neil5208 Posted January 29, 2023 Share Posted January 29, 2023 A first attempt at a diorama base for any model, I'm going to give a snow covered base for my Bandai 1/144 AT-AT a go. I picked up some Woodland Scenic's snow powder and some hair spray to fix, watched a couple of video's on Youtube and yesterday tried make some plaster rocks using tin foil and polyfiller. AT-AT is currently disassembled in the paining stage and the base supplied is no where near large enough for it. Tin foil was 5 layer bonded with PVA and folded/scrunched for surface effect. Left this to dry for 8 hours yesterday before removing tin foil. Changed the lighting angle slightly. This is about 250gms of polyfiller so it was still a bit damp when I pulled the foil off so its now in the airing cupboard to dry out completely before I can do anything with it. The remaining filler has been made up and poured into the same piece of foil but has been reshaped so I will still how that one looks today. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrés S. Posted January 29, 2023 Share Posted January 29, 2023 I can't see the photos. It has happened to me other times with you, but I thought it would be something temporary. Cheers. Andrés. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big_Bad_Bill Posted January 29, 2023 Share Posted January 29, 2023 6 hours ago, Andrés S. said: I can't see the photos. It has happened to me other times with you, but I thought it would be something temporary. Cheers. Andrés. Odd. I can see them fine. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neil5208 Posted January 29, 2023 Author Share Posted January 29, 2023 7 hours ago, Andrés S. said: I can't see the photos. It has happened to me other times with you, but I thought it would be something temporary. Cheers. Andrés. Strange, I changed the settings as advised by Mike and had no problems since 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrés S. Posted January 29, 2023 Share Posted January 29, 2023 54 minutes ago, neil5208 said: Strange, I changed the settings as advised by Mike and had no problems since I don't know what the problem will be but I want to see it and I can't. 😥 Andrés. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neil5208 Posted February 1, 2023 Author Share Posted February 1, 2023 (edited) I did have a nice flat piece of styrofoam that I was going to use but as I was looking how to attach the moulded rocks I realised it wouldn't be very secure so I started to look for a different base material and by chance on Monday I found a styrofoam packing piece from a washing machine or dryer in the skip at work so I nabbed that and back to my workshop. After staring at it for 10 mins I decided which section I wanted but didn't want my workshop covered in styrofoam balls so resorted to hot slicing with a heated saw blade although the fumes where bad (had to ventilate for a few hours after) and was left with this. This angled section was added for more vertical stability, this was glued together using Aradilte Rapid 2 part epoxy resin glue, I also added a base of 3mm Hard board. The following day I took a large file to the angled back piece so the moulded rock would fit better and all the edges to clean up the Araldilte excess before trimming the plaster rocks with a medium wood saw blade and bonding these on with the same Araldite glue. I'm not to worried about the edges as these will all be covered with the 3mm hardboard later. A quick trip round to the local DIY store and a box of the cheapest wall filler was selected so I could the cover the remaining styrofaom surface. I have been surprised just how quick this has been so far, realistically I spent 40mins on Monday and an hour yesterday so it not as bad as I was expecting. The filler was liberally applied using a wet spoon from the work place kitchen. I stuck an off cut from the paster rock in the corner after I'd applied the filler. I leave this to harden for a few days as when I cut the moulded rocks they where still quite damp in the centre, I presume this is due to the fact the filler is meant to be applied to small thin areas and not as thickly as I have done. I also need to go to the Range for some cheap acrylic paint as I don't want to use my expensive model paints on the base. Edited February 1, 2023 by neil5208 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neil5208 Posted February 2, 2023 Author Share Posted February 2, 2023 Been to the Range for some cheap paint and started this morning, first up was was some yellow and brown spots for modulation. This was followed by a thin brown wash over the whole piece. This was sealed with thinned down PVA and left to dry before a black wash was applied. Surprising how much the colours change with just one coat of wash. Then a further 2 coats of the same thin black wash resulted in this. Its a pity a lot of this will be covered by snow but it will be worth it. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big_Bad_Bill Posted February 4, 2023 Share Posted February 4, 2023 that came out well considering how small it is. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neil5208 Posted February 7, 2023 Author Share Posted February 7, 2023 I put another layer off black wash on as I thought it was still to light, one of the thing mentioned on the video about making snow dio's is to make the bases darker than normal. I picked up balsa wood and made edging for the raw sides of the base. Also picked up some Woodland Scenic soft snow and some hairspray. First application of hairspray and snow. Second layer. After 6-7 repeat cycles I need to add some foot prints but otherwise I think its good as it stands. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neil5208 Posted February 9, 2023 Author Share Posted February 9, 2023 Tried the AT-AT for size today and initially I panicked and thought I'd made it to small but after a while I realised it the perfect size, any larger and the model would be undersized and any smaller and it wouldn't have fitted on at all. I just need to finish of the models last few touches but I'm more than happy with the base its self. Once the model is complete I'll post the RFI up 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Posted February 9, 2023 Share Posted February 9, 2023 Sorry to butt into this thread but I'm a fan of anything AT-AT, but I just bobbed in to see things were progressing, and noticed that the pics were loading slowly. I tested some of the pics, and they were around 1.1mb each in size, which is huge when posting up on the internet. You should be aiming to save your files to around 200kb optimally, give or take a bit. To accomplish this, you can reduce the size of your pics, as anything over the recommended 1024 x 800 maximum we advise, it's wasted bandwidth and storage space usage. Most people view these pics on phones, tablets and 1080p screens, so huge photos of 4000 x 3000 px will have to be shrunk down by the forum software (load on the server and delay for the user), as well as the extra bandwidth that is uses up (10x what's necessary). The downsides of this from a viewer's point of view is the waiting time before you can view the pics, and some people might get bored and click away. From the server's point of view, it's wasteful of bandwidth, storage size (we cache images to improve speed), and it's also wasteful of the server's resources, which means a slower experience for all of us. This isn't meant as a "telling off" BTW, more of a bit of useful advice to help you as well as help us. If you can size your pics to the recommended limits, we'll be really happy, and so will the members 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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