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


Badder

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The rear roof is more or less done.  Again, the green isn't showing up in these photos, but it is there.

 

s7oY9uI.jpg

 

oPKgMGk.jpg

 

GXsAKou.jpg

 

Some messing about with greens, the highlighting of individual tiles, and a coat of matt and I'm calling the entire roof done.

 

TFL

Badder

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  • Badder changed the title to Ever evolvin dio - ROOF, FINISHING TOUCHES

Ho hum....

The 'Finishing touches' have turned into more faffing about. Such is me.

 

I had a bit of an experiment over the past few days, carving out the joints between the tiles. This, was in effect, removing the plaster dust. Most often though, I'd end up applying more dust and filling them up again. And then I forgot about clearing it out again. So, I cleared some out again, and then sorted a few other niggles out as well.

 

The 'cleared' joints are mainly along the bottom edge of the roof, and more expansive patches directly above the door and following the left hand gable end, up the roof.

I also 'rubbed back' the gutter with a damp stiff brush to recover the original paint job:

aCPUcyX.jpg

 

 

The 'gunk' top left, below, has to be pricked up again with a scalpel. I may also give the window frames a rub back as the chipping effect isn't showing up due to accumulated grime: varnish overspray, plaster dust and household dust, mostly.

BC0jTjs.jpg

There's a scratch on the cornerstones of the wall, and an 'ejector pin mark' just to the right of it, which I've not noticed before. They will need removing.

 

I had a bit of a trembling fit while doing all of the above, and managed to knock the lamp, nearly breaking it away from its bracket. Luckily nothing snapped, but the lamp housing did lift away from the bracket on the front two legs. I managed to re-glue them later when my hands were steadier!

8nFc3s2.jpg

There's black ink on the window surround, which so far, has resisted being removed.

 

And finally, I managed to knock out the bars in a window at the rear....

bvCis2F.jpg

 

When the roof IS finished and the repair jobs have been carried out, I'll be working on the rear wall seen above.... improving the worn whitewash look on the stones to more closely match that of the window surrounds.

 

TFL

Badder

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Okay, so I'm calling the roof done. Actually, positively, finally done. And I've skipped removing the scratch, ejector pin mark and ink stain for the time being, and have moved on to the whitewashed wall.

In the photo directly above this post the whitewash on the stonework got a bit lost due to my exuberance with green washes. So the first job was to lighten everything up with some white ink. I only applied one thin coat, so everything went a bit grey, but at least it wasn't green!

q5LeNse.jpg

 

I then gave parts of the wall a going over with a small piece of 'Dick' Emery cloth, taking raised areas right back to the bare plaster:

6YpdY6F.jpg

 

F35pw5W.jpg

 

 

Dl2cNfX.jpg

 

8wGMACZ.jpg

 

So far, so good. I'm liking the look of that and it was a doddle to do.

I will probably do a little bit more with the 'Dick' cloth and I'll definitely apply some more white ink to the window surrounds to brighten them up. The green plantlife growing up the wall is going to be embelished with some leafy vines, and there'll be some more real moss added along the foot of the wall, especially at the bottom of the drainpipe, which I've somehow managed to lose over the past year or so, but it must be somewhere safe! (Possibly in my wallet?)

 

TFL

Badder

 

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  • Badder changed the title to Ever evolvin dio - RE-WHITEWASHING REAR WALL 15.10.19
57 minutes ago, Vince1159 said:

We'll believe it when we see it,lovely work Badder :yes:....

:rofl:

Hi Vince,

Thanks!

Of course it's finished. Unless I fiddle around with it and mess it up! You know me too well.

 

Rearguards

Badder

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Today I finished off the whitewash effect on the rear wall.  From this:

FrILHza.jpg

 

To this:

3dAckNN.jpg

.... where 'Dick' cloth and a scalpel balanced the whites on the window surrounds with those on the wall itself.

tzzCRjF.jpg

 

gMMXAza.jpg

 

Amazing what exposing patches of plaster can do!

 

I decided not to add any more plants just yet, because the building will still need to be handled, and I need one clear wall to pick it up by. You'll notice that the other window bars have been removed so that the two windows now providing a safe grip!

