Adam this thing is just getting more and more wild.
I bloody LOVE it, it's making me very pumped to start my own modern aussie project. Keep the updates coming, hammer on with the progress, this is just sick

Sorry gotta go again, look at those plaster bags, the detail... bloody hell....your mental, i love it!

lol, I am glad you are enjoying it. be sure to say hi if I make it to the Melbourne expo in June!

Adam

I love those bags of cement - very nicely done!

Done, better be finished by then!

Hi Adam,

I emailed them and Mike who has the the company was very good at giving me info on shipping.He told me he has a very small operation and his website is not very up to date.
The shipping on the site is not not correct.I've ordered the kits I want and we'll see what the shipping is.

Thanks for your response.

Tom

Detail in everything is exceptional. Can't wait (after all the paint drys) for the final product.....excellent

Adam, jaw dropping, ass smackin, just beautiful beautiful workmanship...!!! I certainly have to build a diorama like yours some time.

BTW,what printer are you using???????????????? Those print outs seem really High-Res.

I am certain your diorama is going to be featured in a Magazine!!!





Thanks Damon, but Adam sure don't need to team up with me or anyone else.. His work and craftmanship can sure stand on it's own!

Hi, its a Cannon "pixma" inkjet model MG6150, it scans at 4800 x 4800 dpi, and prints out to maximum of up to 9600dpi x 2400. so quite a good resolution, but thats not exclusively why I bought it - it has wireless networking so didng have to have it next to a pc or router. Also it has 6 separate ink tanks fo colour quality ( it has a grey ink - plus 2 grades of black inks).

as for garage kit stuff - I'm too lazy. and a bit of a clown. no one would put up with me!

Adam

Great Stuff Adam!! I haven't been looking at your build whilst I ve been at university and I've really missed a lot! The plaster bags look very real.

For the empty bags, do you think the decals would stick to polythene or some sort of soft plastic bag so you could compress the bags or have them open? I hope this makes sense.

Looking forward to your next update

Anirudh

adam that is awsome keep it up

Adam, What you are doing is fantastic for me. The idea is very well designed.
Love the TOYOTA especially the color of it. Your building are perfect. Nothing to say to you interior work. STUNNING.

Thank you for explaining how to make our own decal. I was searching it on my old project but can not find a good reference. But now i have it. Thanks tons.

Volkan

How about cling film?

Nige

Adam,

Just as I thought"how much more detail can you come with?"you did those cement bags.Every manufacturer should be knocking at your door with offers.
I got a message from Monroe today and he say's the shipping was a way out.The 4 or 5 sets I ordered would actually only cost about $.50 a piece.So anyone out there that may be put off by the shipping cost,don't worry.If you pay with PayPal he will send the rufund back to what you are billed.
When you finally finish this Adam I think alot of us will be dissapionted not to have it to follow.

Tom

Adam:

This is such fantastic work. When and where can I pre-order the book???

Happy Modelling, -zon

Thankyou very much for the kind comments gentlemen. Its very tempting to think my workrate is at a satisfactory level when I get such positive feedback.

However it is when I get criticism I strive to "lift" and overcome the issue (for example the simple comment someone made about figures...). Criticism makes me work harder to avoid it in the future - to create something that is difficult to fault. So please even if you are impressed, I emplore anyone who thinks somethigs not quite right, or doesnt make sense, please ask me to explain why I have made the decsions I did. I have missed several things and its thanks to observant people on here who have pointed it out, that I wont go to a competition with the faults not being addressed.

So I really appreciate the positive feedback. Lets me know I am doing something right. But lets balance it a bit with some criticism - make me lift the standard higher. Until I have been challenged I dont know what I am capable of.

that said, the cement bags. I am suprised at how much feedback they have garnered. These are some of the simplest of details built so far, the decals of course make them look realistic, but they were no great effort to make. It just goes to show the simple things can often get the most attention and have highest impact. A great lesson for anyone doing dioramas.

