SO NICE !!!!!

Wow - I love dios like this with so much detail that you are just pulled into it eyes first. I'm glad I'm not competing against you, I'd just stay at home sobbing!

Have parked building C for now and moved on to building B while I have some momentum. I basically stopped work on building B about 5 months ago, maybe 6 so its been acummulating spider webs and dust - appropriate for a derelict ruined hotel.

The last thing I did with it was give it a wash of oils. Well 5 months will definitely be enough to let them dry - lol..So I have started by adding a better pinwash, then drybrushing some details, and giving a base dustcoat to settle the colours. Also have started adding some details, and removing some of things that bothered me.

Its unfortunate I guess that I started this blog in the middle of construction so didnt really get a chance to detail how I built these buildings (see page 1 of blog for some in progress shots). No doubt I'll get asked 'how did you make the buildings" again, so let me just say again, when the dio is finished I promise I will do a detailed blog/ tutorial on casting your own buildings.

That said it does'nt just fall together on the first try and I had several attempts to get it right. Even now if I cast another i would do it different as I have thought of better ways to add detail in the cast or methods of joining the pieces or design flaws that could be corrected.

Tonight I thought I would just pop up some before and after pics. The very first building I cast for this diorama over a year ago now, compared to the final version of the same building. The final version ( the one being detailed) is obviously still a work in progress with much much detail to be added, and some issues to be resolved, but I think this makes for some interesting viewing. if nothing more it shows how far a person can come if they stick at it.

grey building is first version - brown is final. note the differences in height (scale corrections made to brown) and design

the balconnies always existed there - the design was borrowed from a verlinden kit and modified alot. but casting the balconnies was fun ... not

another reason i started again - look at how crooked the front wall is.. also a really bad design flaw with a double pier on the wall join

in the back - the first version was a test for incorporating the reinforcing mesh into the casting - this was the highlight back then - now it looks nasty.. Also i did originally plan a stairwell on the left but it did take up a lot of space and the windows/ doors made no sense with a stairwell..

same for above, different view - later designs i incorporated i beam into the concrete based on some reference pics I have.

The new mesh / I beam combination in the current version ( this would be something I change in any subsequent design to building A design)

the old design - first attempt

lastly the front the buildings has received a good review too - now I incorporate the brick detail in the casting, and added a higher facia to the building.

So there ya go folks - just something else to have a look at. i am confident that everyone following this blog is reasonably intimate knowledge of building C, So this is a good way to introduce building B again.

Adam

When I grow up I want to be just like you Adam.
I haven't had the gumption or the you know whats to attempt anything like you have. Good to see your a night owl too.

Cheers, John

PS I think I liked the green felt of the pool table to the DPCU Hootchie

Theres just no pleasing some people.... LOL.

Hutchies are the greatest things ever - two or three make a fantastic throw sheet for painting a room, good trailer cover for rubbish on way to the dump, covering up an ugly trestle table for a party, or even protecting the felt on the pool table.... useless as a shelter for one though..

would you feel better if I changed it for one of my old green ones? hehe.

Adamskiiiiiiiiiii

Adam;
I know you mentioned it before but I cannot locate it in this thread. Where are the "fencing" on the balconies from? CHeers.

I dont know where I put it either... its somewhere... anyways heres the link to ebay item, or ebay search for "1:35 fence".
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/FENCE-WALL-decorative-iron-stone-G-O-1-35-scale-/220635277616?pt=AU_Toys_Hobbies_Model_Kits&hash=item335ee32930

be sure and let the guy know what type of fence you want. The "stone" walls that join them are terrible and are basically toys for a kids farmyard or something inthe sandpit.

Good value though.

Adamskee

cheers.

Man your work is good.... Keep inspiring us!

This is too coll Adam, too cool. My jaw muscles are just about recovered now, lol.

Ski.

hey folks,

time for a very quick update - thought I'd pop couple of shots up of how things are going. Super detailing rubbish and rubble is haarder than normal stuff because it has to look randon, and making things look naturally random is difficult. Anyways heres 2 pix, will post several more later tonight, with explanations as ususal.

Adamskii

Ok so a few more detailed shots.

I spent last few days applying washes, dustcoats, and drybrushing the builing to make it consistant with building C. Also painting a large number of accessories for the building. the difficult part as I said before is making it look random and a mess without it looking too much like something just been put there simply to fill a space. Odd isnt it that we dont like empty spaces on dioramas yet they are all around us in real life?

The building is supposed to be destroyed some time befoe the date the dio depicts, so its nota "fresh" ruin. This is a hard sell. Alot of dust and rubble settles on / in a ruin, and the reference pictures I have show that the whole thing is virtually one dusty colour. and it would look incredibly boring if I just sprayed a heap of Tamiya "Buff" in there to make it dusty. So I guess I am alowing more colour in than there should be but only to make it more interesting. Artistic license I guess you call it. The risk is some personsmight assume the lack of dus equates to a recent ruin rather than an older one.