 

I moved on to the other gable wall and tidied up some details. First, I treated the roof of the extension so as to match the main roof.

5gsBA3r.jpg

 

NTNaBph.jpg

 

5IRhuqe.jpg

 

Those edge tiles need the joints clearing out along the bottom edge.

 

 

 

I rubbed back the corrugated iron roof to expose the lighter coloured  rust beneath.

And finally, I gave the firewood a wash with plaster dust and Acrylic 'Olive Green, and lightened the wood panelling of the firewood store by scraping it back and applying the same washes.

tNAAw0S.jpg

I will age the panel and wooden framework some more.

 

All in all, a productive hour or so!

 

TFL

Badder.

 

 

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  • Badder changed the title to Ever evolvin dio - The other end of the building 15.10.19

Hi Badder. Great to see that you are back onto this project and that it still looks like you are making forward progress!! I am still very impressed.

Kind regards,

Stix

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21 minutes ago, PlaStix said:

Hi Badder. Great to see that you are back onto this project and that it still looks like you are making forward progress!! I am still very impressed.

Kind regards,

Stix

Thanks Stix,

It's a bit of a drag looking at everything that I did way back when, and thinking, 'Could I do this better now?' because in most cases, I can! There are a few things I won't be improving though, or I'd end up doing the whole lot. So, with regards to this building, it's done, apart from the addition of the drainpipe at the rear (which I have still to find) and some more creepers around the 'cupboard under the stairs' which I'm going to leave until the house is ready for fixing to the base.

 

So, I'll be moving onto the groundwork next, and that'll mean returning to the re-building/improving of the hedgerow.

 

Rearguards,

Badder

 

 

So,

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I took a short break away from this diorama, to make a brief visit to the building in my Pit Stop diorama. Returning to that building, I've now remembered why I came to a halt with it. A few things about it were niggling me, the main things being the interior floor levels and the fact that only a few of the windows are the same size and some seem to me to be too high above floor level. So in a way, the niggles are connected.

Anyway, I've re-visualized the floor levels and have come up with a solution that kills two birds with one stone, or at the very least, gives them concussion. I'll be turning the upper 'bedroom' into a split level floor which is higher in one half of the room than the other. The bedroom's main window was at nipple height, but with the raised floor will be at waist height, whilst the floor in the other half of the room, with restricted headroom, will be lowered to increase that headroom. I can then fit a couple of dormer windows at that end and add some needed interest in that section of the building.

But, what's that got to do with this Ever Evolvin' Dio?

Well, not a lot really, except that in this dio, I've removed the bars from the rear ground floor windows, and WAS going to refit them. I've now decided to scratch windows instead, and will donate the bars from this dio to the Pit Stop dio. The 'bars' are actually MiniArt wrought iron gates, and they will now serve as gates.

 

The upshot of all this is that I have rather a lot of windows to make..... 2 for this dio and 9 or 10 for the Pit Stop dio! I'm hoping that 6 or 7 of those windows will be the same size., for whilst some of the windows in the Pit Stop dio were made from casts taken from THIS building, the vagaries of Plaster of Paris mean that there are variations in shrinkage during drying. I may be able to get around that by making those particular window frames the same size and make up for any size variation by increasing/decreasing the thickness of the window casements.

 

Ho hum.

 

TFL

Badder

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 11/3/2019 at 3:29 AM, mustang1989 said:

Freekin' WOW!!! And I DO mean me some WOW!!!!!! Excellent!!! Most excellent!!!! As you say.....more please! 👍

Hi add thanks Mustang,

Your exuberance with the 'WOW's is most appreciated. When one has been working on a project on and mostly off over a few years it's easy to forget how others may view it! Comments like yours spur me on to get the diorama moving on again.

 

So, I hope to get those two rear windows made and fitted over the next couple of days.

 

Rearguards,

Badder

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  • 2 months later...

No progress of late, BUT I think some would be interested to see how well the preserved mosses have stood up to the ravages of time, central heating.

Well, I can tell you the moss is still as soft and flexible as it was the day it was picked, no 'leaves' have fallen off, and it hasn't lost any of the green ink colouring, or turned brown. I am now confident of the properties of glycerine and will definitely be using glycerine treated moss in future dioramas.

