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

[Rob G]

Fair enough, I'll enter into no further debate (even though tariffs, benefits and trade restrictions ultimately benefit no one except the already filthy rich), which should allow you to finish this quite magnificent work. Truly you seem to have found an interest/hobby/obsession that suits your skills and temperament. I'd love to build dioramas, but barely have the patience or skills to finish a simple plastic kit to a level that can be looked at without wincing. Rather depressing really.

 

I hope you don't mind, but I've directed one of the members of my local club to this thread, as he's looking for guidance in making grassy swards, much crushed by cavalry (or something). (This isn't a put up, I actually shared the link well before I came back and read the above.) I'm sure that if he spends time in careful reading, he'll learn all that he needs to know. I do mean that, your work is seriously impressive.

 

Enough of my waffle.

[Badder]

1 hour ago, Rob G said:

Fair enough, I'll enter into no further debate (even though tariffs, benefits and trade restrictions ultimately benefit no one except the already filthy rich), which should allow you to finish this quite magnificent work. Truly you seem to have found an interest/hobby/obsession that suits your skills and temperament. I'd love to build dioramas, but barely have the patience or skills to finish a simple plastic kit to a level that can be looked at without wincing. Rather depressing really.

 

I hope you don't mind, but I've directed one of the members of my local club to this thread, as he's looking for guidance in making grassy swards, much crushed by cavalry (or something). (This isn't a put up, I actually shared the link well before I came back and read the above.) I'm sure that if he spends time in careful reading, he'll learn all that he needs to know. I do mean that, your work is seriously impressive.

 

Enough of my waffle.

Don't get me wrong Rob, I could debate the subject of capitalism and so called 'free markets' until the cows come home, but there are other public forums for that kind of thing and I'd much rather discuss/learn/share model-making issues here! I really don't mind the odd tangent though, so don't feel like I'm in any way unwelcoming of your original comment. It was I after all who introduced the topic!

 

I am extremely lucky, I must admit, to be able to indulge in this hobby. For decades I was unable to commit any time to it really. But now I find myself with a very understanding wife  and started up again a couple of years ago. Back in my youth I was an 'okay' model-maker, but I did think that dioramas were my strongest 'skill'. I am still just an okay model-maker, but learning and improving all the time, however, it's dioramas that interest me most.

 

I've seen some mind-blowing dioramas here on BM (and on other sites) and I am left in awe of the artists who create them. Only by watching their work and learning from them, from practicing and experimenting, can I hope to improve. But very few of the most skilled diorama-makers actually bother to show their work in progress! Not in any great detail anyway. If my extensive, comprehensive WIP is useful to ANYONE, then that is very humbling, because I haven't come anywhere near their standards yet!

 

So, I thank you for your comments and for thinking my work is worthy of being introduced to your fellow club members!

 

Rearguards,

Badder

 

 

 

Edited November 5, 2017 by Badder

[Badder]

Stones from the collapsed supporting wall have been placed on the streambed and some rushes have been cut back and removed to widen the wade a little bit.

 

I have also screw-fixed another metal gauze to the base in preparation for creating the farm track.

 

For those who haven't read previous posts, I use metal gauze as an aid to applying static grass. I find it so much more convenient than sticking nails in all over the place like some demented acupuncturist.

There is a welcome side-effect to using the gauze as well: a better 'key' for the Plaster of Paris. This farm track won't have a huge thickness of PoP over it so I need to ensure that the PoP has something 'uneven' to grip to, and is reinforced. I suppose some cracking may still occur, but hopefully the cracks won't spread and the PoP won't lift away from the base. If it does, I will do my usual thing of dribbling thin CA into the cracks.

 

Sloppy Plaster of Paris will be poured over this to form the base for the track while a less wet PoP will be used for the slope up to the grassy bank. I'm using a sloppy mix for the track area just to make sure that it gets under the gauze wherever it may be slightly raised from the base as I don't want any air pockets. Having said that, I have raised the upstream end of the gauze away from the base so that I can make a slight slope in the track.  I don't want this diorama looking too flat.

I imagine that this track will be a mud, stone, and grass track rather than tarmac. It just offers more interest than tarmac. I doubt that the farmer has a tractor and so relies on a horse and cart, so any ruts will be fairly narrow, until the arrival of the AFVs. How much of a mess the AFVs will make has yet to be decided.

 

TFL

Badder

 

Edited February 21, 2018 by Badder

[PlaStix]

Hi Badder. Hope you are having a good evening. Just been catching up with your progress. I really do like the colours of your greenery. You seem to achieve very natural mixes of colours which enhances the 'real feel' of the vegetation. The overall look of your scene is getting more impressive all the time. Wonderful stuff!

