Very impressive. The water effect is awesome and the nails, if only my hands and patience where that steady. Thanks

Great job, I check your thread daily to see the progress. I came across this photo: http://www.sfdi.com/spiegelsunk1.jpg
And I don’t know if it can be compared to your case, but I find the water at the surface, especially in contact with the metal, may need to be more transparent (in a way you can partially see the sunken metal?)? I think this was brought earlier.
Can’t wait to see it when it s all done.

hi jba,

everything this topic gets back at the top of the topiclist,
i cant wait to see the updates!
You havent let me down again,
this looks very good,
best water-simulation i've seen!

this is a hell of a topic!

thanks for sharing and inspiring!

greetings

koen

Hi mate,

Nails are very realistic. I'm enjoying this thread and am learning a lot, about modelling and... psychiatry?!

Keep up the good work, I know that you will.

Chas

Thanks Thomo , steady hands are not a prerequisite, if you have a good diorama idea (ie, not something that sounds like "so this is untersturmbahnführer DickerMax dass ask the gunner from the PZKPFWbefehlswagen to reload the truck with the LeFH9998 anuminitions while waiting for a Russian attack left of Orelgorod while he is waiting while his PommelWagen is going into repair" which means something which looks boring and gets you to read 10 lines of explanation to only find a mild interest of the diorama) well, like I said, if you have a good self-explanatory diorama idea (see Domi's work for instance, or Guy's or etc here in the forums), then it's worth 10000 new steady hands!! (which does not mean that the 2 aforementioned modellers don't have steady hands )
As for the patience, I do have some, except when I am waiting at the post office.
The trick is to really see the final result in your head before starting.
really, I see guys knocking out dioramas in 2 weeks, why are they in a hurry? do they have so much place in their home that they have to cramp it with stuff of dubious value? I have very few place at home, and there's a bank loan on each square centimetre of it, I won't be covering the furniture space with ugly stuff..

Kurt, I really thank you for your picture as I was precisely searching for one of this kind for a future project! however what you show does only partially relate to the diorama: first, on your picture, the boat is lying on its side which does a colour and transparency gradient, while in fact the Galilée is still more or less standing over the main bridge which would lie some 1 meter+ below the emerged surface (actually, i designed the diorama at the start for not having this kind of gradient transparency). So at this depth things would tend to be blury. On the top of this the water is very rough, and you basically can't see anything except light through it. i actually have in my head a project of a boat sinking on its side, and I know it will be a very different job as here I worked my best so as not to embed anything inside the water (the stuff was just fixed after the resin set)

btw, Guy I forgot to answer your question! yes, a bit of driftwood would have been wise especially
on the front-right of the boat where the sea looks a bit empty. But that would have forced me to change a bit my balance and techniques while not being so sure of the final result so i wisely choosed not to do that and to actually postpone this technical difficulty if I wanted to get a real gradient transparency ( like Kurt above meant) for a forthcoming diorama.


is the mother of all compliments here, thanks Koen!

thanks Chas too! My psychiatric record is clean, however, you might learn maybe a bit of psychology more like
Ah well, like I hinted before, maybe you'll get a blow on the back of the head one day and you'll think you can exercise your modelling skills to show a bit of yourself as your are instead of a bit of the life of people which for some are long time dead.. sounds a bit rough said like that..

back to the diorama, I reminded yesterday about something; I love wrecks, I think they are really very romantic. yet the few times I found or visited some on the Atlantic coats, I thought there was something very repelling about them, like a bad aura or something. I realized this by working on the diorama again -that's this nail thing. I just added quite a lot and suddenly my galilée wreck began to make that same impression on me, like something both frail and quite dangerous in fact.. i will have to search a bit more words to tell about my feelings towards this.
But as you can see, a few nails on details can really change quite a lot of things..


there was something about the diorama I wasn't too happy about: there was not nearly enough of sea near the Blockhaus, so i had to change that. But then that would mean put some chunks of resin near the metal and that would have produce some dreadful result if the resin began to leak on it.
So I used a very old trick to do this: I dipped tiny bits of cottonwool in the resin and placed them at the right place. They have the right texture for that.

then 2 days ago after the resin set, I added a biot of foram to cover the joints


then another thing: I realized that the mast was standing too clse to the cabin. So using 'carfelully the powertools and sheer muscle strength ( ) I de-embeded the mast and changed its inclinaison in a more suitable position.

I could clall the diorama finished except for the fig, but then I will add a bit of rigging to the mast which will help trace other lines on the scene..

Well Outstanding
no need more word
Congrats
Seb

JBA good to see you finish another beautifull piece of artwork,i have been quiet throughout most of the Topic as for me I prefer to see the finished piece without the SBS as i find it takes some of the magic out,i thing this way it adds a sence of illusion to the work.

Fantastic result my friend the artist in you is shining through.

Steve

Sorry for the lates in replying, i was barely home this week

thank you Seb, indeed i call the diorama finished except for the fig since yesterday evening , too happy about that

Steve my friend, your comments always touch me, thanks for your great support as always!
I agree about the magic thing, but those SBS (either here or on my site) are also a great way to be in contact with colleagues and also for me a great way to express ideas when they ussually lay half formuled in the back of my head. I also want everybody to realize that doing dioramas with water is not as hard as it looks providing you use the right stuff


In the meantime i added a bit of rigging

Well I have a fig to sculpt and paint now

The wiring look good
Did you drill holes in the sea ??
Cheers
Seb

hey Seb, as a matter of fact I did

Yeap if not

it is magic right

and now through this channel:

Jean-Bernard,

A feature is REQUESTED for MSW!