As for not having something to follow... well as we often joke at work "there is no off position on the genius switch", and I am always thinking of the next diorama. So at the risk of derailing this Blog, An idea I have been working on. But first an observation - My dioramas suffer from a serious design flaw - boring/ no action. The super detailing is just a massive over compensation for a lack of story and action. I have a real problem grasping the "story" component in some IPMS competition rules. I would argue a diorama is a 3d photograph, and tells no more story than a photo might tell. That aside, this diorama's sory of Australians on patrol in Iraq is as much a tribute diorama as it is a story so I'm not too fussed, but it does niggle at me.
So the next diorama will be a total departure from "passive" to "active". I am working on another street scene - Fallujah. A US vehicle disabled by IED with the crew fighting insurgent ambush from the surrounding buildings, several wounded US soldiers ducking for cover and giving return fire to the surrounding buildings. The buildings all destroyed hulks much like the ones done here, has insurgents with RPG's and aks, delivering a withering storm of fire upon the hapless vehicle, the insurgents hiding in dorrways and rooftops and balconys, some dead or wounded. The street would be a cross section so the diorama would have a building left and right and the street up the middle going front t back so a very short length of street, but very wide with the two buildings facing each other left and right. SO thats something I am toying with - an opportunity to do a US vehicle - maybe an AAVP7A1 with ugws and heaps of soldiers - lots of good shooting figures out these days, lots of accesories. Lots of good fighting insurgent figures to use, and best of all not a single civillian figure needed!. anyways. I have done some sketches and whatever but a good diorama takes me a few years to build with usually a year of design beforfe anything starts, and definitely a year or two of accumulating the items I need so dont expect much soon. After this current dio I will need a break ! Also I want to do Australians in Afghan diorama - but this will be a landscape diorama and I much rather do landscapes than cityscapes. If the Aussie Bushmaster ever gets released A pair of them with an Aslav crossing a creek with lots good details - I have this goat hearder idea I'm working on..

Adam

Adam is suberb!Just speechless of the numerous detailed parts and craftsmanship....Awsome.
Just one question.Which inject printer do you use for your custom decals?Are you satisfied with the result?
Cheers,
Zisis

As posted on previous page ...




I am very satisfied with the results of the printer. thanks for the comments,

Adam

Hiya Adam,

A comment for your mortor bags, maybe use paper, as in a few sheets together to simulate the actual mortor bags and cut to size. Most mortor or Sacrete bags are up to three layers and you could easily lay the decal on top of that, flat. Then crumple and wrinkle as you see fit. That's what I would try if nothing else works for you.

As for the US postage fees, well every business is cashing in on the cost of fuel and charging way more than what it truely cost for shipping. The USPS does have flat fee box rates, but most companies don't use them. Even when the oil prices dropped the last time, the shipping stayed the same and now it is goin up again. Simple scam they can get away with, as usual. Nothing new under the sun except the fine work you're doing on this dio. Keep er rollin Bro.


Cheers, Ski.

"Snacks"-Accurate Armor

http://www.accurate-armour.com/ShowProduct.cfm?manufacturer=0&category=4&subcategory=33&product=2216


Just saw this on another web site-thought you may like these-I am going to pick up a set for my Iraq dio. Love this kind of stuff for dioramas; adds that little touch of "realness"

-Felix

Hey Adam, Been following this from the begining and to put it mildly, it is some of the best work I have seen dio wise. The first thing that caught my eye was the scaffolding. Fantastic, something you will not see often. And the rest is just so filling with real life goodies you just can't keep your eyes still. One thing I have not seen yet is a mixer or the old type rectangler tub for mixing the cement with a hoe for mixing. Maybe you just did'nt get that far yet? And your bags of cement and sand are great. Anyway, outstanding work to say the least.

Hi Dioman,

I have progressed with the mixer, but its not ready just yet - have to add the weathering for the plaster/ cement mix. There needs to be off white splashes added to the drum outer and the mixer frame - then the ground around the mixer etc etc, followed by the same splashes on the scaffolding frames and few others here and there. I am not quite ready with all the other things just yet so have parked that one for now. But heres some photos of where its at.



What i have been working on when I get a minuite of free time is figures.

I HATE PAINTING FIGURES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry had to get that out there. I just cant do it proper. My figures always let me down and in this case where I Have struggled to find enough civialian figures suitable for middle east dio, I have had to accept in some cases sub par quality with the figures. As I paint them I am finding flaws in the flaces that I didnt see before. I always maintained that when painting it would weed out a few of the figures as they dont all work. The head count for civilians is at 24 at the moment and I have painted roughly half of them to only basic standard. I have not weathered the clothes or added shadow/ highlight and I have not detailed the clothes with logos or zips or that stuff yet.

In order to try and raise the bar some I asked someone I knew who paints the warhammer type lead/tin figures. The little fantasy ones. His fleshtones are just awesome and when you have some half naked high priestess chick with flesh showing everywhere- you better get painting flesh right! SO I gave hime so 1:35 heads from the spares box, he spent a few weeks nutting them out and gave em a paint job. Then I went over to his house and spend a few hours being "coached" in his methods of face painting figures. He uses Acrylic folk art paints almost exclusively and the photos I took just dont do them justice. Very subtle layers of washes are used with blending. difficult technique to describe, but I am seeing an improvement with some of my faces. I always graded myself a 5 out of 10 for figures beforfe so even a 1 or 2 point improvement is valuable to me.

