Precision Ice & Snow

Thank you for your positive reply, , more winter siliness on it's way with better armour and figures!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry evryone, fatigue has definatly set in. The scale of the Tiger is 1/58 pocket armour type thingy, not 1/76th. Which way should i go for real kit? Arghhhhhhhhh.......

Thanks Rob, its a pleasure to get praise from you established members, all of you, thanks, i will plug on.......

Thanks Roger, i thought I'd be letting the ol'e sturmtiger down if i did not put mapbooks and painkillers inside the build such is the quality of the work on this site and the detail to which some memebers go to. My previous emphasis has always been on exterior, weathering and landscape. i think I'm going to run with the emphasis on the exterior. Not sure when I'll start but I'm gonna go for a photo realistic dio if i can. This build with this tiger has been great fun, i'm going to change the vehicle for a proper piece of armour (sgt squarehead)and then it might be 'ready for inspection'.. Thanks guys!

I agree but given the scale, would the soldiers be easily utilised. i'm ok at landscapes and models even but figures even in 1/35th I shy away from normally as i have had some tragic results in the past. can you get reasonable figures in 1/76th. I used to love the 1/35th tamiya panzer grenadiers in the 70's which shows my vintage for sure......... Any advice appreciated, ilove this forum already. Thanks!

Maze balls indeed JK.......... and Sgt squarehead, Yep your right this little tiger may be spoilt on this dio.. S,oooooooooooooooo, I'm going to find a nice small scale tiger, late or early, what do you think given the setting, then I will do this dio justice I suppose........ When I get the tiger I will do a build and install it on board. Recomend any kits anyone? I only did it to give me head space to see where i would go with my Sturmtiger but now I have gone and bought a kitty hawk 1/48th foxbat at the IPMS telford H'mmmmmmm

Welllll, Now I have got this far, I'm going to do two things. Tune up what I have done with a frozen shell hole with displaced setts Recast the canal water so it is clearer These are the pics at present.................

Thanks for that Rob, yeah i'm going to tinker with it a little before I put it on that forum. Not strictly within the seven day thingy but it is finished........

Some of the best posed figures I have seen anywhere. I'm useless at figures and faces but I can see when somebody knows what they are doing. All, in all a great atmospheric dio, you can paint my figures anytime! PS, forgot to say, nice camera work, lighting, backdrop, colour, composition etc, etc, etc.........

Borrowing a techique i have seen elswhere I dug about in the garden and found these roots. My plan is to use them to represent pollarded, neglected trees......... I cleaned them off in the sink and after they were dry, sprayed them with teak oil so they would not be brittle. Isn't nature a wonderful thing........ I stuck them in row adjacent to the road but slightly staggered, I'm pleased with the dio so far but now I'm thinking of building a model of a tiger that would do this dio justice. The little 1/58th is not too bad but the precision ice and snow effects have transformed it. I'm wondering what that product would do on a finely detailed model. I am please with the finished result and I am pleased to try new products that work. You can see the cobbles through the compacted snow which is nice. View from stream in black and white............ And in colour.............. I'm definatley knackered now, I'm off to bed, cheerio........

Hello, I'm back out of that ruddy shed, at last......... Canal water came out ok, with aquatic life too. At the other side of the dio the cast ice has hardened..... I added precision ice and snows powder to the clear resin to get the icy see through look, This is how it looked when I smashed it up a bit.......... Then I got some polyester adhesive which is a mucky brown colour which I wanted to show through my pristine ice.. And then put the peices roughly back in place, like a Tiger had taken an unexpected shortcut through the ice... I flooded the broken peices with clear pourable resin to get the water back in evidence......... I then masked off the water- ice and the cobbled road leaving the bit between to cover in green scrub. I'm not to bothered about the exact botany as it will be covered in snow eventually. It was fixed by sprinkling loosely onto a coating of PVA. I chose a bright, pale green scrub as it it appears better under snow, as it does in nature. As usual, I bake everything in the family oven to shorten my process times between various chemicals and adhesives. Its fine as long as you remember I apply my first coating of snow onto the green stuff....... To simulate traffic i run a spare vehicle a few times along the road with its wheels covered in halfords clear gloss laquer. I have not painted the cobbles but simply polished the matt black before applying snow. Back at the broken Ice, things are setteling down nicely Right, I'm off to upload some more pics to my bucket...

Very, very very nice in lots of subtle ways. The two tone paint work is magic and the rust is some of the best I have ever seen....

