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impromptu: All suggestions are wellcome


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making it short. I have zero experience in diorama making. I also have almost zero experience in modelling i used to do some kits when i was a kid and i've come back to the hobby recently.  

I had this Tamiya zero model scale 1/48 that i built to pick up some experience and i'm already no more satisfied with the result i achieved, therefore i would not put it on display anyway.

i also found i had at home an old package of DAS ( don't know if you have it in your country is a low quality modelling clay ).

Well how to put at good use both of them?, here's the idea, why not use them both to experiment in a diorama? since i'm planning to do another diorama and i'm waiting some material to be shipped at home i can make experiments on this and get some experience from it. Therefore here it is.  

I don't have a precise plan in mind, i'm not even sure i'll finish it, i'll just see how things work out while i do them.  

 

The plot is more or less just a crashed zero, on some pacific island. 

 

i'm opening this discussion more than anything to ask question and get suggestion from experienced people. 

 

 

 

 

Edited by cambridge
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so here's how it starts. 

 

the zero has been torn to pieces,  I've made the base with the clay. that should give the idea of the plane skidding and then getting stuck in it. 

 

krAHQcO.jpg

 

than comes the first experiment, i've added a first layer of dirt ( made with coffee powder applied with a mix of water and glue ). It looks quite good on this scale.

I'm waiting for it to dry so i'll see if it stuck to the base or it will fall off. i'll eventually spry over some fixer like hairspray or something similar before applying more layers.

 

gexnKhH.jpg

 

the plane still requires a lot of work, that it's not it's final condition. i'll add, if i'm able more damage and i'm planning to repaint lot of it in order to make it look way more damaged. for now i've cut its wing and its tail ( so i can fit it in the small space i had available :D )  i've bent its propeller with a lighter, i've added some minor gun holes Everything has to be worked on of course, this is just a starting point.

 

e7i22NW.jpg

 

i'm waiting for some material to be shipped at my home, i'm planning to add some grass around it, possibly a small tree in front of the right wing so i can make some experience with making trees and eventually i've shaped the ground so i can produce a little puddle of water to partially submerge left wing so i can make some experience with water. 

 

as i said let's see what will come out of this. 

Edited by cambridge
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Looking good so far. I would hope that you haven't fixed the zero in place yet. You'll find it much easier to add grass and other vegetation and all the other details without the zero in the way. And it will look more realistic if the grass is actually present under the wing and fuselage etc.

 

Rearguards,

Badder

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42 minutes ago, Badder said:

Looking good so far. I would hope that you haven't fixed the zero in place yet. You'll find it much easier to add grass and other vegetation and all the other details without the zero in the way. And it will look more realistic if the grass is actually present under the wing and fuselage etc.

 

Rearguards,

Badder

 

thank you. Yes, the zero isn't fixed at all, as i've said i'm planning to rework it quite a lot, i'm planning to repaint whole part of it, i wanna add skeletons of ailerons and tail sections and i need to rework those ugly cuts i've done in the wing. That is just a tryout pose to give an idea of the final composition of the diorama. 

 

 

also the base needs lot and lot and lot more work. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

well, i'm not giving it the attention it should i admit it. 

I've added a second layer of coffe over the first one. It's been more than a week now: good news,  no mould appeared, no smell coming from it. Bad news: some part have different color cause i've tried to apply some paint and we may have a problem there cause it tends to soak in the paint instead of being coated by it.

It may not work or it may require more paint than usual, i'll keep on with the experiment. 

 

i've painted parts of the plane in aluminium, than overcoated with red primer, than scratched the primer.

I now plan to paint green over that, and than scratch the green in order to show the primer/aluminium under it here and there.. On the right wing i'll leave a great chunck of it red in order to simulate a fuel tank catching fire.  I've added some structure in the right wing i still have to build the right aileron frame and the tail structure. 

