OK. Hello everyone.
Since I have some extra time on my hands I thought I would go ahead and give this blog thing a try.
With all the high quality dios being built on this site right now, I was inspired to post some of my stuff (just to drop the standards a little) and get some of that great Armorama feedback.
First a test to see if I can get the posting photos thing

So I want to try a few new (for me) techniques and at the same time just do a dio for me, for the fun of it!
The scene will be March 1945 in West Prussia/Pomerania, outside of the Danzig/Zoppot area. The Germans have collapsed back to the Danziger Bucht and the lower Vistula. The Schwere-SS PzAbt 503 was operating in the area, so I will show a TigerII from that unit setting up a blocking position to try to stem the next Soviet probe.
This is the initial idea.
The KT and some infantry are getting some info about Soviet movements prior to setting up their positions. The place holder 251 in the photo may end up being a 250 halftrack or a 234 armored car. Let me know what you think.


This is the KT kit I'm using. I have the DML KT with the late pattern tracks, which I was going to use, but I actually want to use those tracks with that kit...and that pattern track wasn't put on the vehicles till March...(I think that's right?) so that wouldn't work with what I want to do.



Here is the dio with the buildings started.

I build the buildings using foamboard sandwiched between matboard to prevent warping. Over this I am using the cork method. Of course.

Here is the front view of the barn.
Once the bricks were glued on, I covered everything with spackle/plaster and let it set for a few minutes. After about 15 minutes I scrubbed it with an old toothbrush that I had cut the bristled down very short. The wood is a combination of balsa, basswood and some other kind of scrap wood I had sitting around.


I am going to go for a heavily peeling paint, heavily weathered look on the wood. Here is a close up of the weathered wood so far.


I painted the wood with a thinned down coat of regular indoor latex paint. This is the color.


After it dried, I applied a wash of black India ink that I diluted with regular rubbing alcohol. I varied how much I put on the different boards, some got a lot of the mixture ,some got a little.What you see in the picture is mostly just one coat of the mixture. Some boards have two.
Here is the ink. Just put a couple of ounces of alcohol in a small container and then a few drops of ink. Shake it up and you got some wood ager.


So I hope you like the start and hopefully threre will be regular updates.
Thanks guys!
Cheers,
Bill.

What a great building! The wood looks fantastic.

Chris

Bill, I think your idea is excellent. The layout, (not to big and not to small), and scene would have been most probable. Your structures are looking good, I like how you have weathered the wood. I am in the process of building some structures out of drywall and was contemplating doing a scene in the same area as you are doing. Keep it up I will be watching this one.

looks like a good start, I have also cleaned your posts up and removed the test pictures

keep up the good work

cheers

Keith

Good job on the building Bill, nice mix of wood and stone.

I hope you will not use one of those roots as tree!

Cheers
Claude

Good work on the barn, I like the rounded gate.
Just a thought, maybe don't let those builds only be a "layout", a background for your panzer.
Such a nice building have to take a real part in the dio.

Regards.
A.

awesome brick and wood- very inspiring to try something like that

Really nice start to your dio. I can see this being a nice one.

Another cork build, and a very well executed one too ! The wood is also turning out great, please let the updates come, this is what we like on Diorama section. G.

I really like what you are doing here, Bill!
The brickwork and wood look superb, composition and story are good too.

please keep the 251 and show us more of it!!
Did you convert Tamiya's old 251C into a D??

Great work so far Bill. Nice building, is shaping up well. How many figures are you going to put in there?

I vote to keep the 251 in there...one of my favs...

Cheers -
Tim

Hey guys. Here is what I hope to be the first of many weekly updates.
First.

Hey Claude!!! Are you busting on my trees/roots!?!?!?!? What not perfect enough for Mr. Perfect who builds perfect structures and trees and stuff perfectly... of course you know I'm joking. I am planning on constructing a tree out of all those roots. The ones in the previous pictures were just place holders.

Alexandre - I do agree with you that buildings can and, in some cases, should be the focal point of a scene and not just a backdrop. And I plan on doing that in a future build.

Ron - Yes, the 251 D in those pictures are a Tamiya C converted to a D. I did that wayyyyy before there was a D on the market, I never fully finished it and over time it has "jumped" off of my shelves and had other things land on it so much that I would have to re-scratch all the scratch building I did. And I think I'm going to go with a 250/8 in place of the 251.

Tim - I'm not sure how many figures I'm going to include...it will be somewhere around 6 or so.

Guy - I'm glad you like this so far. I really love what you've done with your build and it was one of the pieces that inspired me to do this blog. Just hope I can maintain the standards set on this board.

To everyone else - thanks for the feedback!!!

OK. Not really as much progress as I had hoped for this first update.
I threw some paint on the barn and started the roof.


I did the roof by glueing wooden BBQ skewers on the mattboard roof and then cutting strips of thin cardboard and glueing them over the skewers to create the tiles. I used regular Ehlmers glue to glue everything. I started at one end and glued just the end down, then I waited about an hour to make sure it was dry, then I pressed the strips over the skewers and into the gap between them using the end of a rectangular piece of wood to muke sure they were down tight, then I moved on down the row doing the same thing.

Here is a close up of the barn door and the brickwork around it.

Here it the house that is to the right of the barn.
Front.