To try and offer clues to it being older - I have hung photos of Saddam Hussein on the walls and one of the Billboards on the roof is one of his propagander ones, so that the viewer who chooses to challenge on the timeline ( dio is 2006) has some clues that the building was destroyed while he was in power - some 4 years earlier - or sometime since, whenever the fight came to that part of town.

Details

The chair is a plastic piece of rubish i ordered on ebay for like 99cents. It was not in scale and I had to rebuild it with larger cushions and add the feet. It is the one item i will add more dust too - once the building is glued in place I need to add some rubble tothe street, and will add some to the seat of the chair ( and maybe a few other things too).

The wash machine is from verlinen moder homegood set, as with the TV. I wanted the TV suspended in mid air defying gravity while still plugged into the wall - the cable holding from falling over the precipice.

The cupboard with the drawers open was a challenge to grind out so they could be opened. Too often furniture in ruined buildings is shown with closed drawers etc. The floor has many newpapers lying around and other small details like broken bottles and jars.

The Billboards on the roof I am not really happy with and they are not glued onto the roof yet. i need to see the final product to decide if they need to be bigger - I think they may have to be doubled in size, i'm not sure. Also I still need to run some lights and cables to the signs. The roof also needs a broken satellite dish.

So heres some more pics of the back end. It may be difficult to see any change - but the painting has significantly changed its look.

the roof

top floor

ground floor - i wanted this FULL of rubble a building falls down it leaves a big pile of rubble ...

another top floor pic


outside the balconnys got a bit of treatment too - but no real superdetailing yet. Note the sadam poster.

billboard at the front


So there ya go for now, the back end of the building. More work to go - like some window furnishings and adding the broken glass to the floor. I am toying with the idea of having a fired RPG launcher amongst the rubble on the roof or on the balconny - perhaps the reason why someone called in an airstrike on the building in the first place!

Adamskii

Hi Adamskii,

If you want an excuse to change your bill board I can give you one. It depends on which period your after. The Saddam picture probably wouldn't be posted up at the same time as the other picture because its of Muqatada-al Sadr. He is the Cleric in charge of the Mahdi Army or Jaish al-Mahdi (JAM) which didn't come into fruition until after the fall of Saddam. Originally they were like a local civil police force that was raised by the Shia to fill the security shortfall left by the loss of the police force in 2003. Eventually they started militant actions against the Coallition forces after the banning of Sadr's newspaper in 2004. Effectively the US and Iraq Government made him and his followers outlaws so they took mat tters into their ownhands and start using IEDs and IDF to force the US and its followers out. They were our biggest threat to AMTG and OBGW more so than the Batthist and Shi'ite Militias. I got to the point where I was sick of seeing his picture everyday at orders.
So as a result I think pretty much all public pictures of Saddam would have been destroyed by the time al Sadr rose to prominence. I'm getting the impression from the photos that the building was destroyed after 2004.
Just my thoughts and something to give you food for thought as well.

HTH

Cheers, John

By the way I love the TV. It looks so visually interresting and the first thing that caught my eye. My initial responce was "How can a TV be sitting there?" Then I thought correctly as you portrade that it was suspended by its cable. I suppose you thought about trying to crack the screen but its too hard to crack a piece of resin. It looks so real the only thing missing is the rabbit ear antenna, the remote and a can of beer so I can sit down to watch it.

Thanks ! thats all I needed. I will change it as soon as i settle on a new design. I knew that fella was important but be dammed if I can ever remember his name. Saddam is out , and some kind of advertising sign can go in. great sedgway to the next part of the blog..

Signs. (not the movie)

I have collected a serious amount of printed scale material for the middle east, Iraq, North Africa, Afghan, OIF Desert storm etc etc etc and doubt there are any that i dont have. Some are fantastoc such as the Monrow Perdue studios north African set, some are garbage that are 3rd or 4th generations rescans. None have specifically what i am looking for this diorama.

Iraq and middle eastern shops seem to have a specific design size and shape for their shopfronts. of course anything goes but there is certainly a common standard I see in most pictures. It is almost uniquely arabic and certainly one of the defining elements of street design for this diorama. I have put together my own sheets of street signs and advertisements of shops or banners of a political nature. AFTER this diorama is complete I may consider distributing them If can satisfy myself that they are wanted. All the images are bitmaps so can be modified easily. I like to paste them into a word document as the ruler on the side is quite handy for scaling. Both pages are a4 sized.
I print them out on 200gsm card (about the thickness of a good business card) so they hold their shape very well. They are incomplete and have some duplication on them, but you get the idea. I have several more images to add too.