 

i'm waiting for a couple of bags of grass to arrive, have no clue where they are, than the final idea is to put some heavy grass in front of the plane, some stomped  grass in the back to give the idea it has slided over it, and to leave the ground visible on the skid mark.

than add maybe a shrub in front of the right wing in order to fill the scene. i modeled the ground in order to give me the option to add a little puddle around the left wing leaving it partially submerged just to make it all more dramatic. 

 

aApSbfz.jpg

 

and also a test with the possible puddle effect

 

mHDnptm.jpg

 

Edited by cambridge
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The rust looks good.

I'm not a coffee drinker so I have no idea whether that puddle is a Latte or a whatever, but there's a high chance it's going to evaporate or soak away. :D

So how ARE you going to make the puddle? I have to say it does look very effective as it is.

 

A tip for you... rather than trying to paint what is essentially an anhydrous substance (that'll be the coffee) try giving it several coats of gloss varnish. Then make up a couple of washes - say a sandy wash and a black wash and apply them around, sometimes kept separate, sometimes running into each other. Then give a coat of matt varnish.

 

Rearguards,

Badder

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11 minutes ago, Badder said:

The rust looks good.

I'm not a coffee drinker so I have no idea whether that puddle is a Latte or a whatever, but there's a high chance it's going to evaporate or soak away. :D

So how ARE you going to make the puddle? I have to say it does look very effective as it is.

 

A tip for you... rather than trying to paint what is essentially an anhydrous substance (that'll be the coffee) try giving it several coats of gloss varnish. Then make up a couple of washes - say a sandy wash and a black wash and apply them around, sometimes kept separate, sometimes running into each other. Then give a coat of matt varnish.

 

Rearguards,

Badder

 

the puddle is simply a sheet of transparent plastic cut the size of the puddle, than sanded to make it more opaque and than painted on the underside with an uneven oil color. in the picture is just dry fitted there, once the plane is finished i plan to glue it down and add some putty around it with some more coffee over it in order to blend it in the proper way, with maybe have a branch sticking out of it to make it look less flat or a piece of the carriage, or something like that

 

i'll also give it a try at your suggestion you give me for painting the dirt, as i said it's the first time for me so this is 100% laboratory stuff 

Edited by cambridge
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on a positive note: what i tought was a long and boring process, wich is producing the aileron and flaps skeleton, wich i had planned to do with plasticard, was in fact a fun and fast process that i was able to do with my cheap Dremel drill wannabe, i tought that plastic wasn't able to sustain such damage holding togheter but i was wrong. So here a couple of pictures of the skeetoned plane.

I also removed a panel in front of the cockpit, maybe i'm gonna redo it with plasticard, leave it hanging and have some wires come out of it.

 

I think the overall damage i'm planning to do is almost all there. The plane should be a plane that has crashed from one or two days, not a relic remaining in the jungle for decades, therefore that should just represent battle/crashlanding damage, not rotting away damage.

 

please keep in mind i'm gonna repaint part of it and add the bird cage ( and create a frame from the tail with plasticard ).

than i'll blend it in with sprayed ground on the wings and the fuselage. 

 

i've also added to the picture a piece of cutten away landing gear popping out from the puddle just to give the idea of how it could look.

 

i think there's a chance in the end something good may come out of this.  It may definitely be a good idea to give a new purpose to some old model you've there that you're getting bored with.

 

7sbrTkn.jpg

 

 

3oc2fXu.jpg

 

oAjtAb7.jpg

 

 

Edited by cambridge
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i'm actually pondering the idea of taking the tail section away from the diorama and filling that space with a japanese pilot folding back his parachute, with part of the parachute leaning on the right wing, it would make the scene less packed and more dynamic

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so today as you can see i've spent a little time on the thing. Many details still have to be fixed, but i've done the overall paint job. i've sprayed the green over the base and than chipped it as i said. the damage wants to show a right wing fuel tank that has been opened by a burst of guns than the plane catched fire ( as zero used to do not having sealing tanks ) and went down. there are some round holes also on the right side of the fuselage.