Heres his layout (CHeers for the help Derek!) - note the acrylics in the box on the right, and all the "works in progress" at the back of the desk

Works in progress

Heres the heads he painted for me - The best part is I now have these at home for reference/benchmarking when I do my own. So if mine up to this standard as a minimum I know I have to start it again.


And here are my efforts so far. the pic is somewhat vague with the faces at this stage - some are still works in progress, and as previously stated , all have detailing and lighting effect work to do on the clothes/headgear.


Thats roughly half the figures painted in a weekend - hopefully I get them all finished within a week. The figures wont be WOW factor ones, but I hope the other elements in the dio make up for it. At least they dont have webbing and camouflage patterns to do so they are reasonable effortless in that respect! The only other thing I forgot to add was that I had o experiment with fleshtone as Arab/Iraq skin is not the pinky western colour - It s close but sun hardened skin accompanied with genetic dispositin means a generally darker tone. So instead of basecoating with fleshtone, I used a hazelnut colour. I am happy with the skintone colour.

thats a weekend update !

Adamskii

Maybe I should have asked if you had a mixer, should of known better with the quality of your work. Is that a kit or scratch. No matter, it looks used and abused, fits right in. Nice job.

So you want some critisicm huh. Okay, for starters your garage floor needs a sweep, your Abrams is too small and in out of date markings and you drive what looks like a Magna plus your a Sandgropper. Enough critisicm for you.

Oh you were talking about your diorama. I apologise. Disregard what I said above.

As for your dio, I've said it before and others have reiterated, top notch workmanship. Really. The only thing I can do is suggest things like be prepared to make a fair bit of rubbish. Plastic bottles and plastic bags were the dominant type followed by paper, in particular pamphlets like our how to vote ones. Also the other feature of all the streets I went along was the presence of water in the drains and gutters. It didn't rain but the "water" was always running down the street.

I've attached a couple of photos of two shops and some houses in As Sammwah for reference if you like. The generator is a normal thing for most places so it wouldn't be out of place in Baghdad either. I saw similar things in Nasiriah as well. The extension you did to the street lights is good because as you'll see they are very tall. Another suggestion would be some kind of bunting between buildings as well as your intended elctrical cable chaos. The bunting we saw used to be made up of Iraqi flags and the flags of the Martyers ie the black, green and red on bamboo or reed poles. These were very prevelant in front of the small stores. This would possibly help fill the void caused by the hight of the buildings. Any way just some thougts.

Cheers, John

@ Dioman, Its the "barrel mixer" from plus models. it came with wheelbarrow and some other goodies. There are about 20 pictures on the previous pages showing it in its unpainted form.




@ Jashby. Firstly mental note - read all your post before "doing " things. I spent 10 minuites looking at the floor of the garage on the diorama wondering how you could mean for it to be swept.. then spent 10 minuites wondering what abrams you talking about, then I read the bit about the "magna" and it all became clear. Thats when i almost choked on my lunch and fell off my chair laughing. Your a clown. So allow me to retort.
Its an Astra not a magna. Its a 1:9 scale abrams rc tank (only 4 imported to Australia and I got 1! ), and the floor needs sawdust on it for when I get kicked out of the house for spending too much time on the diorama. And i am reasonably sure West Aussies are sandgropers, We here in SA are croweaters, but i wouldnt expect a Bannana bender to know that. ..

the rubbish. I have stated all along will put much rubbish in the street. I am a but nervous about the accurate armour offering as I bought their street refuse set and I think most of it is quite overscale. Chip packets are small and I have already seen 1 review saying their quite big. ALso it looks like they have changed the names - a snickers bar actually reads "sniggers" or so it looks to me. maybe I will get it but I am confident that the newspapers and other things I have will be enough. I am not 100% certain on your bunting proposal. I think i know what you are talking about. I am going to be hanging some soiled and torn Iraq flags form the buildings, and If I could print onto tissue paper i would make the banners that stretch between buildings. I have no practical way to do that other than stencil and I am not sure it can be done. Who knows. Its something I have been wondering about for a while, and the electrical cables will fill mcuh of the voids between buildings I am sure. I did see a bunding between buildings with little triangular flags on them, I did think that was possible. Nice pics by the way - where were they 6 months ago ? lol very useful indeed.

@ felix - see above paragraph referencing the accurate armour rubbish. Thanks for the tip.

Adamskii