5lb breaking strain. This is a soft, supple, strong, but fine diameter fishing line used for hook-lengths. It is formed of 2 'threads' twisted together, with each thread consisting of hundreds of micro-fibres. The 2 threads are coloured black and silver and require very little treatment to make them look metallic. The 'twist' is easily visible and althought there are only 2 wires compared to 3 in REAL barbed wire, the effect is more than satisfactory IMHO.

 

So three lengths of braid were threaded through the posts. Again this process was made much easier by the fact that I haven't yet fixed the batten to the base. Again, I wanted the wire to look old, and broken... so rather than position it nicely and tie it off at the ends, I let it sag and 'tangled' the ends off.... as if the farmer had attempted to 'tidy away' the loose ends, out of harm's way. These 'tangled ends' were fixed with a dribble of thin CA.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since these photos were taken... a wash and dab with rust weathering powder was applied to the wire. I still have the barbs to add.  And long grass will be planted around the foot of each post. (photos later)

 

TFL

Badder

Edited February 18, 2018 by Badder