Thanks Shane

Arf Jon they will soon be doing a book called "The Gallic Edge" aha!
Honestly I only feel French as long as food is concerned, but I would sure swap my weather against a Spanish weather for instance


So now one of those bllloody moments, when I finish a work, take pics and realize they are all blurred. And now the fig was undercoated which means I can't show anything better.
Well here is the fig as it appears now, with some Green stuff details here and there like zis for clothes -and ears and hair too

Hi Nicolas !
GREAT JOB on the diorama so far !!!! I ABSOLUTELY love the "dead" figure; GOOD job on the sculpting, my friend . Looking forward to the groundwork and incorporation of the aircraft wreck and dead pilot. Cheers !
Kenneth .

Hey thanks Kenneth friend I had obne private mail complaining that the dead pilot looks too much like the one I used for Tsushima II, he is right but well, the ambiances of the diorama will be much different!

Something i am not ashamed of: using some broom hair for my small rice-field.
but then not any ole brrom!!
Nope I need a broom whose tip is actually *pointy*, not *square*, that's VERY important.

then, I use some string and make a knot over a few hair. I cut the hair and set the bottom of it in CA glue





Then like for Tsushima II, i built a sort of plastic box that will hold everything, especially the rice field's water..

left is the plastic, right is the original plan i made for the diorama. You may notice the 17 or so rice plants.

Now some boring work: underpainting the exposed aircraft machineries and then masking them with tape.
Unforutunately I have been sitting on my airbrush's needle (how dumb can you be) And am waiting for a replacement one to come to resume the painting of the F-105.



How come the rice plants could hold straight on the base? that's right let's dig some holes with a screwdriver..

Great Great Great UPdate
I love it, congrats Nico
Plus de photos
A+
Seb

Sat on your airbrush needle? Ouch! that must of hurt.
Bang up job on the pilot. Looking forward to the addition of the H2O. Dying to see how you will keep the resin from creeping up on the rice stalks etc.
Cheers,
Charles

Well you are really nice Seb, the truth is that I am sick this week, I can't model so I have been stretching all the pics I took during last week-end through the whole week!
Hopefully this week-end I will be better and the diorama will indeed progress a lot!

Thanks Charles you are right i could have hurt myself , actually, what happened? I took out the needle to clean it, then sat up to do something -meanwhile the needle rolled on the chair and I well -sat on it in the LENGTH sense




me too to be honest. that's indeed the problem as the resin will try to creep up each individual plant. BUT I think i can get over that using slow curing resin.
The other big problem si that there is no waves or water movement on such shallow water,, there fore it *really* have to look like an incredible still spotless water and that's going to be harder to figure out than real waves.


Here is the plastic box built around the plastic base. there are some borders on the *underside* too because i will have to "tune" the ricefield.
As you can see, all are fixed using a small Magic Sculp lump.

that's it, If i want all the little plants to be roughly of the same height, I have to press out the plants more or less through the holes I carved.
In the end I have this.. think that 3 to 5 mm of the plants should be underwater which should end up having those small rice plants popping out of the water..

Hello

As I wrote over at Aeroscale I follow your build and I love it!




If I may put in an amateurish suggestion. You could try to simulate rain (remember the "Forrest Gump" movie? .. it always rained in Vietnam... until one day when it stopped.) I have seen an SF3D Ma.K. diorama once where this was beautifully done (sadly I forgot where), so it is possible .... of course I know you are an artist and already have your setup in mind and I do not want to interfere with that!

all the best

Steffen

The resin did creep up on the plants etc. in this dio. I added the flotsam to the surface and poured in some Future over the cured resin. It worked twofold, first it secured all the leaves/debris and secondly it worked to somewhat level the surface.



Cheers,
Charles

Thanks Steffen, your comments are really nice.
Your suggestion for rain is an interesting one, but in order for this to be looking realistic, I would have had to create some concentric Rain marks tool if you see what i mean. And then print some rain marks on some form over which i would have poured some resin.
A complicated way if you prefer.
So here I will choose a simple sunset. Some parts with be bathed in sun, while others will be pretty dark looking.

