Hairspray and salt techniques. Great visuals and great results.
It's getting close.

Dang Jean this Rocks.
Great dang work here.
Go get a tall cold one. be it beer, wine or milk.

Hey JBA !
VERY NICE progress on the vignette !!!!! KUDOS , my friend ! Took your advice (and your wire-frame idea ) and started on my own scratchbuilt bird. However, I decided to give myself a challenge and made a pelican instead ! I'm in the process of finishing up the head and lower limbs. Perhaps this weekend I'll take an in-progress photo of the vignette setup and post it here ? Cheers and thanks for the inspiration, Jean !
Kenneth .

Looking fabulous already JB. The dark rusty bits of the boat and the white of the birds will contrast nicely with each .... and I suppose be framed by formed water. Always worthwhile looking in to see the latest updates!

Absolutely stunning and so much to take in on techniques. I could see these effects being just the thing for an abandoned truck or car.

You have the nack of making a small section of something much larger look so intricet and detailed.

Fantastic

Nige

thanks Adisak - I love your own SBS

Sooner than you think Scott

thanks Jeff, no alcohol for me anymore since I model as I can't see my brushes after one single beer argh!!

Thanks Juan, yep out of the typical you said it !

Kenneth friend then I'll wait for the week-end

Thanks Franck, yep the rust is dark for contrast -but as much with the sand and sea at will be for the birds. Yesterday I saw a few images of the Japanese Ivo Jima movie from Eastwood and I noticed how he used desaturated colours.
that's the point here, I dropped the strong blue and yellow hues that i usually use for something more laidback but yet that could shine as much. there is a great quantity of grey in my mixes.

Thanks for this Nige. Ah well, I love big boats, one day I will make a Yamato diorama on a 20x10 cm base
The trick is to find the right hotspot for the boat. Here I reckon it could be probably any boat as there is so few left from the original.

On with the beach..
here I am tainting the plaster with acrylics

let's position every element on the plaster -argh, let's be careful as the first position must be the last as otherwise the plaster will stick on the boat!


okay, phew, let's trim the plaster in the best possible way

Hello JBA, Great job on the cabin roof with the flakey rust

Really enjoy watching you work your magic.

Randy

Thank You Randy, much appreciated

Plaster is great.
no really it is. Here I can airbrush the plaster with harsh diluted colours and it won't stain too much the boat when I accidentally spray on it..
I built layers of yellow/grey tints under the cabin and everywhere the sun doesn't shine of the diorama.

well, then it doesn't look much like a beach so let's soak the plaster with water which will allow me to "draw" some waves on the sand with another coat of plaster.
those were drawn with an acrylic brush -the orange ones which are stronger and more suitable for the job. It's quite hard to get a decent job still -especially at the place where the metal meets the sand.

and here is the result

Time to paint all over again

Hi JBA !
Very Nice progress on the vignette, I like it alot !!!!! Now I can finally imagine how the seagulls will be "interacting" with the wreckage . The seaman, though, is still a mystery to me . I'm really keen to know how it will be finally used. The pelican is done; now on to the seagulls . I'll try to get the initial photos taken and posted this weekend, my friend. Cheers !
Kenneth .

Hi Jean

This is really taking shape and I can see that this is more a sand scape than a land scape, tee hee !!!

Having just come from the beach at Lossiemouth on my hols the only thing I would have said is the likely hood for some water filled sink holes to form around the wreck if the tide has washed in and out.

The water gets swirled about on the solid objects and draws the sand into and out of the sink holes.

I would love to do some dragons teeth defences on a beach with a bunker sometime and can see how you have worked your magic on this one.

Loving this

Nige

Wonderful. I love finding old wrecks on the beach. Like Kenneth though I am wondering about the sailor?

Thanks Kenneth friend. I reckon the balance will be pretty weird on that diorama, but from the dry fitting I have been doing it should work okay! Good luck with the birds

Thanks Nige! Now can you really imagine I didn't actually *think* of the fact the sand making some kind of holes near the places where the sea will throws itself against the steel? You can't see it much because I took my pics from above, but there is something like 5-7mm of hollow between the cabin and the place with the anchor thing. I already arranged a kind of small whirlpool -ah well you'll see that!
Actually most of the plaster was put into shape using my fingers dipped in water.

thank you Pat! really the sailor will stand on the holed plate

What you can see here is the second layer of resin already as the first was used as a sealant -indeed I didn't trust that much my plastic box!

