Last Saturday, I woke up with the aim of making a "trial" for a cobblestone road out of lentils and tile adhesive, but just that. I was gonna throw the thing away after trying. I took a 3x4 inch plate and started placing the lentils on the thin layer of adhesive. What it came out in the late afternoon was a little diorama! It has a concept, and little time spent on. And it is almost totally scratchbuilt! What it has is the left side of a cobblestone country road, with plantation and a tree on left side, a tank obstacle behind which is a German soldier holding his Zundapp motorcycle, looking forward and thinking: "What have we done! I don't wanna go there!". Something is wrong in the town at which the soldier is looking at, and Germans are losing the battle there.



I have not yet completed the soldier, motorcycle and the obstacle. Before I went further, I wanted to take some critics about the road, the tree, rocks and the plantation. In fact the pieces of the kits are not quite glued together. Please criticise the overall outlook, concept, materials and craftsmanship, friends. here are some more detail photos:










The base is a plastic chocolate box, covered first with tile adhesive, then lentils, then tile adhesive again, which is wiped off with tissue so that lentils could show themselves. In fact there are two layers of lentils, as I screwed up at the first layer. I mixed some white glue to the composition of the adhesive, while laying the second layer. The surface has no primer, as the color and texture of the adhesive is excellent. For the shadows I used a mixture of black and a little white acrylic paint diluted with high amount of water, and applied 2 or 3 times, and for the highlights I used different shades of gray, using drybrush technique with acrylic paint again, from darker shades to lighter ones. Then I mixed different shades of grey and brown and selected random stones to make a differentiating stone quality pattern. The acrylic paint I use is Maimeri brand, by the way. The road came out as a country road, so I placed the excess tile adhesive on one side of the base to have the higher ground effect. I placed some pieces of rock I found on the street, and covered the surface of the adhesive with some dust of wood, which helped me during the process of glueing the grass on it. Dust of wood sucks the diluted white glue well, thus eliminating the risk of spilling the glue on other areas. I placed the grass (it is a type of spice sold here to power up sexual performace-a natural viagra I do not need it the way it is meant to be used, so I used it in the model hehe). The grass is covered with white glue, and like the road covering, it is two layers, not to let the soil to be seen. The long plants are made of some kind of linen used for sealing the joints of the water and gas pipe systems in houses (yeah, right, I do not know its name in English). The red plants are made with the same material, with red flowers made of dust of wood glued on the top parts of it.

Yes, now the tree... Supposed to be on a 1/48 scale diorama, this tree is another "sketch problem" of another weekend. I decided to use this Prunus tree on this diorama. It created a "room", I mean a "space" feeling in the overall layout, emphasizing the verticality that the layout without a tree lacked. The article on making trees from wire helped me a lot about this. I covered the tree with modelling putty several times, making details on the bark with a spatula before the top layer set. I painted it with a dark brown base coat, making shadows and highlights as I did in the construction of the road, with appropriate darker and lighter colors. The leaves are made of a dried plant in the family of pumpkin, which we find easily here in Turkey for a wery cheap price. I cut spheres of leaves to be attached to the thin branches of the tree. As the prunus plants of this color have leaves with underside more green than purple, I soaked the spheres first into diluted pink-purple acrylic paint, then to diluted green paint. After drying, I painted the spheres purple from one side and this is the top side. For this I used enamel pains of Testors, and airbrushed it with my Aztek A 4709. After attaching the spheres to the branches, I took a thin brush and used a brilliant red enamel to make corrections and to have different shades of that color, breaking the uniformity.

By the way, the green bush/creeper kind of plant is made of the same material as the tree is made.







I am planning to place a photo of a town in ruins, as seen from the road approaching it from a distance for computer images of the diorama. I appreciate any help about finding the right image.

I have not finished the site yet either. For example I am planning to use a medium dark shade of brown, diluted, and applied on the grass to have some shade of dirt or dust. The tree has not been attached to the ground yet, so there are problems about the root, and so on.