Rui

Amazing ! love the water !


Martyn

This piece would look awesome in some ship museum...

Once again a winner,i love it.

Hi Jean-Bernard,
Well what can i possibly say that hasn't been expressed by others over yet another master piece?
The feeling i get when i look at this diorama and your past ones, is that the figures and surrounding objects are the last ones on the planet, an almost apocalyptic feel ...reminding me so much of the desperation of the scene in which Charlton Heston stumbles upon the Statue of Liberty in Planet of the Apes.
A moment of chaos and tranquility, all at the same time.
Your skill and dedication to this and other projects are second to none and if anything you have inspired many of us to step outside of the box ..and into the realm of JBA !!
Cheers,
Shay

Hey Rui now I don't want to be that hasty, it's going to take me time to do a decent SBS for that one and i've got no plans yet for it .
But then you've been asking me elsewhere if that one was a real 360° diorama, yes it is and I prove it
Thank you Steve, Martyn and John! Jeffry -in a ship museum, that would certainly be very flattering but I doubt the authorities of such museum would appreciate the blatant historical innacuracies of the diorama as this cruiser was just broken in 1910, not "left alone to rust without removing the guns until the sea destroyed it"

Shay thanks for this! I am lost for words

here are 2 tries for glamour pics (even without the fig so it looks a bit empty), one is -I suppose- the best angle to have a look at the diorama, and the other one is the complete opposite. Though it works best on first pic, it does not look ridiculous on the second either me thinks..
There's still a problem with those pics. As those dioramas i am doing take care about some direction of light, I should be best to take pics in some sun-free areas, but even though i took these in the shadow this morning, there's clearly some parasitic light coming from the right.

Those pictures taking process are very important for me. how many of you guys are going to see this diorama live? one? 2? none more like as i very rarely step them outside my garden shed.
Those pics have to be the exact representations of the work. The time is long gone since I was using 'Toshop like softwares to add some backgrounds!

What a great SBS and tutorial. The water and how you made it , and your different techniques are quite inspiring. A phenomenal work of art in miniature.

John

Having fun making the 'historical guys' feel bad?

You're doing a great job (on the diorama I mean ). I love the colours, especially the wood (how many times have I said that!). The foam effect on the water looks excellent especially in these latest pictures.

By the way, I was just reading one of your earlier 'attacks' on historical diorama ideas: ("...untersturmbahnführer DickerMax dass ask the gunner...PZKPFWbefehlswagen...Orelgorod...PommelWagen is going into repair")
I think that is very funny and I agree with the point you have made. I know that you have seen the beginnings of my diorama 'Over the Edge', what do you think of the storyline, does it leave you mildly interested in the diorama or have I captured your imagination? I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on this. Feel free to PM me if you would rather not pollute this thread discussing my own amateur work!

Your mate,
Chas

Thank you John! I think my preferred part of the diorama making process is actually to be writing the SBS and answer the questions



Well I like it, honest! I think you have a good attitude towards the hobby. The only modellers i can't stand are the ones that use the hobby to express dreadful political ideas. You might dismiss this as being very minoritary, but in France it is not that much -at least it was when i was doing historical dioramas myself at the end of the 80's -I still see here from time to time at Armorama some guys using some pseudos that should not be allowed and yet are getting away with it

I think the rule n°1 for a diorama should be to ENTERTAIN Your diorama is entertaining. Look at the latest reaction (right now) for your diorama which basically sounds like you're doing a cowboy vs Indians kind of diorama, the guy IS excited and entertained, therefore you complie with rule n°1
Dioramas that are of the 10 lines explications kind I usually don't comment. So "capture my imagination"? not really because there is nothing that leaves your mind wander in your stuff, but entertain me you sure do
My preferred dioramas makers (Paine, Per Olav Lund, Van Gils, Domi etc) are fantastic entertainers! They are doing totally accurate scenes and use history in a great way!

btw, the last of the series ..

I think the water effects are awesome Great work Bob

thank you Bob! water making in dioramas is such a rewarding job

well, here i am back again with my fig..
I had already done the wire and miliput (i hate the stuff but i still have one good bit left) base since last june but there I realized it was probably too big so I thinned it down with a scalpel

then i kinda dressed the fig with some Hornet hands (they don't come cheap) and that hornet head I had painted for some review on HF a whole back (the beard is homemade!!) and some Nemrod feet
Okay;, so i am supposed to do the complete sculpt by myself, but really, I want to see the end of Galiliée right now
Anyway, i dressed it with Magic Sculp

such an operation is necessary because magic sculp really adheres badly to wire and that would have been hell to sculpt directly the trousers on the wire.
And then here are the trousers. they are not trimmed or sanded or anything, just straight after 1 hour modelling session..

Its interesting to see how the wires litarally ties in the mast with the rest of the diorama - the whole composition and the effect of the water is very attractive, and the colors, backgrund and use of lights gives the scene a breamlike quality.

Cut the crap, in short - Beautiful work!

Cheers/Jan

Ah JB time for my favourite part `the figure`,good start to him mate and i totally agree with you with the use of the hands,head and feet,if i dont have to sculpt these parts i dont,why complicate things that dont need to be.

just as side note have you tried polyclays for sculpting,i am at the moment trialling some sculpey to see how it compares against the epoxy clays.So far it is working fine although the only draw back for me is having to bake the clay to harden it,the plus side is it is far safer than epoxy and you can work it for as long as you like without it going hard so no rush to get things finished.

Take care mate

Steve

The paint job on the face and head is excellent. Can't wait to see the figure progress