I finally got started again after some delays not related to modelling I stuck some vegetation below the waterline because there is always something going on down there, even in winter. Then I put some form work around my canal to hold the resin in place. I have decided to use clear dark brown tinted water like you would find in clear canal water sometimes......... And this is how it turned out...... Previously I had blocked off the other side ready for my application of frozen water course........ I know i have done this the wrong way round, but i think you get the idea... I covered the dio with cling film before I did this pour so that i could remove it to smash it to bits to replicate tank travel when it had hardened........

Brave post. I like it, well done

This one is the PE, or polyester......... This one is the stuff florists use for flowers etc............ I tinted the resin before casting it. I'm after a clear brackish look, kinda browny green in colour like you get in rivers in the south west of England cos of all that peat. Crystal clear but tinted.......... Now I know that both resins will not disolve my work what next. Well, I have now got to choose. The flower resin has a gorgeous ability to creep up the perimeter of the shell hole natrually making it look damp and boggy and very, very wet. The polyester has a cleaner edge with less creep, but the surface is rippled more and not so flawless.................. We will see............. I have now got to introduce my water to my dio.................. Fingers crossed

I'll put some better pics of the new paving and wall later. I have carved the front of the blocks also so that there are subtle differences in their orientation. Now comes the exciting bit. There will be two frozen water features on this dio. The canal and the water course lower down and iregular. I intend to use one of two 'miracle' products which are abound everywhere now. Fiorst though i need to terst them so I know what they are capable of and what damage they might do to the baseboard and styrene I used the products below as you cane see....... And, I arranged the tests as you can see below. Two shell holes filled with one of each mix and two containers, each with a bit of styrene steel column in............... Fingers crossed............. Its a miracle The base board has not disolved over night...... Even with the styrene on the right hand side......... The styrene girder, is still there and intact...........Yes!, Yes!, Yes! I'm so happy...........

OK, I'm back, worked till midnight last night, nice and snug in the workshop though with an oil filled radiator. Winter was definatley here last night.............. Out comes the carving knife again, I wasn't sure how to tackle this side of the paving so left it proud so I could carve it if I wanted. In the end, I had a different plan. So the raised lond bit has to go....... After some lengthy printing with another wooden die I printed some long retaining setts along the edge....... Then I turned my attention to the other side adjacent to the wall, I wanted more of the same really along the walls base.......... You can see where I have cut out the old scruffy paving showing the foam. I always knew that I would be making these changes for the better. You can see the new paving in a couple of pictures but now I started to mark out the masonry blockwork for the canal wall. This bond is called ashlar and is very common....... In this pictures below, I have started to incise the joints between the stone blocks and carved them so they have slighlty different inclinations. Also I have changed the bulk of each stone to give it individually. (every stone has it's own life and story)

Hi JayKay, thanks for your positive post. I am working in cool conditions and that may help but it does take a long time and keeping the Das workable can be a pain. I always keep it covered when I'm away and of course my baseboard is non absorbant which helps. A good trick is to get a small plant handsprayer and set it on fine and give the stuff a few squirts before storing it under polythene. Are you using the same stuff as me? You have my respect for working cobbles in 1/72 I generally only mix water to get it to stick to the baseboard, as a sort of key I suppose as the insulating board dosent like anything stuck to it at all. When i do this it really is like a thin gooey slurry. Cos I'm imprinting with a concave square wooden thingy if its too wet it tends to go horrid. So I like my Das on the top to be like plasticine in consistency. If I can be of any help get in touch....... I'm out to the workshop now for part 2. Lurcher1

Cheers Pete, l'm going to introduce water with a bit of a twist I hope, we will see how it goes. I have set myself a bit of a challenge with this one though, finished for friday night I'm working till midnight tonight I think..........

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet! Well done mate. What a fertile imagination you have got....................10/10 Lurcher 1

The trick with the imptinting is to use the right wood for the tool, not to have the Das to sticky and to use a straight edge across the paving as a guide as you work. Das is good because it stays workable until you want to hit it with heat to stabilise it so to speak. When I was off for tea and things though I would reccomend covering it with cling film or suchlike to retain its pliability. The speed thing is just a knack as I used to make archtectural models. Dunno yet.

Ho, Hum, that was close, I forgot I was cooking something The base board has actually distorted a little and is not level now such was the heat.. However, the Das has hardened like carveable hard cheese and is stuck to the base board like glue with no distortion, cracking or delamination. can there be a quicker way to build up a dio. Perfect, thats enough for one evening, see you soon. Lurcher1

Thanks Rob

This will do for one evening, time for the oven!

I finished the setts for the moment, so i started the canal to the front.It will be constructed from ashlar blocks eventually, the top of which will be just above the height of the adjacent paving. There will be drainage channels to relieve the camber from the paving. The canal is shallow towards the bank which is a common feature which is why tyou can sometimes see abadoned bikes etc just below the surface.