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Bandai "Box Scale" Dioramas


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Very cool, my only nitpick was the cables but you're already on the case :)

 

You should do an in-flight one with an X-Wing and the rebel guard tower thing from Yavin!

 

W

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Oooh, I hadn't considered the guard tower - that's an excellent idea!

 

I've got a quick set of death star tiles nearly ready (no death star turbolaser towers - I either need to buy a 1:72nd scale A-Wing kit, or scratch build some),  and yesterday I bought some materials to help with the tile-able hangar. 

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  • 5 weeks later...

Things progress, just slowly sometimes -- here's a minor update on the Hoth diorama. I picked up a jar of Vallejo's snow effect diorama paint and applied it to most of the snow surfaces.  

 

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I think it works pretty well! It's a *little* rough for the 1:144th scale, but I also have both Tamiya snow texture paints (they have a regular snow paint, and a finer powder snow as well) on a slow boat from Japan, so when they arrive I'll do some more experimentation. 

 

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It's definitely done the job of hiding the hot-glue nature of the hot glue that I did the basic shaping with.  I haven't covered the entire thing with the snow texture yet, because I'm going to paint the flat area where the AT-ST stands to resemble a sheet of ice. Once that's done I'll bring the snow texture down to overlap the edge of that surface.  

 

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Oooh, the Tamiya paints are currently at my local post office, so I'll possibly have them to experiment with tonight. More likely tomorrow, though. 

 

Meanwhile.....

 

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Hmm....what could *POSSIBLY* be in a bunch of boxes labeled DS1, DS2, DS3, and DS4?

 

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I found a set of tiles which would fit in the boxes on eBay. Each one is two tiles, CA-glued to a piece of styrene to hold them together, with the seams between them filled in with Milliput.  They can be arranged in any number of ways. 

 

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What if Luke never made it out of Mos Eisely, and it was Blue Two who destroyed the Death Star? (with Nicholas Sagan's decal set)

 

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Edited by monsterpartyhat
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Some quick stages of finishing the Death Star tiles:

 

Raw resin:

 

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Black base coat (Testor's Model Master flat black rattle-can):

 

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Base color (Tamiya Fine Surface Primer in gray), sprayed at angles to leave some shading:

 

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That was followed with hand painting some random panels in other shades of gray (Sky Gray, Neutral Gray, and Sky Gray blended with a touch of Medium Blue) and a basic dirty wash, as well as painting a few minor details here and there in Vallejo Gun Metal metallic, and a bit of duraluminum dry-brushing. 

 

Edited by monsterpartyhat
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Back to the Hoth diorama...my Tamiya texture paints finally arrived. Now I've got three snow texture paints to play with...

 

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Tamiya snow paint is my favorite overall, so far:

 

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The "powder snow" version is very similar, with smaller particles. In the jar it looks very similar, but it dries to a slightly different color, and I think the texture looks less like snow and more like dried spackle. 

 

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Finally, the Vallejo, which you've already seen above - it's by far the coarsest of the three, and also the most starkly bright white. 

 

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After experimenting with all three, I ended up covering most of the Vallejo snow I'd already laid down with the Tamiya (non-powder version). 

 

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I also added some blue washes to the "ice" section. Not entirely happy with how that turned out -- I went a little overboard. Covered that with a heavy coat of Tamiya gloss clear, brushed on, and I'm calling it done. 

 

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I'll take some proper finished photos once I find clear acrylic rod for the snowspeeder posts. 

 

Beggar's Canyon is up next....

 

 

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Meanwhile, on a planet on the completely opposite end of the human-compatible climate spectrum....I took some time this past weekend to make progress on a diorama for my scratch-built T-16 skyhopper. 

 

Again, I'm starting with a styrene base that fits inside the vehicle model box, and some garden-variety (see what I did there?) decorative bark.

 

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Found an arrangement of random pieces that I think suits. 

 

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Let's see how it looks with a Skyhopper in the foreground. Yup, I think that will do. 

 

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Once again, I've given the bark a liberal lacquer clear-coating, so I can paint them with less paint absorption into the bark, and so they won't shed all over. 

 

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Since I want to have "canyon" walls that are taller than the vehicle model box, I'm once again turning to magnets. I've found pieces that stack reasonably well, then sanded down the sides that will join and embedded tiny neodymium magnets in them so they can break apart for storage and transport. 

 

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At some point in this process I lost one of  the cool bases pieces I'd picked out (I blame my cat). So,  back to the source:

 

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Somewhere in here are the perfect pieces for Beggar's Canyon!

 

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In the end, I found some pieces that I like even more than what I originally had. 

 

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Here's the basic geology with the base parts hot-glued to the styrene base, the upper sections fully magnetized, and the whole thing primed. 

 

37297645885_de62228bca_b.jpg

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Yup -- while you'd have lots more control and color options with pigments and fixers, with a little finesse these get nice results with a minimum of effort. 

 

Here's the samples dry -- as you can see, the little plastic granules become much more visible as the medium dries, although that's exaggerated somewhat by the magnification of the photo -- these samples are approximately 1cm across. 

 

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Well, I seem to have failed to take *any* in-progress photos of painting the "rock" formations. There were a lot of steps - mostly just applying various washes and heavy drybrushing in a random fashion, over a ruddy base. Here's the current state, with some of both soil effect paints, and mostly the light sand, after drying overnight. This is actually my second attempt at the sand -- I'd made some formations for drifting sand with Milliput, but once I'd done it all and coated it with texture paint it looked too lumpy and not properly in scale, so I removed it all. The current state of the sand is slightly too far in the other direction, so I'll build it up bit by bit in a few places. Go slow, better less than more in the first step. 

 

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And how about the Millennium Falcon hovering over both snow an sand simultaneously?

 

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Thanks for taking the time to do the comparison test. They all look very usable, but I really like the Tamiya sand and snow pastes. I can see myself picking up both of those.

 

The rock formation/beggar's canyon base looks great. Only thing I'd add is some drifted sand around the base of the rocks.

 

Andy

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Thanks a lot!

 

I like having the comparison there for my own future reference too.  I'm definitely going to add more drifted sand -- I'd initially built some of that up, but went overboard and it didn't look realistic. Patience is.....not my strong suit :). So now I'm going to add it back in small bits until I'm happy with it. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

While I'm finishing up projects that have been in various intermediate stages for weeks -- here's a peek at my latest micro-diorama, which I finished last night. More pictures (finished, and WIP) coming tonight or tomorrow. 

 

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What might have been the outcome if Admiral Ozzel hadn't brought the fleet out of hyperspace too close to Hoth. 

 

Not actually Bandai, this is an F-Toys 1:144th scale X-wing. Funny thing is, it cost a lot more than the Bandai vehicle models, but I was much more ready to destroy it, since I didn't spend ages painting it.... (and I'd already lost one of the engines anyway). 

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