Side

And here is the tree so far (no laughing Claude)

Here is a quick look at how I made it.
I gathered a bunch of roots after some heavy rains here. I then took bits and pieces and glued them to a bigger trunk.

I'm not completely sure I like it, but I think after adding more branches and some foliage, I will.
The KT is still being built. It will be OOTB so there really is nothing exciting to show at this time. I am not one of those PE loving super-detailing guys (but I'll tell you, I sure am amazed at what they do!!!)
So here is the updated layout. Like I said not much really happened this last week...I hope to make much more progress this coming week.


Comments are welcome and appreciated!!! Let me know what you think, any changes????, anything you'd like to see, any questions.
Till next time thanks again guys!
Bill.

Wow!
Like it yes a great work you've done here.
This barn is so realistic. I like the color range and the tones you've used.
Keep up, i'll follow it!
bye.

Alexandre.

The same here, this looks brilliant. The green door is very realistic, the "old" paint on it is perfect.
The color of the door is a bright area in the diorama, it adds life to it.
But what is even more important to say : I can almost feel the texture and the appearance of all the materials : plaster, wood, stone, paint...great ! G.

I like the way you have done your tiles, very clever. I agree with the above to comments. The whole thing, texture and colours look awesome.

Wow! In the words of Borat - " I liiiiiiike very much " cant wait to see this one finished

I like it Bill, especially how you made the tree.

Bill,

Mr. Perfect! me, if you would be able to see what i'm just doing with my Sherman! Every tank expert would probably shake his heads.

You structure looks good , as everybody already said. Nice idea on the handle to close it (name?). Very original.

I have one remark regarding the roof tiles. While the look of what you made is absolutely great, couldn't be better, really, but shouldn't those tiles not be individual ones?
That will be for the next dio then. Perhaps you can work a bit with a lot of moss and dirt between the tiles to hide the missing joint.

The tree......ahem.......you are on the way to make a good one, but not yet there :-)

Your scene is set in march, so no leafs on the tree yet. Your branches should end pointed, all of them!

So you are going to cut down those big branches by a few centimeter and set on top of them a finer branch ending pointed. You probably need to drill holes in the ends, it will not be easy now that you already glued some together. The joint between them will be masked by whatever you want, some acrylic paste or clay or putty.

Alternatively you may try the wire method to make a tree or do a fir tree.

You are about to make a very good dio, so don't spoil it with a tree lokking like a root.

You know that i mean this in the friendliest way possible and amicably.

Cheers
Claude

Superb progress in this diorama!

The textures and wood look very realistic.

Lars

Hello everyone, hope you had / are having a good weekend.

A little bit more progress this past week. The house is done.


And the barn is 98% done. I need to do some more weathering to the roof.

And I'm going to re-paint the "tarps" covering the section of the roof undergoing repairs. I added this spot on the roof to try to get a little more color and add a little more interest. I am actually thinking of doing away with it altogether as I'm not completely happy with it.
What do you guys think???

And finally, here is the the updated look of the whole scene.

I glued down part of the road. I made a mold of a stonework road I did a couple of years ago and used that for my road. I started applying some thin layers of groundwork. I use Celluclay and mix in bronn latex wall paint, some sand and LOTS of white glue. I apply several thin layers to avoid base warpage and to avoid having the syrofoam pulled up from the wood base.
Also some priliminary figure positions are being worked out. The construction of the King Tiger is almost done (the one in the picture is not it) but any painting will have to wait till I get my airbrush back.

And again everybody thanks for the feedback!!!!

Oh yeah, Claude...the roof tiles should be individual pieces. So what I did was I went back over the roof with an X-acto and cut them into individual tiles. So they were put on as a strip but later cut into "individual" pieces. You can see it in some places and in others it is covered by the paint work and weathering. And I'm still working on that tree.....I've had very poor results using the wire armature method that's why I'm continuing on with these roots. AND I really appreciate your feedback...if you have an opinion / idea go ahead and give it. I think I know the spirit in which you give your opinions so no need to worry that I might be offended it takes quite abit for that to happen.

Thanks again everybody!!!!!

Bill.

Hi Bill,

You make some superbe work! The roof is well painted.
I like your idea with the tarp, it's very original, you must just make sure that it looks natural. That is not the case on the back side (the little part hanging to the back) where the tarp looks glued to the tiles. I don't know if you know what i mean,

Regarding the tree, it would be good to have other opinions, but you may not need a big tree here at all. Your houses provide already a nice high point of the dio.
A hedge with grass or the beginning of a field may be an idea . A fence going from the left house to the road and to the back. A bit of a corn field perhaps.

Good work

Claude

looks good!

Hi Bill
It is a pleasure to see this build developing and I have marked some of your techniques to try myself later!
You sure have come a long way and I must say that I really do like the roof tiles! The roof as a hole might be a bit to neat if I compare it to the state of the rest of the buildings. With to neat I mean to straight (the wooden roofbeams have the tendency to bend in time) and to little broken tiles. I know how hard it is to replicate that though. Been there, done that..

As far as the tree goes, I'm with Claude on that one. It is not needed nor does it give anything extra and personally I think it causes an unbalance in the overall appearance.
Indeed a hedge would look good or maybe move up the fence more to the roadside.