JB you pulled this one off well my friend,seeing the figure in situ shows how well you achieved the pose,ok there may be some areas you are not happy with but we need these to keep us motivated to do better for the next one.

great work mate

Steve

Sorry guys -couldn't fill the blog yesterday, trains led me far away from home.

but first a few personal messages

-Thank you Petros!

-Thanks Chas too, but you know, it's just that I rushed the thing while basically unfinished. AS most diorama makers (I suppose), I let myself rest one day or 2, and the take the fine brushes and try to correct some small things again and again untiol it looks okay. But now I will have also to work out another base!

-hey thanks Charles, those blogs are truly fun to write and get some answers at. overcritical I don't think so, If I want to be critical myself with the whole diorama making scene in general and be able to place my own ideas, i have to be very hard on my own stuff and to basically be harder with myself on the points I know I am not good at: figure painting, base making, and generally to throw out the last days of the work in a few mn come to mind.

-Thanks Greg! Child sculpting was the aim. i got that jaws idea last summer, thought it was suitable for a small scene, so i jumped on the occasion.

-James thanks! I more and more want to create some weightlessness feelings in my dioramas. i always liked the work of some contemporary artists who makes some bulldozers fly etc..

-Martyn, don't say without trying real hard, you never know. My advise to you: focus focus focus

-Great quote Chris and thanks for the water!

-Thanks too Keith!


-NIge

-Guy not yet, Another 2 nights are needed for extra details!

-Koen, I wished I had enough lives so that i could put all my ideas in some form -usually they have to rest 2 or 3 years before getting some realization. the primary idea for galilée for instance was 20 years old.

-Shaun, he will probably fall, how long can he stay on the edge of the boat barefoot. I hope he dives and that he doesn't slip that's my way and fear of considering the education of a small child, that's the idea in Jaws.

-Steve friend, as you know, we all have a margin of progression, your reduce more and more with each sculpt

Well, here I was at Lugdunum 2009, and here is jaws mid morning after i left in on the table -unbelievably enough, the room that stored the 800+ figs was extremely well lit




And by the end of the next day, here was the booby prize!



so okay, that's gold and all that BUT, they were giving out a lot of those things AND I got it in a "hope historical" category, no master for me ah ah!!

What was not historical but really hysterical though is several judges scratching their head to know whether to sort me in SF or in History. I finally made it to history !

Congratulations anyway and congrats on an attractive little scene - I can undestand the problems with putting it in a "box" and define if its historical or scifi - even if this scene isnt as dreamlike as other of your works.

Good work, wish i could articulate water like that !

Suggestions - I can follow your wish to do a better base, how about getting rid of the framing, round the edges so its not boxlike and glue it on a square piece of dark vulcanic stone like thing (kitchen or bath department)

Cheers/Jan

That made me laugh hard. Too bad there was no category for poetry.

congratulations on your success Jean

Very, very cool!

That was a great rush job, congrats on the gold also, Lugdunum is first rate, so....

Well done, Jean Bernard!

Cheers
Claude

congrats

Wow!!!!! What model show were you at?
Thanks,
M4A2Sherman

Oh great Maestro André

** We're not worthy, we're not worthy **

Another great one, mon ami




So modest... you deserve it, my friend, you deserve it. Well done!




Am I the only one thinking Sub-Zero?

Rudi

-Thanks Jan! Now your suggestion is really interesting and sadly I won't have the time to explain why I do that this way complete with drawings.
The thing is all about the relative size the base should get comparing of the size of the diorama itself, something a lot of people are simply not good at figuring out.
The more I would get a high base, the less the kid would seem to stand high on the water, so I need a flat base. I can't get rid of a framing type of thing because I needed at least 7-9 mm of depth of water so that the right level of transparency could occur -but then 9 mm to maybe 1,5 cm at the point where the waves are higher, all this above the base would be too much. And then the borders of the sea are not that straight and the bottom of the dio not that flat, so even if your suggestion is a good one, it simply wouldn't wor'k okay with this particular dio. Same thing with Galilée btw

thank you Chris

thank you too Petros (gotta have an in depth look at your dio one of these days..)

Thank you too Claude, now 1I have to de-rush the job, to break a few things and reconstruct them again before the final pics

thanks Koen!

Q, this was Lugdunum which is one of the 2 big fig shows in France, alongside Sèvres.
I don't travel with my dios (I don't drive, I don't have money for this kind of stuff, I am getting bored fast at these kind places) , so if I participate to this one is that it takes me exactly 55 mn door to door WALKING from my home (I tried that one sunday )

Hey Rudi, "maestro" uh? My awfully bad joke about Lugdunum is that you have to be both Italian and overweight to win a medal there. Inded this year, being Italian certainly helped, but the first condition didn't appear to be compulsory anymore
yes, Sub-Zero, Stalker, all this is pretty good
thanks!

As others have said, great work. I especially like angle looking directly towards the "teeth". It looks a lot like the poster from "Jaws", obviously without the skinny-dipping woman who is about to be eaten, but very similar just the same.

On a related note, would it even be possible to mold a wave like below with resin?



Specifically, I am wondering about the ability to create the kind of overhang that would be needed to model the lip of the wave. Thanks.