Kind regards,

Stix

[Badder]

11 minutes ago, PlaStix said:

Hi Badder. Hope you are having a good evening. Just been catching up with your progress. I really do like the colours of your greenery. You seem to achieve very natural mixes of colours which enhances the 'real feel' of the vegetation. The overall look of your scene is getting more impressive all the time. Wonderful stuff!

Kind regards,

Stix

Thanks Stix,

You wouldn't believe the differences in colour, depending on the lighting. Add to that the differences the camera makes, it's actually quite hard to tell what the true colours are!

But yes, mixing 3 different colours of static grasses and varying the ratios is something I've picked up from others. The stuff I'm least happy with is the colours of the bushes and trees. I keep thinking about trying to add a bit of variation between them, but the last time I tried was a failure.

Still, lighting and cameras aside, colours do appear to change depending on their juxtaposition with others, so until all of the diorama components are in place it's too early to know if anything does need changing.

 

Rearguards,

Badder

 

 

[Rob G]

Re the farm track - remember that a single horse cart leaves 3 ruts; one each for the wheels and a wider one in the centre for Neddy. It's not uncommon to see it done with only 2, even (especially?) in movies...

[Badder]

5 minutes ago, Rob G said:

Re the farm track - remember that a single horse cart leaves 3 ruts; one each for the wheels and a wider one in the centre for Neddy. It's not uncommon to see it done with only 2, even (especially?) in movies...

Thanks Rob,

But yes, I already had that one figured! It just depends on whether he's got a two-horse cart or a single! I'm wondering if I should purchase Tamiya's German Field Kitchen kit cos I built one of those 30 odd years ago and seem to remember that the horses were pretty good!

 

EDIT

 

And shove the horses in the farm yard and the cart round the side of the building.

 

Rearguards,

Badder

Edited November 5, 2017 by Badder

[Rob G]

A 2 horse cart? Ain't we posh.

[Badder]

21 hours ago, Rob G said:

A 2 horse cart? Ain't we posh.

I'm beginning to think he's a forester rather than a farmer, so he'll need a 2-horser to cart the logs to the wood market. I may have been drinking alcohol.

 

 

Rearguards,

Badder.

[Badder]

The plaster of Paris is being laid down in patches. When it's done I will post pics, but they aren't going to be very exciting.

 

Rearguards,

Badder

[Major_Error]

Farmers are often handy men. He might have one half truck outside? May be the truck have been converted into a chart for his horse(s)?

 

8-)

[Badder]

1 hour ago, Major_Error said:

Farmers are often handy men. He might have one half truck outside? May be the truck have been converted into a chart for his horse(s)?

 

8-)

Maybe that half a truck could be a Krupp Protz that was wrecked during the German invasion? Food for thought. Although I don't know if the occupying Germans would have let him get away with converting it into a cart.

 

Reaguards,

Badder

[Badder]

The 'undercoat' of Plaster of Paris isn't quite finished. I have yet to tidy up the slope up to the grass, the upstream end of the track where it meets the rear frame and the downstream end camera-side of the gate.

 

I have to decide which vehicles will be on this track before making the ruts. I can make the verges though. The track won't be as straight as the plaster suggests and will widen out before curving around to the front of the building.

 

TFL

Badder

Edited February 21, 2018 by Badder

[cocky05d]

On 04/11/2017 at 11:47 PM, Rob G said:

 

Everything is made in China for one reason, and one reason only - price. The UK (and for that matter, Australia, the US, Germany etc) are well capable of making any little blivet or widget that is required by anyone for any task. The hangup though is that none of the workers in those countries will work for less than what they think is a fair wage, because 'living standards'. The Chinese WILL work for low wages, which leads to cheap goods, which leads to US being able willing to pay for them - would you pay 35 quid each for genuine made-in-Sheffield-with-Real-British-Steel paper punches to use in your hobby? We are, in most ways, part of the problem y'see.

 

Once upon a time, the Tamiya Livestock set was THE source for animals. Mostly because it was the only one. It's a bout a hundred years old and Tamiya really should retire the moulds and make a new version.

This wee enterprise o'yourn is looking good Mr Badder. Pray continue!

Saw a bit of a programme on the al (sorry can't spell the rest ) news channel about the apple stuff made in China ,about one % of the prize of an iphone is the cost of making it .

And the poor Chinese sods that make them are so over worked and stressed out ,some of them have killed themselves .

[cocky05d]

Hi ,re Sea foam ,can you buy it in GB ?,and your barbed wire ,is it home made ?Still got to finish putting plaster on my where are you going diorama .

I tried making a small bush using a dried grape vine(?) ,it looks a bit like a Monkey Puzzle Tree ,didn't stick many lengths of fishing line to it before i but the Basil  on it.

