Great Great Great
Coming along very well, I am happy to see the snow also in Paris

Happy new year JBA!
Nice to see your also blessed with snow .
Stunning work as usual my friend

GREAT JOB on the various parts of your diorama, JBA !!!!!! "Enjoy" the snow and look after yourself, my friend . Looking forward to when you can safely resume your modelling and I'll try to get some decent pictures up to post for you to see. Cheers !
Kenneth .

Reading people's reactions must be boring JBA : stunning, great, superb, original, artwork, outstanding...

This project is magnificent to see it grow, your scratchbuild skills are crazy and I'd like to say thank you to share this all with us !

hows progress j.b.a. ??

Never rush an artist

the garden shed is burried under a pile of snow :-)

Hi guys and sorry for the late
Snow begins to melt, but it's dubious I will be able to work much on that diorama those forthcoming days -we'll see anyway!

Claude indeed I don't have shoes high enough so that I can gop in the garden shed without getting my feet wet. i've been going last saturday and needed to take a 1 hour bath/sauna afterwards in order to feel warm again And thanks for your link, I shall investigate..

Jon, artist eh? the day i consider myself as being an artist etc etc.. and thanks for the other comments! yep that MG is looking pretty good and "unusual"!

Seb I guess you are sick of the snow like i am by now, I have ripped one pair of trousers slipping on the ice yesterday!

Thanks Jaymes my friend! How many clothes did you ruin thanks to the ice?!

thanks Kenneth friend! Too late to care of myself hey, where is your new vignette?

Thank you as usual Guy friend, it occurs to me that i didn't see your work in a bit of time

Paul, here it is, at least a bit of progress...

well, quite nothing..
As you could see from the way it was cut, the boat was obviously sunken/sinking. Well, doing some calculates, I found out that a bit of the hull should be visible from above the sea.
Oh well then let's do it..
thta's a bit of vaguely rounded platsic, wityh some magic Sculp on the bottom to do the relief and a brass sheet to do the railings -and I used the same method as the other railings to solder it: ie, some bit of MS to hold the sheet while i was soldering it.

nice to see some progress jba , this is looking like another gem !!

Ah, more rumbling from the elephants grave yard. Just an artistic phrase from an artist point of a poem. As this keeps getting better all the time. As I saw the last picture it kind of fell together, beautiful JBA. Works like this really opens up peoples minds, at least mine. For some reason, no idea why you keep me inspired and looking for new ways and things to model. I know wha tyou mean about the cold. Got to keep a kero heater going and close to me as it gets colder and I get older.

Hey JBA !
Good to see you back on the forum with an update ! Brilliant, if I do say so myself !!! Well, I was actually waiting for the right light conditions to photograph my vignette, but, hey, I guess the best time is always now, yes . So , look up "No Beer For You !" and tell me what you think. Cheers, my friend ,
Kenneth .

Thanks for the concern guys

-Paul I am not sure about the outcomes since the last bit of varnish, I can fail too

-Ah! Bob thanks, the temperature here raised to a 4°C so I could get back in the shed with the heater, but the heat is soon gone when i leave and each coat of resin takes up to 4 days to dry so i can't work basically. happy that I get you inspired!

-Kenneth friend you will see me rushing to check


I will let that one rot for at least another 10 days, but when it comes back there will be posts ereyday -except mondays- till it's completely done

Haha great image JB!

I should do one for my blog! Back when home from Minsk, it's - 20 here at the moment!

Hello Jean-Bernard, Your work as always is very inspiring

Hope to see more soon, Randy

Like used to say De Gaulle -with which i don't share the same idea of France- Fini la Chienlit, temps de retourner au boulot.

The weather has not dramatically improved and I just *know* merde is going to be happening at some point but well,
Thanks my friends for enquiring!

Jon -20.. you mean Fahrenheit? I can't believe it can be so cold in what?.. Bristol or so?!

Yep Randy you will just right now..

