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Dioramas: Buildings & Ruins
Ruined buildings and city scenes.
Hosted by Darren Baker
French railroad crossing
Occam
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Kobenhavn, Denmark
Joined: October 10, 2004
KitMaker: 190 posts
Armorama: 129 posts
Posted: Thursday, July 30, 2009 - 09:56 AM UTC
Hello everyone

I've recently begun building in 1:35 again after building i H0 scale, 1:87, for a long time. In H0 I've grown very fond of building dioramas to use as background for photos of my models, and now I'd like to do the same for all the wonderful new railroad models that now exist and are coming in 1:35.

Previously I've made this in H0:







You can see more images of the diorama and it's construction here:
http://www.mj-blog.dk/category/anlaeg-og-styring/diorama/

I'm getting close to finishing a city diorama for a contest soon:





You can see more images of this diorama and it's construction here:
http://www.mj-blog.dk/category/anlaeg-og-styring/storbydiorama/

So, now I feel ready to make something in the grand scale of 1:35. I really like the looks of the new Miniart kits, so I plan on using a couple of the for my new diorama.

The basic plan looks like this on my raw sketch :-)



From the left I'm planning to use Miniarts French village house, and in the middle Miniarts French farmyard as a sort of workshop or garage. To the right will be about a meter of Trumpeters nice track, crossing the road in front of the houses. This will make it possible to display both road and rail vehicles as well as infantry models and make small scenes.

A friend later suggested that the two arms of the "L" be switched in order to give a better photo angle and more background, and I think I will follow his suggestion.

Right now, I am in the middle of building the French farmyard, pictures will follow soon....
roudeleiw
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Luxembourg
Joined: January 19, 2004
KitMaker: 2,406 posts
Armorama: 2,224 posts
Posted: Friday, July 31, 2009 - 12:20 AM UTC
Interesting layout, and with your experience on HO, this will be a ice thread to follow.

Welcome

Claude
Occam
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Kobenhavn, Denmark
Joined: October 10, 2004
KitMaker: 190 posts
Armorama: 129 posts
Posted: Sunday, August 02, 2009 - 08:58 AM UTC
The first step in building the diorama is building the first of the Miniart houses. I began with the garage/farmyard:



It is my first time with vacuformed sets, but so far it has been a very enjoyable experience. I began by seperating all the part with a knife, which worked fine, even though Miniart recommends a different method.



I quickly discovered that the corners should be put together in a different way from the instructions. I hope it is clear from the picture above where the wall are loosely fitted how it worked best.



This way the corners only needed a very small amount of putty to look good.



The base coat of paint was "Duck Season" from Montana Gold followed by a light and uneven coat of the somewhat lighter "Sahara Beige", also from Montana Gold.



Then I began picking out bricks in various colours, even with some help from my gilfriend, who where curious to find out how it worked to paint bricks!



Then I began applying the first washes to blend the colours together. On the image above, the first two has been done, with many more to follow, and then highlighting.

More on that later...

HONEYCUT
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Victoria, Australia
Joined: May 07, 2003
KitMaker: 4,002 posts
Armorama: 2,947 posts
Posted: Sunday, August 02, 2009 - 09:13 PM UTC
Gday Occam
I'm interested to see how this works out mate. Especially for the fact you are mixing both rail and road vehicles together
The farmhouse is starting to look the part already!
Brad
Occam
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Kobenhavn, Denmark
Joined: October 10, 2004
KitMaker: 190 posts
Armorama: 129 posts
Posted: Wednesday, August 05, 2009 - 08:22 AM UTC
Thanks Brad :-)

I managed to snap a few pictures of the painted walls in the fading daylight yesterday.





Above you see the outer wall more or less finished after first three brown washes, a couple of light drybrushes of light beige and finally a very light medium brown wash. The different colours of bricks might have been blended a bit too much into each other, but it looks ok to me. There will be plenty of other things on the diorama to show contrasting colours.

The windows and doors have also been painted now, in a light blue, pictures will follow... :-)
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