Hi!
How could I make fog on a Diorama?
Any ideas? Perhaps a very soft, nearly transparent cotton wool?

Greets, Gerold.

The cotton might work for static effect (going to have to be very thin), but for the purposes of photo you can spray paint a plate of glass then take your photos through it . Be sure to use a polarizing filter on the camera to get rid of any glare from the glass. This is good for smoke and shell bursts too.

I saw a WW 1 diorama in FSM some time ago that had poison gas made out of wisps of cotton airbrushed pale green. It looked really nice but it was only the the low areas of the ground work. So I guess cotton might work for a low lying ground type of fog.

HTH

Shaun

I was wondering the same thing but only a colored smoke grenade for the vietnam piece I am working on.,

I was also wondering how to make one for my nam dio im working on, but i was gooing to do dust from a huey landing
cheers

Here's an idea - sometime all you need to do is give a 'representation' of something and allow the viewer to 'complete' the concept in their head/mind.
With that in mind - you may want to try "Halloween Spider Web" stuff. This is long stringy white stuff you decorate with.
I recently read the thread about Halloween in Europe and I'm not sure if its something that is as readily available. Its cottony stuff that is stringy and can be stretched pretty well. You could add a bit of color to it via airbrush and string it over your diorama.

I think that no matter what you use (as far as cotton products go) it will look more like smoke than fog. Just like creating an explosion with all the dirt, debris and smoke is really hard to represent convincingly, this would be just as difficult. There is another approach you could try and that is a shadowbox. With some lighting and appropriately coated sheets of acrylic you could create an illusion of fog and fool the eye.

Marty's on to something - you could go with a shadow box and buy one of those RR smoke machines and build it in. Or rig some type of dry ice deal.

Steel wool also works great, for smoke at least. If you want a darker colored smoke/fog/gas, or whatever you could go with steel wool. Of course for fog it'll probably be best to use cotton. Distilling paint in water and then soaking the cotton/steel wool will work to color it.

i think its alittle easier then you all think. go to england or wait until you have a really foggy day and then take your diorama outside, then take the picture. BAM! you have fog in your diorama..jk.. i thought this needed alittle humor

This is probably madness.........
If there was a frame built around the dio then filled up with really clear resin like they use for water, only down low, have it slighly tinted with an off-white. If it was stirred around a little it might seem like fog. Then complete with the clear resin to the top. Remove the frame and you have a fog in a solid dio. ... easy kept clean!! #:-) Something like those crystal balls that you turn up-side-down and see the snow fall. Now theres an idea for a mad dio!!

What if you just used something like PhotoShop? Results could be like this:



Or like this:

Hey Plasticbattle, yes, what you say is total madness... You know what I think about idiotic ideas? They are the best and most creative ones! They are called "mad" or "idiotic" because they are not the mental products of ordinary brains. What we do to create dioramas are certainly mad and idiotic, whatever we do. This idea of yours is one that has to be tested. If it worked, it would solve a great issue about building dioramas. Photoshop is a good idea, too, but the ambition differs when you use a computer. You can either get a diorama (not a photograph), which you can hold in your hand and show people, or you can have photographs edited in photoshop to have dialogues like this: "hey, this is a model I made, not a wartime photo", "oh really, you are crazy, I can not belive this is a model!"... Both are satisfactory, right?

Thanks for these ideas!
I want to make the fog on the dio, not on the photo
So I will do the method with the Halloween Spider Web...I think the resin solution will only work on a small dio..

Kencelot that is awsume, birlliant idea mate....if only i had photo shop lol, cheers

Yes, Kencelot. Great work! May God save the guy who invented those tansparent layers and airbrush!

So how did it tunn out Kuebel82 ?

My idea:
A Bergehetzer stands in an empty stable, the crew is repairing the tank. They all wear the old black Panzeruniform, because the camaouflage clothes were just washed. One soldier is standing on guard. A Zündapp 750 with two Kradmelder drives outside through the fog.

(Hope my English is correct #:-) )