[Badder]

12 hours ago, cocky05d said:

Hi ,re Sea foam ,can you buy it in GB ?,and your barbed wire ,is it home made ?Still got to finish putting plaster on my where are you going diorama .

I tried making a small bush using a dried grape vine(?) ,it looks a bit like a Monkey Puzzle Tree ,didn't stick many lengths of fishing line to it before i but the Basil  on it.

Hi chap,

Yes, the Sea Foam is from Gaugemaster a company based in Arundel, Sussex. There are shops that sell it so have a look on the web. Probably model railway shops are your best bet.

 

If you go back a few pages you will see how I made the barbed wire. It's made using braided fishing line and nylon monofilament fishing line.

 

Good to hear you haven't given up on the Where are you going with that pig' diorama!

 

As for trees, the way I make them, with all the fishing line, takes a lot of time and patience, but I think it's worth it! To give you some idea, the big tree I made used 450m of fishing line!

 

I hope all that helps!

 

Reaguards

Badder

Edited November 7, 2017 by Badder

[cocky05d]

Hi ,thanks for the info ,i will check out Gaugemaster .

[Badder]

Just a typed update for the time being.... photos later.

 

In the previous photo you can see that I left a bit of an untidy edge to the plaster of Paris where it butts up against the grass bank. This is because I didn't want to get plaster on the grass itself. If you look at the right hand end of the bridge you can see that the wire mesh is not fully covered and that gaps have been left beneath it. Such gaps occur in places all the way along the bank. In some places the 'holes' beneath the gauze are quite deep.

 

However, I had a solution to this problem. I made very runny plaster and poured this into an empty CA bottle. The hole in the bottle's nozzle had was widened by drilling. I was then able to insert the nozzle deep into the holes and squeeze the bottle, filling in the gaps from the bottom up. I continued to squeeze until the plaster rose up to a level fractionally lower than the grass 'roots'.  

 

I have added more plaster along the front edge of the diorama and am currently plastering under the sloping mesh at the rear. Once this is done I will have to position the wall and building on the diorama so that I can work out where more gauze and plaster is required.

 

TFL

Badder

 

 

 

 

I

[Badder]

Apologies for the dull pics... but these pics are more about layout than colours!  I've cut the wall to length, allowing a gap for a gate to the back yard. I built up the mud on the bank for the cattle wade, have plastered the track up to the rear frame and have extended the plaster to the right,  both front and rear. I've also marked out roughly where the 'cobbled' surfaces will be in orange pencil.

 

With the plaster of Paris extending across the base, I need to know where to place the metal gauze for grassing-up. So I've sited the building, wall and tree.

I've also sited my old Churchill VII (which was the 2nd model I made upon my return to the hobby) I've put it on the track as this is where I will probably put my new Churchill, and I need to make sure I have enough room for it. If it fits, then a Cromwell should have no problem. The Sherman is only there to provide some idea of spacing. There should be plenty of room for the Universal Carrier.

 

 

 

TFL

Badder

Edited February 21, 2018 by Badder

[Badder]

The building is going to be part surrounded by a neatly cobbled area. This slips under the front of the building and the porch side .In the photo above you can see the gap under the building  which allows me to do this. A rougher cobble will extend further out from the building.

 

For the neat cobbles I'm using the diamond patterned rubber mat, which glues down excellently with medium CA.

 TFL

Badder

Edited February 21, 2018 by Badder

[Badder]

Hmmmmm

 

Silly me.

 

Bear with me while I strip off the rubber mat and cogitate over the orientation of the building and the lack of rise and fall in the terrain.

 

Yes, the diorama is in the process of evolving.

 

TFL

Badder

 

Edited November 9, 2017 by Badder

[Vince1159]

Lovely job Badder,although when i saw the thread title change i though you'd decided to give the owners a workshop...

[Badder]

9 minutes ago, Vince1159 said:

Lovely job Badder, although when i saw the thread title change i though you'd decided to give the owners a workshop...

Thanks Vince,

 

I was wondering if people would think I'd ruined something and that I was expressing my 'disappointment'.

 

Rearguards

Badder

 

p.s. We have a guy from Jersey just started work at our place. Name of Roger. He has hair and a nose and everything. Do you know him?

 

 

 

 

[Badder]

Rubber mat stripped off with only minor damage to the underside. Should be okay for re-using.

 

Some major earth-working is required now. I'm guestimating that an extra 2kg of Plaster of Paris is going to be added. Ho hum!

 

TFL

Badder

[Cadman]

I'm a bit puzzled by the latest posts Badder so please help me out.

What exactly was wrong with the rubber mat? And why do you estimate that you'll need to add around 2Kg of plaster to the diorama base?

You mention a "lack of rise and fall in the terrain", so do you mean that the rubber mat looked too flat?