Now the hard bit. I have spent many months late at night researching these signs. I dont read arabic caligraphy so of course it is difficult, but i am learning to recognise some of the words. Apparently there is no P in arabic and they use b or f so in translation to enlish alot of signs appear to have spelling errors but are more literal translations of the natural word.( I hope I got that right). The real issue is there are many versions of this script and depending on the region or country it changes - so Sunni and kurdish signs might say same thing but have different accents, serifs or quofs in different places. Now do I go to the lengths of getting region specific? Not wothout learning the language and i just dont have the time! So i will satidfy myself that as long as the words are "arabic", i will try and use them in the best way.

that said i will of course where possible be assured the translation will be correct - so the grocery sign actually says 'grocery, frsh bread, fresh fruit" etc and the garage sign says "garage". I will use the right words where possible for example I wont have a hairdresser sign on a grocery store...not knowingly anyways.

So the diorama, I have started adding street advertisement signs. Not only do they need to be accurate, but they need to be balanced with colour and shape. this is slow going with lots of dry fitting.

Anyways enough yakkity yakk heres some pic they might explain it all better.







and one of the inside of the shop I forgot to add in the other update


Adamskii

Cool Truly impressive modern building so fare
Congrats
Seb

I think one of the highlights of coming here everyday is seeing what you've put up that day. Seriously amazing work. It both inspires and frustrates me (cause I do not have the time (and funds) to devote myself to that much detail). Adam, thank you for sharing all of this. Looking forward to tomorrow to see what you have done.
Cheers, mate.

Love those billboards Adam, and those low angle shots really intensify the atmosphere. Lovin it, just lovin it!


Cheers, Ski.

Hey adam

Every week im looking forward to see what you have done on your amazing diorama!

Could you tell us how you wheater the billboards? It looks really authentic!y.y

Hey folks,

very difficult week this week. My baby has been sick and demanded 24 hour attention basically, so slow on the updates. What I have done though Is almost finished building C. I am at the point of going around in circles with dry brush highlighting, washes and dust coats. I do have a few minor details to add but am waiting on mail orders to arrive so will park this building within next few days.

Need to glue it down ( and the others ) to the base as every time I move it it is getting damaged - something falling off or whatever.

So here is a very quick pic update, I have more but will post when I get a chance.



The major deficiencies now are the wiring and rubbish. not everything is glued down yet (including the top floor). And I am tossing up weather to do a faded and damaged awning on the awning frame on the roof.

Anyways..

Adamskii

Hi Adam,

Hope the little tacker is feeling better. Nothing more miserable for a whole family than to have an ill little one.

If you have the time I say go for it on the awning. It would add a bit of subdued colour for the roof and create a shadow to draw the eye in. In my observations everyone wants to peek into the shadows to see whats going on. Opps sorry thats just my voyouristic tendancencies coming through.

Your signage looks the part. I wouldn't worry about it too much and there seems to be the right balance. Something that always surprised me from what I remember of As Samwah and Nasiyriah was the lack of graffiti. The buildings always looked clean (if you can call dusty, sandblown buildings clean) but the streets were just overflowing with general rubbish.

Cheers, John

Work in progress update.

Just a few pics to see how building C is improveing. Its difficult to see whats been happening but as i said before I am in the wash, drybrush , dustcoat cycle, and adding more micro details (electrical cabling, rubbish, papers, broken jars/bottles etc).

Still have to add some other stuff once it arrives in the post, but this one is almost at a point of glueing it down.

more updates soon,

Adam




note the scratchbuilt ceiling fan



one of the fluro lights broke off while taking the photos - some things dont like to be touched once set...


Adam

The destruction looks very realistic. Great thread.

Amazing work Adam. Love what you´ve done so far. All those little details might be a royal pain to do, but they are what will make this dio great. You captured the destruction and rubble well as well. Will be following.

Adam -

Unfriggen believable - the level of detail makes me question my own work. Given that you have built molds for the building - any thought about offering them in kits to the rest of us??? Just a thought.

hello and thankyou for your comments.

The buildings are designed and cast by me but the casting process is a single use mould. Unfortunately the mould is destroyed while removing the casting. very difficult to recast something that breaks let me tell you, and the success rate for a batch of castings has risen to about 80% now ( in thebeginning it was about 30%!!) so nearly always have to recast and therefore rebuild the mould for each element.

Now that said, I have considered making proper moulds out of latex or RTV silicone. But I would rather sell a mould to someone to cast their own buildings using their own medium (hydrocal, hydrostone, dental plaster, paris plaster etc etc). Also if they break an element they could recast it, or if they want to engineer a large building they could use many single elements to make a bigger building ( ie add more floors to an apartment etc). Also It would be easier for me to build a master, and pour rubber ! also poting rubber moulds is more appropriate than posting plaster elements.

Anyways just some thoughts for you. The curent moulds are wood. I dont have any plans to "release" a range of buildings. However i did promise after this diorama is complete I would do step by step technique/ build log to making a building using the methods i do , like the ones above. And perhaps In that blog I could offer the drawings/ schematics and parts lists from the hardware store to replicate my devices?? I guess I could do that if it helps.

Thanks again for commenting on my work, much appreciated.

Adam