I remember that diorama of yours Charles! I always been liking it.
Recently i saw a trailer for Tarkovski's movie Zerkalo -entirely taken with images NOT in the movie.
Well there is some kind of small bridge like the one you have been doing, but that one was really HIGH above the marches. My take for your diorama would have been to make the soldiers pass ABOVE the tank
I can indeed see the places where resin has been creeping up. (some small solarizations near the plants). BUT I see 2 ways of not this to happen:
1/ using some resin that does NOT retract.
2/ trying to pour the resin the most evenly possible by pouring one drop at a time so that it levels very slowly.
3/ when the resin begins to set and if it still creeps, then removing the creeping bits with a scalpel.
At least i will do it this way

So i just ended up painting the pilot. Oil over acrylics as a base coat. The uniform is a sort of Olive drab colour and I have been actually mixing some *blue* and some *yellow* to get the right shade! That’s right I don’t have any olive drab paint at home. I hate that colour (I had to wear it myself sadly) but hey it has some advantage that it should really blend well in the landscape.
It’s not very obvious to paint a realistic dead man, so I have been reducing reds to a max, and used a mix of blue and red and black at the places where bruises should be (wrist, under the neck etc. I have been using some transparent brown on the places where the clothes are torn.
My pics are rather poor because the wet oils are doing some reflects but I hope you catch the work being done.
Ah.. important precision: the guy is painted in clearer and shinier shades on his *left* and you soon will see why

Very good, this will end up as another very useful tutorial regarding resin pouring! Never can get enough of this, there are so many error possibilities.

Cheers
Claude

Well if he wasn't dead before he must be now !!!!

Impaled on a big drill bit like that.

I really love the scratch built aircraft bits, the figure and the whole idea of the dio.

Looks fantastic

Nige

That's a piece of art indeed!Totally awesome...
The cold breath of death passed me by watching it.I've seen the real pic in my NAM book collection,and must admit that you caught the feeling I felt then.
Fan of your work and look forward to seeing it finished.
Well done Nicola.
Regards,
Zisis

I agree, truely a work of art, Awesome skill

"Gallic Edge" nice I like that idea!

The skin tones on the corpse are very appropriate as well I think, he certainly looks a little bit "off"

I too am really looking forward to seeing how you work with the crystal resin.

Thanks Claude. indeed that's what's exciting with resin water, it's never twice the same thing..

hey Nige I always have some problems to hold my figs while painting them, that was the most convenient way I found
thanks for your comments!

nice nice nice compliment Zisis

Thank you Thomo!


Hey Jon he sure looks a bit of colour. But depending on the light effects I produce i might err, yellow his skin a little so that he looks a bit sunlit


Thanks to my friend Alex for lending me his Mig airbrush while my G-35 was out of service. I painted the various plates individually, using some paints from the mr Super metallic range for the light metallic tones and some Mr Color dark iron for the shadows.
I used masking tape etc. The last airbrush stroke was of light gold in some places so that it would look like the sun is not too far away..
Now of course I will have to weather this as well as paint each and every trapdoor..







And finally a small preview with the yet unpainted pilot

Thats looking great.

How did you find the Mig airbrush by the way? I'd be interested to hear your thoughts and feedback on it.

Looking good! Interested to see how you will be handling the 'long shadows' that would occur with the sun at such a seemingly low angle.

Cheers,
Charles

You ask a good question Jon!
Actually my former diorama Tsushima II won the Mig "snow and water" contest at their forums, so I will soon be looking like I am heavily sponsored modeller.
Still truth is there -I have a premi Air G-35 but i largely preferred the Mig one. It may also come from the fact that i don't know how to use my G-35. Anyway, i learned how to use the Mig quite fast and I can now do stuff I couldn't do before with an airbrush. So take an advice from somebody who feels like the monkeys in 2001 in front of an airbrush but I really liked the Mig one.

Well Charles, there won't be long shadows, there can't be! or maybe that would be my lifetime accomplishment, creating some true realistic shadows.. As usual those will be a dark blur..


Well now it's time to show the hull as weathered. Big pictures because i like the way the hull looks like. Really battered indeeed
Painted with Acrylics, the metalic parts were weathered using inks.