 

Remember, these mosses were added to the house on October 5th, 3 months ago.

QrAQs9e.jpg

 

R1s9KlR.jpg

 

TFL

Badder

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  • Badder changed the title to Ever evolvin dio - Moss after 3months sitting on shelf
  • 2 months later...
1 hour ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

Superb!

Thanks Steve,

Much appreciated. I hope you've found the thread helpful in some way.

I've not had a chance to recommence work on this dio as I'm busy with my other one. Still, the moss shown here has been sitting on a shelf for 5 months and it still looks the same and remains soft and pliable. I will get bak to work on the dio some time.

 

Rearguards,

Badder

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  • Badder changed the title to Ever evolvin dio - Moss after 5months sitting on shelf

Glycerine tell me more ...why you ask...well i found in my garden the other day this exact type of greenery growing in my lawn and spent far to much time wondering how i could make better use of such a scale looking bit of wildlife.

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Slow down Steve, I can't keep up!

 

GASP! Okay, the moss. I did try using moss as greenery 6yrs ago, when I made a return to the hobby. The moss was used as foliage on a tree and as plants on the ground in my Somewhere near Villers Bocage dio. I did try to preserve it using dilute PVA and then varnish. It was a bit of a wing and a prayer, and the wing fell off. Or rather, dried up and crumbled.

 

Then I saw a diorama here on BM where the vegetation was ALL real moss. It was a beauty, a railway embankment covered in undergrowth and tunnel, with a Cromwell just inside. I asked the builder how long the moss would stay 'fresh' thinking he was going to give it a spray with water every day, but he told me it had been treated with glycerin and would last for years. So I looked it up. Glycerin (also called Glycerine and Glycerol) is used mainly in skin care, in cleansing and moisturising products, but also in cake-making and decorating, including the preservation of flowers and leaves. It's also used in medicines.  A few vids showed how to preserve mosses with Glycerin for use in dioramas and I decded to give it a try. So far, it's lasted perfectly. 

 

So, you can buy 'large' bottles of the stuff from Boots/chemists, and smaller 'cake decorating' bottles from most supermarkets. After gathering and rinsing the moss and picking debris and creepy crawlies out of it, put it in a container, mix 1 part glycerin with 2 parts hot water then pour it over the moss. I put mine in an ice cream tub and poured enough of the solution to entirely cover the moss, then put the lid on and left it on a shelf for 2 weeks. Some will push/weigh the moss down into a lesser amount of glycerin solution, but that means each piece of moss gets to soak up less glycerin. You don't have to put a lid on but I have cats and one is a nosey climber.

 

After two weeks, the green chlorophyll will have leached out of the moss and it mostly turns a translucent brown or even transparent, depending on the species.  I then coloured mine with green acrylic inks,  using a big soft brush with a light brushing and dabbing motions.  I thought it better than to risk soaking the moss in a coloured water which might draw out the glycerin.  Thinking about it afterwards I realised that I could have put the ink in the glycerin/hot water solution. I will next time.

 

Rearguards,

Badder

 

 

 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Badder said:

Slow down Steve, I can't keep up!

 

GASP! Okay, the moss. I did try using moss as greenery 6yrs ago, when I made a return to the hobby. The moss was used as foliage on a tree and as plants on the ground in my Somewhere near Villers Bocage dio. I did try to preserve it using dilute PVA and then varnish. It was a bit of a wing and a prayer, and the wing fell off. Or rather, dried up and crumbled.

 

Then I saw a diorama here on BM where the vegetation was ALL real moss. It was a beauty, a railway embankment covered in undergrowth and tunnel, with a Cromwell just inside. I asked the builder how long the moss would stay 'fresh' thinking he was going to give it a spray with water every day, but he told me it had been treated with glycerin and would last for years. So I looked it up. Glycerin (also called Glycerine and Glycerol) is used mainly in skin care, in cleansing and moisturising products, but also in cake-making and decorating, including the preservation of flowers and leaves. It's also used in medicines.  A few vids showed how to preserve mosses with Glycerin for use in dioramas and I decded to give it a try. So far, it's lasted perfectly. 