I've also added many metal skids to the nose underside in order to show it had slide over the ground.

i've also glued the gear and a piece of its cover to the puddle surface in order to make it look like it's stickin out of it. 

 

once all the details are in place on the plane and once i've finished applying and coloring the ground base, i'm going to stick the plane to the ground in its final position and than start to blend in it with the surrounding, that means adding lot of ground dirt over it and around it,

 

[edit] i've updated the previous picture cause i've also given a hand of paint to the dirt now, so the diorama basically start to have a more natural feelings and give more an idea of the final result i aim to end up with. So, in the end, the coffee experiment doesn't look that bad afterall, i just have to wait and see if it degrades in the next days.

 

5LvlRI0.jpg

 

63Jb6Ur.jpg

 

ldVLWJX.jpg

 

knQqXZ5.jpg

 

KGKA4rC.jpg

 

7pcXih7.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by cambridge
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couple of days im workin on it.

 

So i've added bent panel around the holes on the wing and the fuselage and the antenna

 

kL8FmWy.jpg

 

also i've cut the legs of the pilot figure in the kit and made them up with green stuff in order to have him stand up. His feet will come later. 

 

92t6ghn.jpg

 

and this one i made it in photoshop just to give an idea of the final result composition i think i may end up with

 

ngVehNf.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by cambridge
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Hi Cambridge,

I really like what you've done with the zero... the damage looks pretty good to me.

The coffee, although not something I would ever use, does actually look rather good. With lots of varnish it may last forever. Let's hope so.

 

I'm not at all sure about your pilot and parachute though. If he bailed out there's hardly any chance that he would have landed right next to his plane, and then got tangled with it. As it is it looks as though his chute tangled around the plane mid-air and he was dragged down with it. :huh:

I think maybe you should put the tail section back where it was and add lots and lots of damage, and the internal framework. I don't think you need to add a figure, the crashed zero looks great on its own and it will look even better when you get the grass/mud etc in place.

 

Oh, one more thing, if I may? The puddle ends level with the end of the stump of the wing. I think your puddle needs to be bigger, maybe twice the size and extending out beyond the wing. If you were to lay a knocked down fence post along the edge of your puddle, you could then add another sheet of plastic this side of it and not have to worry about trying to make a neat join between the two sheets of plastic. (Which would be next to impossible)

 

Rearguards,

Badder

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50 minutes ago, Badder said:

Hi Cambridge,

I really like what you've done with the zero... the damage looks pretty good to me.

The coffee, although not something I would ever use, does actually look rather good. With lots of varnish it may last forever. Let's hope so.

 

yep i'm impressed too by the final look of it, expecially after i've painted it over with various shades of flat earth tamiya color that makes it look more even and natural. Also it seems to stick quite well to the base.

Some little chunk of it here and there pops out especially where i keep rubbin it ( under left wing ). But most of the excess material has been removed by the air when airbrushing the color over it. I've already applayed a couple of layers of hairspray over it, hope it will help stick it togheter 

Will it last? I don't know, i hope. 

 

Quote

I'm not at all sure about your pilot and parachute though. If he bailed out there's hardly any chance that he would have landed right next to his plane, and then got tangled with it. As it is it looks as though his chute tangled around the plane mid-air and he was dragged down with it. :huh: I think maybe you should put the tail section back where it was and add lots and lots of damage, and the internal framework. I don't think you need to add a figure, the crashed zero looks great on its own and it will look even better when you get the grass/mud etc in place.

 

I see what you say. The idea is that the pilot bailed out, than landed close to the plane wreck. And than either he rested the chute over the wing, or the wind blown it over the wing or he just landed right next to the wing and the chute deflated over it or whatever :D and now he is struggling to untangle it. 

 

the fact is the following, i tell this so you may come with some ideas too:

i had this base around 18x18cm wich is the space available for me to display this once it is finished.

my impression is that if i add the tail to the composition, than it looks all too much packed in, like as if it was squeezed, and it doesnt feel good to me also it would mostly hide the skid marks under, taking away some dynamis to the scene. While i've seen that just the frame with the skid of dirt behind it feels more right.