Matt

Hey Owsi, thanks for your comments!
About your wave, of course it is feasible.
Those kind of seas I am doing are *moulded* which means that if you can make a form baring this shape and still being able to retrieve the resin once it is set then you can basically produce the sea you want.
If i had to do a water like this, I would use a silicon mould, more than a latex one because this would be more handy to unmould. the problem is the price of course.
Please consider this picture of one of my old dioramas, you see that there is a small overhang on that one .
the reason why I didn't do more was because I would have had to reproduce the spray, and alongside smoke or fire, spray belongs to those effects to which i believe you can't create efficiently in scale
:-H

@Rudi


Stop playing Mortal Kombat it's bad for your health

@JB,
I've written it already here and in a PM and in other treads, but since I'm here again I cannot resist to write it once again: I'ts amazing...
As Chris has written before: it's place should be in poetry category on any show. You are like mix of Orpheus (incarnated in i.e. E.A. Poe), E. Hemingway and J.M.W Turner of modelmaking to me!

Andrzej

JBA,

Thanks for your response. It was actually the combination of the breaking wave in Koktebel and the larger sea waves in Galilee that made me wonder if it was possible. My concern though was the amount of overhang required for something like the picture I posted and if that was possible. I completely agree with you about the spray, the point at which the wave is actually hitting the surface of the water on a wave like the one pictured is probably not possible to do. On the other hand, a section of the wave might be possible. Clearly though, that kind of thing would be a long way off for me. My first step is to learn to do something like the wave in Koktebel. Thanks again.

Matt

Congrats JBA ! I read something about poetry in your thread, and that's what it is : POETRY !

G.

Well Andrzej , that's very nice what you say, Turner and Poe are certainly very great influences. poetry, yes that's very nice being referred to this way, I am happy the ideas I have might be interpreted this way by some of you guys

Matt, now I come to think of it, modeller extrarordinaire Jim Baumann happens to model spray with some stuff that he says is finer than cotton wool: filters for washing machines. Seems weird but it works for him with his 1/700 ships so why not having a try? I personally stay away from those risky seas.
When it comes to overhangs, no problem doing them first with some plaster in 2 or 3 tries, then when you have the right amount (and the right shape which I suppose would be the hardest to figure out), you mould it it with whatever you want, because you can always destroy the form in order to retrieve the shape afterwards, but yes maybe wiser just to exercise on just regular sea shores, good luck anyway

Thank you Guy!!!

Now here is the best joke about this diorama, and something that earned me a few scratches: when I left the sea to dry the second time around -I didn't greased enough the glass. it took me a lot of efforts to be able to wipe out the 2/3ds of it.
It's still a very dangerous matter to hold it from the underside up to these days.


Well, anyway, time to correct a few places where the paint was just no good. First wiping out the pain at the specific place..

Okay.. After 2 hours spent under artificial lights, I repainted the kid entirely using oils -something i didn't have the time to do last time -mainly because you have to let them on a cardboard for one full day so that the extra grease comes out.
Anyway, after an extra hour coming out with those, here are some of the pics,
and this closes the Jaws thread, and belive eit or not, I ma pretty happy with the final result

Simply a masterpiece Jean-Bernard. Congrats on the gold medal well deserved

You have got rid of the pasty colour, this looks much better (the figure).

I don't like the new base though Not to say it it is bad, just not as good as the first IMO.

Great work mate!

Hi Jean-Bernard. What I like most about this is, is that is still a boat/water/figure setting, but so different to your previous creations. Its amazing how you can carry out a similar theme each time, but all are completly different and original.
Some of the previous scenes are quite doomy with sunken ships or harsh seas ... but this one brings a very tranquil picture with the kid about dive into the water ... the wreck doesn´t have the same gloomy feel. Im looking forward already to the next!!!!!!!!!

jba - no matter the catagory this does deserve some hardware. I can imagine the judges wringing their hands wondering where to put this one...

I do like the rework from the water up. I like the color of the 1st frame (even though it was a bit rough).

Your projects are always a joy to watch and see come to life.

Thanks Matthew, hey I fear the medal was more deserved this week than last week-end

hey Chas "pasty" uh? what's that? well there was a yellowey tint to the kid that went with the oils actually, but really the tones are more blended one into another now. I must admit i am almost unable to paint something else than a boat with acrylics!
hey the old base was balsa, it just crunched in the hands while holding it, on the top of that it was not high enough so I nearly put some glass fragments in the hand when I handle it,
so noc that's just a crappy pine thing, but at least my fingers are safe
That's really the part of my dios I should leave to someone else to do

Thanks Frank, deeply appreciated.
Doom eh? it's really with this that I feel the best, the next one will be very doomy. Undoom stuff is good for 2 months long project like this one, I would not be able to stay longer in happy places, dioramas are my worst half

Thank you Scott! well that base was painted using some Citadel chestnut ink. their version of chestnut is really very reddish, but I thought it looked okay with the greenish sea!

I feel a bit worried that Photobucket will put some big "bandwidth exceeded" tags over my pics up there, so here some pics from another account..

JB,
My friend, you get more emotion out of a minimal amount than anyone I have ever meant!
A small section of water, a small piece of wreckage and a small boy, yet I can stare at the photographs of this for hours as the colors and detail are fascinating.
Your work is certainly deserving of high recognition be it medals or otherwise.
Bravo, bravo. Encore!

Cheers,
Charles

A final " Well done" from me also!

Your motivation to redo it after the contest is remarkable, as it is probably more a situation where the motivation may come down and the dio would remains untouched.

Greets
Claude

Very well done JBA, you definitely have an eye for composition and originality. Your water effects are outstanding as usual. To paraphrase Rick in "Casablanca", We all try, you succeed. Congratulations. Al