Please remember that this began as a "sketch problem" for the weekend. A simple trial and heat-up for the other big and ambitious diorama I am planning. I do not plan to change the overall layout, but just trying to test techniques on a small "sketch paper".

Any comments, critics, suggestions are welcome.
Thank you.

May be I should remove those brown stones and use grey shades on them, too, what do you say?

I like it! A very interesting project. And I think the brown stones look natural and provide a nice contrast. Good job.

Hi Caanbash ... you should tidy up the edges of this and make it a little vignette ... its that good. The tree bark is excellent as is the cobblestones and side vegitation. The rocks look suitable. The thing that strikes me as strangest is the tree foilage. I personally would cover in dried herbs like parselly for a more leave like structure. Also as its a small vignette with only one tree.... I would keep to greens, yellows and browns for colours! Purple, although realistic enough, draws too much attention. First thoughts are more like what type of a tree is this ... rather than cool motorcyle and rider!! The viewer´s first impression unconsiousially tells him trees are green and sees the bike and figure on a suitable setting rather than a page from "country gardens" in 3D. This is just my opinion from my viewing of the piece ........ not taking away from your work at all ....... Looking forward to the finished article!!!

I think when I finish the figure and the vehicle, they will attract more attention. At the moment, they are grey, and they are very neutral. Apart from that, they are on a grey background, which is the road. If they do not attract more attention at the end of the project, I will convert the tree to a tree with regular color in fall, blending purple, dark and light green and yellow. As I said, it is a tree which was meant to be used for another project, in 1/48 scale. The material I used for the foliage is a dense material. Because of these two reasons, the tree has no foliage made with spices and so on, and it is a purple prunus. I have not yet finished the base. The edges will be cut and covered with the frame to come. I will try to finish this sketch problem within next week, and alas, I have to join the army for at least 6 months from that time... Wish me luck

I like the scene very much !
What I find strange is the vegetation. It lacks foliage to look natural... apart from that, it's great !

I like the tree!

I think I fooled you people by taking close-ups of the tree. The tree details are as you see, not quite suitable for the scale of the photo (not the scale of the model). I have to say that the tree looks nice without foilage in real life, but macro photos of it, which make the tree twice its size on the screen ruin up the whole thing. The first and the second pictures show it the way it is in reality, and the detail photos are somewhat "microscobe" photos. Taking macro photos with digitals need some more practice I guess LOL.

Thanks for the critics, all of you. As I said this is a sketch problem, I may try to add some leaves to the tree just to practice and see what happens afterwards.

Hey caanbash The lil dio has all the right ingredients but mebbe you could offset the whole thing a lil bit to have the road running on an ever so slight angle across the base therefore leaving just enough room to have a small ditch or gully or something on the far side of the road ( the side not featured) That said, it would only work if it was a narrow road I guess... But as for the way you have interpreted the riders thoughts, I think you are spot on the mark with his apprehension... Remiss of me not to add I'm still very novicy when it comes to dios but getting better mebbe, so when I put some progress photos up I expect the same critique from you, OK?! hehe...

Hey caanbash The lil dio has all the right ingredients but mebbe you could offset the whole thing a lil bit to have the road running on an ever so slight angle across the base therefore leaving just enough room to have a small ditch or gully or something on the far side of the road ( the side not featured) That said, it would only work if it was a narrow road I guess... But as for the way you have interpreted the riders thoughts, I think you are spot on the mark with his apprehension... Remiss of me not to add I'm still very novicy when it comes to dios but getting better mebbe, so when I put some progress photos up I expect the same critique from you, OK?! hehe...

Caanbash

Good work, I will be trying out your ideas!

Thanks, Savage, better upgrade my thoughts to have something further for the whole modelling society. Honeycut, I thought what you thought just after the diorama became a diorama. As I said, it began as a trial for a road covering and all of a sudden became a diorama. I wish I had placed the road at an angle to have a rectangular space for the vegetation, so that the tree might be located at a larger space covered with plants, making it a little less distinguished.