But it feels unbalanced.

The whole right part of the scene would be empty. I cant put there trees or stuff like that cause the plane supposedly comes from that direction and it would have taken down anything on its path. So i tought i could put there the pilot figure, it would make the scene looks more alive, like something is happening there, it would tell a story instead of just showing a crash.

And the idea was that if the pilot was there he would have probably ejected, and if he had ejected he would probably have his parachute with him.

Many pilots used to collect their parachute cause they were made of silk and it was valuable, many used it to make their wedding dress and that's why i tought i could put it inside the scene. Actually i'm not even sure i can realize it properly so for the moment it is just an idea. 

 

 

Quote

 

 

Oh, one more thing, if I may? The puddle ends level with the end of the stump of the wing. I think your puddle needs to be bigger, maybe twice the size and extending out beyond the wing. If you were to lay a knocked down fence post along the edge of your puddle, you could then add another sheet of plastic this side of it and not have to worry about trying to make a neat join between the two sheets of plastic. (Which would be next to impossible)

 

Rearguards,

Badder

 

i had actually tought at something similar too. I had tought i could make the whole forward part of the scene makes it look like muddy water, add grass tuft on it and make it look like the plane had landed on the edge of a rice field. I would make to the left of the skid the rice field, where the plane is also already partially leaning into. And to the right just a regular field. 

I think i could obtain that result without too much need of reworking the base. 

 

That would even make sense in an asian combat zone :D 

 

ltC74m0.jpg

 

Edited by cambridge
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The rice paddy idea is a cracker. Again, you could flatten some of the rice, dirty the water and make a more tidy transition between water and wing. But you'd have to use some fake water product like resin or gel. I don't know what products you have over there in Italy, but in the UK I have used 'Woodland Scenics Realistic Water' to great effect.  It's a liquid that sets like transparent rubber. You 'plant' things first, then pour the liquid in layers, allowing each layer to set fully.  It's quite expensive though.

 

I still think you should put the tail section back. The tail section would fill he empty space you have. Maybe twist it around at  much sharper angle, more of a bend? You could even snap it off completely, move it back and have it overhanging the diorama base. You'd be able to see the 'skid mark' then.

 

Rearguards,

Badder

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well i usually buy my material on this site,

http://www.super-hobby.it/

it's a polish based store and it's the cheaper i can find things, i'll take a look at their catalog and see if there's something that would work for water. 

 

ok, i think they have it, but it's around 20€ a bottle. Honestly, don't want to spend that much for an experiment on a cheap diorama ( the zero is a 10€ kit, the materials used for the base are all scrap materials, i think i'll look at some different product i may use for this. It doesn't have to look cristal clear or present some particular effect, so i guess i'll take a look at my bricolage store if i can put to a good use some product :D 

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13 minutes ago, cambridge said:

well i usually buy my material on this site,

http://www.super-hobby.it/

it's a polish based store and it's the cheaper i can find things, i'll take a look at their catalog and see if there's something that would work for water. 

 

ok, i think they have it, but it's around 20€ a bottle. Honestly, don't want to spend that much for an experiment on a cheap diorama ( the zero is a 10€ kit, the materials used for the base are all scrap materials, i think i'll look at some different product i may use for this. It doesn't have to look cristal clear or present some particular effect, so i guess i'll take a look at my bricolage store if i can put to a good use some product :D 

. I know fake water is expensive... there are some cheaper products but they aren't as good.... but I think your Zero deserves a great diorama. I use scrap material, found material, Plasticard, and natural things like twigs, branches, stones, grit etc to make my dioramas but I am quite happy to spend more money on the diorama than the actual model.

Good luck with your search though.

Rearguards,

Badder

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i'm pondering the idea of using that base for a different diorama and do a new one for the zero. That rice field idea is quite catchy but it would work better if i completely rethink the base instead of trying to adapt this one. Also i think i'm gonna peruse my bricolage store to see if i can find some material that i could use for a better result. 