 

So, you can buy 'large' bottles of the stuff from Boots/chemists, and smaller 'cake decorating' bottles from most supermarkets. After gathering and rinsing the moss and picking debris and creepy crawlies out of it, put it in a container, mix 1 part glycerin with 2 parts hot water then pour it over the moss. I put mine in an ice cream tub and poured enough of the solution to entirely cover the moss, then put the lid on and left it on a shelf for 2 weeks. Some will push/weigh the moss down into a lesser amount of glycerin solution, but that means each piece of moss gets to soak up less glycerin. You don't have to put a lid on but I have cats and one is a nosey climber.

 

After two weeks, the green chlorophyll will have leached out of the moss and it mostly turns a translucent brown or even transparent, depending on the species.  I then coloured mine with green acrylic inks,  using a big soft brush with a light brushing and dabbing motions.  I thought it better than to risk soaking the moss in a coloured water which might draw out the glycerin.  Thinking about it afterwards I realised that I could have put the ink in the glycerin/hot water solution. I will next time.

 

Rearguards,

Badder

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interesting gonna have a look on youtube see what i can find thanks for the share, gonna finish the Tiger and then i have a larger project in mind,,,,,,recent dig through the large collection of reference and photos i found a beautiful picture of a Panther G being recovered by the US corp of engineers and it really put the hooks in me lot's of buildings and plenty of trees and shrubs...a bit of everything so a good test of materials and techniques.

This will be useful for the smaller countryside dioramas as well when you want it looking as natural as possible.

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3 hours ago, M3talpig said:

Interesting gonna have a look on youtube see what i can find thanks for the share, gonna finish the Tiger and then i have a larger project in mind,,,,,,recent dig through the large collection of reference and photos i found a beautiful picture of a Panther G being recovered by the US corp of engineers and it really put the hooks in me lot's of buildings and plenty of trees and shrubs...a bit of everything so a good test of materials and techniques.

This will be useful for the smaller countryside dioramas as well when you want it looking as natural as possible.

Eve   Mornin'

 

I'm very much looking forward to seeing that. I'm increasingly of the opinion that dioramas based on period photos are the way to go. Unfortunately, neither of my current projects, are and I doubt I'll ever have time to do another!😆

Rearguards

Badder

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7 hours ago, Vince1159 said:

Great to see this back i've been missing it,Happy Birthday Badder....

 

7 hours ago, bhouse said:

Happy Birthday, Badder. I hope the coming year brings only good things - and possibly the completion of a diorama 😏

 

4 hours ago, M3talpig said:

:party::party:HAPPY BIRTHDAY :party::party:have a lovely day bud

Thanks guys! Much appreciated. I'm celebrating with a can of beer that's been sitting on a shelf for 3 months, and I put some coal and wood in the fireplace and set light to it, something I haven't done for over a year!

Vince, and Brian, unfortunately work on this dio has halted again as I'm concentrating on the Pit Stop dio. But I will almost certainly do some work on this one while all this kerfuffle is going on!

 

Stay safe and good luck to you and yours.

 

Badder

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A GREAT BIG THANK YOU TO ALL THOSE WHO HAVE FOLLOWED THIS THREAD, OR HAVE POPPED IN FOR A QUICK LOOK.

 

NEVER IN MY WILDEST DREAMS DID I EXPECT IT TO GET 50,000 VIEWS.  ADMITTEDLY 49,000 OF THEM WERE PROBABLY ME, BUT HEY! 😆

 

TFL (THANKS FOR LOOKING)

 

BADDER

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But guess what, @Badder;

You have given us a lot of good time too!

Lots of good ideas, lot of good pictures, lot of help, lot of tips etc etc etc.

 

I will also give you a "big hand" for the work you have done and for sharing this and the thoughts with all of us "out here in the wild"!

 

8-)

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Hi Badder,

Now that I only see "what others do", it is a good time to take a look at the Dioramas section, too complex for me and laborious, although together with the figures, one of the works in modeling most respected and envied by me .

The last thing you see in the photos, it looks great, the vegetation chosen and shown, it looks very real and beautiful, I would say that it is very well integrated into the walls.
If you ever finish it, I have to see it, and I hope you will take photos of all "its angles" and details.

Take care and I hope you had a pleasant birthday at least.
Cheers mate
Francis.👍

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