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Hutwarming

a diorama feature by Toni Kysenius
8
Comments
 


The Base

I found a nice base for this diorama from a local medal shop. It's quite heavy and cost me no more than five euros. I tried out the composition with paper dummies and it proved quite useful as I could measure the tent pieces straight from the dummy. My goal was to create as realistic vegetation as possible so mother nature was honored to sponsor me with some moss, rocks, roots and branches. The first layer of the ground consisted of rocks, moss, scale sand and white glue. The tree was attached at this point. The next addition was some garden dirt with white glue.

I drilled small holes for tent poles and glued cocktail stick poles in the base with CA glue. I wasn't sure at the time what to use as tent canvas so I tried it out with napkin and white glue. It didn't work quite as expected, it was too soft and tore easily so I only used it for ground cover for the tent.

I completed tent wire frame using pieces of metal wire with CA. Next I finished the groundwork with very little painting and some layers of moss and roots.

Tent canvas material was too obvious to see at first. I ended up in regular kitchen plastic which took Humbrol enamels and CA glue without melting and it could be stretched in desired shape! First I made the sides of tent as they were suitable for "trying out" this technique. Painting, however, was a bit difficult and I couldn't get the camo pattern very even, so I painted the top piece of tent separately before attaching it on wire frame. I made a heater of a dried ball-point pen and gave it a proper rusty treatment with Citadel boltgun metal and flat black and finished the heater and exhaust with orange brown acrylic.

I made a hole in the tent top and covered the tent. After this I just cut away all excess with x-acto and gave the whole tent a dry pastel chalk treatment.

There were only four attachment points I could use to make the ropes, the other ropes would have been out of the base. I cut four thin strips from a used CA glue metal tube and made tiny attachment rings of brass wire. I tied the ropes using the rings and placed support sticks in the ground. After painting and chalking attach strips I went for the tree.

Copyright ©2002 - Text and Photos by Toni Kysenius. All Rights Reserved.
Project Photos
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About the Author

About Toni Kysenius (Envar)
FROM: UUSIMAA, FINLAND


Comments

KFMagee
Nicely done... unusual subject (i woulda never thought of THAT one!)... and the conversions look excellent!
AUG 27, 2002 - 01:32 PM
Hollowpoint
Great job, Toni! Those conversions are outstanding. You really captured the "topless" look on both of those figures. There is one thing abut this, however, that I just don't get. You guys in the Finnish Army actually WANTED to get hot and sweaty when you went to the field? When I was in the service, I went through a couple summers at Fort McCoy, Wis., with the National Guard. They had to be the hottest, most humid weeks I ever spent in the woods. We spent all of our spare time trying to figure out ways to cool down. The highlight of our day was when we received our ration of ice. If anyone had suggested that we take a sauna ... !?!?! It must be a cultural thing
AUG 27, 2002 - 07:40 PM
Envar
You tell me! I see no point in that either! Maybe it was just too boring to do anything else...so the guys wanted to see how many segments of the exhaust pipe they could make glow red! It was a day when we had one hour (!) of training. We went to throw a live hand grenade 10 am and the rest of the day we just relaxed and enjoyed the summer and mosquitoes! #:-) Toni
AUG 27, 2002 - 07:59 PM
Tin_Can
Toni, more great looking stuff. An original idea a well-great job.
AUG 27, 2002 - 11:26 PM
Envar
Almost forgot. Thanks Jim for putting this up, I´m sure you have your hands full of work! Toni
AUG 29, 2002 - 09:15 PM
D-Cycle
I tried to replicate your technice, using kitchen plasticfoil as tent canvas (or as in my case - rain cover), but it wouldn't take my acrylic paints. I solved this by laminating aluminium foil (the tin one, used in kitchens), and silkpaper from a teabag. I simply glued on the teabag material on the foil, then spraypainted it, and et voilá - i got a wonderful material to use as any kind of canvas for tents, raincovers etc. Easy to fold, but still stiff enough. /Daniel
MAR 31, 2004 - 12:31 PM
animal
Add another great little dio to your list. Bravo Toni..
MAR 31, 2004 - 12:53 PM
druid
It's actually quite refreshing. The short time heavy sweating opens up your pores and after you have washed up you feel great, almost like a new person. During winter we might blow a hole in the ice of a lake or the sea and take a short dip there. Now THAT's invigorating and will make you feel like a new person. I dare you to try it, sounds extreme but is really good for you. I do it whenever it's possible. It's much nicer to crawl in the trenches or slumber...I mean stay alert at the guard post if you have time to clean up every once in a while. Some people like a bath after a hard day, I prefer sauna. HTH, P.S. To stay on topic Toni's dioramas touch some special spot inside me. He truly catches some of the local spirit in them. I wish I could buy it in a bottle.
APR 01, 2004 - 05:16 AM
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