First here are 2 pictures to remind everybody where we were excatly before the interruption



Some paster of Paris poured on the base -that I protected with "feather cardboard"



And then let's sculpt some waves..

Nice to see you back, dispite the weather challange

Good work on the railing - composition is a little drawn to the right, do you have something in mind for the piece of water?

Cheers/Jan

Good to see you back! Can't wait for more. For me this is where your projects get fun.
Everything starts coming together, life is injected, movement and color start.

Hello JBA, I always enjoy following your projects. They are informative, inspiring, and down right fun. You combine all of the disciplines of great modeling, creativity, scratch building, sculpture, and painting. Make no mistake my friend, you are an artist indeed. Al

Hi JBA, it was - 20 C here in Minsk Belarus actually the other day it went to - 27 centigrade

Back home in London, I m not so sure what the temperature is, but its not as cold as here!

Hi jba, wow nice dio SIR!

hey Jan, you bet I have something in mind with the water You know I just can't start a diorama if i don't have anything particular and new in mind, and here it will be the water definitely.
Now about the compoistion -please consider those 2 dioramas that were done at 15 years of interval

and

On the first case you can see a typical balance -that I personally call "the sun balance" as everything seems to sort of revolve around a same centre point.
I did a lot of dioramas according to this scheme, up to a point that at one moment i thought i couldn't escape it.
But then more recently i tried with different sorts of composition. if you look at the other one, there is absolutely no balance of the elements, yet it works because of the way the stuff is orientated. because of the colours etc.
With Spaceman 3 I will hope to sort of create a momentum and a colour scheme that will create some sort of balance despite all the "raised" elements being to the right -when you consider the diorama from this side of course..

Because this balance/ composition element must also work FROM EITHER SIDE OR ANGLE YOU ARE CONSIDERING YOUR DIORAMA.

I know you are an adept of the "stairs" diorama, which can typically be considered best only on 3 of the 4 sides of a square -the front being always preferred, while I prefer "unclosed "dioramas.
i consider this

one as being a success of Sun Balance because from whatever angle you look at it, the composition works perfectly.

So all this to say that composition and balance on a diorama doesn't work the same way as it does for a painting, that achieving something good can be both difficult and risky ..

Thanks Scott -yep something special is going to happen, but like usually comes right at the end, the stuff must click together you see, and sometimes it never does.. It took me 9 months to make galilée click for instance.

Thanks Al my friend, that really appreciated! You know what they say, Humour is the politeness of despair. Sadly I am neither Jew nor British so my possibilities in humour are rather restricted, yet I do my best!

Oh dear Jon, I knew that the prices of housing in London got mad, but going as far as Minsk! This is ridiculous! yet at least when you visit your friends in London you will be able to say you saw REAL snow!

Thanks Martyn, this time i am back here for good!

Just those 3 pics today
That all very well this plaster thing, but thereal job was to TRIM it!

I have been using my Dremel to do this in places...

some plasticine form around the plaster..what for duh..

JBA, after watching your work and seeing your work, it reminds me of one flew over the cookoo nest. So intriging to see the work you do. It seems that on occasion, we must leave the nest and march to the beat of our own drum so to speak. I don't think you break the so called mold, you create a new one each time you work. Stunning work my friend. bob d.

JBA,

EXCELLENT ideas, work, techniques, composition consideration, and so on!!

I just love to check your posts and see what you have come up with next!

I do believe your "B17 Ball Turret" diorama works because the viewer is drawn to the dark opening by the surrounding elements either leading their eye there (foam lines and the streaks of blood) or the balance and additional information of the partial fuselage and the broken surface. I think there is also a psychological effect that makes us look, like "cat curiosity".

Don't get too cold out in your shed!

looking good jba , sounds like you could use one of those furry things that you can put both feet into to keep them warm !!

Ola JBA

Have missed your work in the past year mate and it was a joy to read up on your built... Looks stunning as usual. I like the angles in your work... Amvery curious how it will end up with the painting and really looking forward to your water.