It's use is to present a sort of flat surface so that after I can model some waves on the top of it,
here is the plastic shape above which i will sculpt some waves...


... out of plaster

JBA, my friend ,
"Way Cool" !!!! I really like the way that you are able to use plaster and resin to "create" water effects . Not many can do that effectively. Kudos ! Thanks for the best wishes on the birds, Jean; making the "round" sillouette of the seagull's head is harder than I thought . Sculpting the pelican was easier ! But, no worries, I got one done already and am working to finish the second. I'll definitely post some pics here this weekend ("life" got in the way last weekend ). Looking forward to the next steps, my friend. Cheers !
Kenneth .

This project just keeps getting better every time I drop by your thread. Keep up the great work my good man.

hey Kenneth friend, the smaller, the more difficult for birds.
I actually started painting the seagulls and had to re-sand them because there were still some kind of angles here and there -the body must be really smooth and with round shapes, and it's ultra hard to get it right. But then you are not in a hurry right?

thank you Jeremy -that one will be finished soon now..

So after having been doing this plaster sea I did a silicon form around it and pour in some lightly coloured resin.. here I am unmolding it


(looks like i am going a bit fast here..)
Let's try to fix those waves on the base. i had to trim the waves on the underside near the pierced metal plate because those were too high so I pinned that area down while "painting" the surface with more resin


here are now some acrylic gel to do the waves as well as some first post shading of the waves -as you can see there is stronger colour near the metal..


So well, it looks like I am almost finished except for one or two extra layer of resin to smooth down the waves, repainting of parts touched by plaster etc.
Still a bit of time before completion will be needed, essentially because i found out it takes me 1 hour + to paint one single seagull, 1 and the half hour + when the wings are opened. sheesh..

Those waves and the beautiful contrasts of the blue sea, the sand and the rusty wreck are fantastic.

Stunning

Nige

Hey JBA !
No, thankfully, I'm in no great rush to finish the vignette ! Thanks for the tips, my friend; I really appreciate them . Managed to finally complete 1 seagull to my satisfaction last night . Man, sculpting birds can be very addictive . I'll start on the 2nd seagull tonight (decided to trash the 1st one that I did-too "funny-looking") and hopefully get it done before the weekend. Love your progress updates, my friend; the colours look about just "right". Will you be adding the "water jet spray" effect as suggested by JC ? I hope so because I'd like to see how it turns out . Until your next post, Jean, cheers !
Kenneth .

wow i've spotted this one late jba superb work as usual i'll be dropping in more often now i've sorted out my pc

hey Juan, now that's some suggestion indeed! But I mostly won't do that. You see the hull is shaped in a gentle slope and the pierced metal sheet is there so that the sailors wouldn't have slip too easily in the water. So the water would not rush through those holes like it would if there was simply emptiness below. yet I think I should probably add more water and maybe tiny waves on that plate.
I am not too sure about anything I should add right now, for the main reason that all the focus will be on the birds and the sailor, and I don't want anything else to steal the show you see -the most minimal will stay the best -at least that's the point where I am just right now.

Thanks Nige as always

Well Kenneth friend, that's one of my sentences when it comes to diorama making you know "You can't model the fire, you can't model the spray, you can't model the smoke, you can't model the smell", so now I would only add some sort of acrylic gel splashes which is the only thing I could use.
I know of some people in ship modeling that are modelling spray using some stuff that you put in washing machines to clean them which is apparently very fine, but no matter how fine it is you would still be able to see fibres.
And good luck for your birds!!

hey Paul thanks but that one is almost finished already!!

Speaking of which here are some mostly done birds, as you can see a little bit of paint would be needed here and there for those to be okay

They were all painted using a mix of inks, acrylics and oil paints! I managed to shorten the time spent in painting one to roughly 1 hour, but I still have 10mn to give to each right now

it is the way and the step most many tops , thank you very much I love this works very much.

adisak.

Your skill in painting is quite inspriring. The replication of the sand is awesome.

Another great diorama! I really like the form of the water