Here is a very crowded working place indeed.. some bits of airbrushes, Model Air paints everywhere. And finally the worst brand of plaster I ever bought. With big grains in it –it’s suppose to be okay for walls, but i would hesitate using it even for this purpose. Anyway, it’s perfect for ground cover.
I will also use some dry moss as well as acryclic texture gel with sand in it.


So okay, let’s mix some plaster with moss and let’s apply it on the base..


at 2010-05-28and then paint it using thise mix of valejo paints as shown on the top left of the pictures as well as more Citadel inks.

I have been too much in a hurry on that one,hence something i was not very satisfied about.
Did you guys ever saw some rice field ? looks like some sort of cobweb,with some narrow mud passages between each square of water..
What could look rather nice would be to put the plane near one of the crossesthose mud passages are doing, sort of open the scene on the left side of thediorama.
So i put my Dremel and basically destroyed what i did the day before innarrowing the path. I was actually so much surprised by the bad quality of the plaster and its fast drying time that I completely forgot of tinting it thefirst time around. Well I corrected that this time and used some black ink to tint the plaster.



Look at this… Silflor grass, one of the diorama making’s worst capital sins.



Why do i say that, after all it’s « convenient », it looks « realistic ».
Hey it’s because everybody uses it the same way, so now whenever you look at some pics taken at a fair you see the same grass here and there.
My fault, I used it here *sigh*
Well, so that i can’t be accused using it exactly like everybody else does, here is my method. This grass comes in tufts glued on some sort of dried glue base. So my first reflex was to cut each tuft in 3 to 5 parts so that i could rearrange each tuft in a more convenient fashion.
After that I prepared a mix between paint Pigments (Mig here) and heavy acrylic gel so that I could cover the base of the grass with the mix in order for the grass parts to look like they really grow from the mud..


The last picture shows all the grass on the mud path.

Great progress so far and thanks for sharing your thoughts on the MIG airbrush. I too have a Premi Air G35 at home, it was my first airbrush, I felt the same as you though when I started using my Iwata. I think the Premi air is a great brush and a great price but I never felt I got 100% out of it. I found the quality of Iwata brushes really let me do a lot more complex detail work such as complicated camo patterns for example.

Ola Nico,

Cool update. You're right on the groundwork so far, though I still think you work the "dirty" way. I mean, so far, your ground isn't "clean", and a bit pinkish for me, but I already feel it will look absolutely cool once finished.

Following with a continuous interest, I'm glad to see you showing your process on grass and mud, not always water....

Hey Nicolas, i even did a complete pine tree with this Silflor grass :-) , (after taking most of this gluey stuff away)

I still think that you have not enough rice things or they are to evenly set.

The pad looks great now!

Greets
Claude

hey Jon, actually i found out that Mig doesn't sell its airbrush anymore (no trace on it on the site) so i will keep on with my G-35, I think I just need a bit of practise. on the other hand I think iwatas are not on the same level

hey Alex you are pretty right! What a scruffy base, very dirty reall-y. Ah well, but all of it will be buried under layers of resin, though i certainly intend to make some of the background colour shine through.
The pink colour is an experiment but you're right it doesn't look too good. anyway, the plane is over this place, and then I might repaint the whole before applying the resin.

I can't remember seeing that special work of yours Claude but I will check. Hey did you have a look at a rice field? they're being put by hand by farmers with such regularity that it looks like some stars on a flag

Okay, now after having applying the grass, better paint it. As the original colour was really too clear. Remember that there will be hopefully some lightning effect so that all the left part for the diorama should be left in some sort of shadow. So I painted the base of the grass in some sort of dark brownish green paint and painted the tip of the grass leaves facing the plane in some sort of electric green.
On the first picture you can see the effect I tried to do comparing right side of the picture with the unpainted left side.


But really what I also had to do was to complete the covering of the base of the grass tufts as well as painting the path in a more suitable colour than my vaguely tinted acrylic gel. So the second picture actually shows my mixes between paint, thick acrylic gel and pigments.


Last picture shows the complete path as painted. The rest of the ground looks really scruffy but I will repaint it next