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so what if this is the new setup? the tree fields would be flooded rice fields. i'll do the coffee thing again on the banks when they're dry and i'll find the best way to make the tree rice fields with water and plants ( hoping my grass bag finally arrives by mail ).

 

i'm also planning to add a little extra touch to that but i'm not gonna say anything before i'm sure i can make it look good, it will be a surprise

 

81T898A.jpg

 

the inspiration is this kind of thing

 

rice-field.jpg

 

 

Edited by cambridge
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Hi Cambridge.

May I suggest that you don't use coffee? I know it looked okay, but if you just used plaster of  Paris or something similar you could get as good, or a better effect, and it's easier.

While the plaster is still wet, get some grit/sand/crushed brick, mix them all together and sprinkle it over the top. Dab it in a bit with a brush and sprinkle more on. When it's dry shake off the excess and give it a coat of dilute PVA and sprinkle dust over it. For dust I get a piece of plaster of Paris which has set dry and scrape at it with a  scalpel. Then when dry paint it brown and give it a few different washes of black, brown, red-brown, then a coat of matt varnish. You can skip some of those sprinkly steps if you want but at the end of the day you will get a realistic effect that will be permanent and less hassle and worry than coffee. And plaster of Paris is cheaper than coffee after all!

 

Looking forward to seeing what you do!

 

Rearguards,

Badder

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3 minutes ago, Badder said:

Hi Cambridge.

May I suggest that you don't use coffee? I know it looked okay, but if you just used plaster of  Paris or something similar you could get as good, or a better effect, and it's easier.

While the plaster is still wet, get some grit/sand/crushed brick, mix them all together and sprinkle it over the top. Dab it in a bit with a brush and sprinkle more on. When it's dry shake off the excess and give it a coat of dilute PVA and sprinkle dust over it. For dust I get a piece of plaster of Paris which has set dry and scrape at it with a  scalpel. Then when dry paint it brown and give it a few different washes of black, brown, red-brown, then a coat of matt varnish. You can skip some of those sprinkly steps if you want but at the end of the day you will get a realistic effect that will be permanent and less hassle and worry than coffee. And plaster of Paris is cheaper than coffee after all!

 

Looking forward to seeing what you do!

 

Rearguards,

Badder

 

I'm inclined to follow your suggestion.

Having already experimented with coffee and seen what the result is, i think it makes sense to try something different this time. 

Edited by cambridge
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so here's the surprise i was talking about. Would these two guys look good in the diorama ? ( that is just the skeleton, hopefully i'm gonna add details over them when they dry )

 

xDDJfbv.jpg

 

XLvqIba.jpg

 

they should be two herons

 

by the way  i just realized how many rice plants i have to make on this scale, this is gonna be a nightmare to realize. I hope the final result is worth it

Edited by cambridge
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this is just a first hand of paint, i'm planning to detail them a little more, do you think they look too fake and silly? they would make the scene more alive and also you can see the contrast between the dead plane and the flying bird there, you know.....well......whatever... :D 

 

h7LoFcF.jpg

 

lfxtzrH.jpg

 

 

i've also bought this. It should do for the water, first time i use it so i hope i'm not gonna end up making a mess. Before i use it i wait till my grass bag arrives, so i can drop a first layer of this, put the plants in it, than add a second layer and have both the rice plants and the plane actually emerging from it like they should be, this should create the best effect. 

 

E+30+resina+effetto+ACQUA+-+Nicolis+Vero

 

Edited by cambridge
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grass bag arrived. It's actually different than i expected. it could be good for general grass on the ground but it's too short for rice plants, it's only 3mm long. Also the color is wrong, 

 

if i keep a small amount in the bag and spray it with the airbrush do you think i can change its color? 

 

any suggestion for the rice plants? i was thinking i could salvage an old duster like this trimming the tips of its hairs the lenght needed

 

933431151_324.jpg

 

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