Ok so my wife says I'm driven, whatever that means?!*

I had to at least see what some trees would look like back in this corner so I drilled out five spots and placed these suckers in to spend the night. I will take a good look at them tomorrow and see what I think.

Comments are as always welcome from the peanut gallery, no offence meant to be given. Hopefully nine taken ;-)

Dave.












I would definitely leave the trees shorter than the holy wall section for sure.

Just a quick update for today. Put some ivy around the front entrance. It is a product called poison ivy from the Army Painter Battlefields line made mostly for Warhammer Games I believe. Bought it locally in a place called Games Workshop. Not bad for scale I think.

When the adhesive dries I will spray done more transparent yellow and orange over it again as I wiped a lot of it away when I glued it on.









I also put some pigments on the exterior of the church.

All for now. iPhone battery almost dead. Need to put it on a charger.

Dave

Hi Dave,

Painting is great and terrain is not bad either, but you must be careful about those barrels. If you put them alongside the wall as shown, the Panther would be hard pressed to find his way in. Attention also to the rubble outside the compound.....if the cat broke through, the debris would be inside as well!!!

I must say I'm not impressed by the "ivy", does not really look the part!

While I like the artistic effect of these strange "trees", they are not to be too high, as they are not too realistic.

The "Christmas tree" is a commercial railroad item and it looks a bit like put there to fill a gap.

Enough comments....I congratulate you ...and get me coat!!

Well done Sir!

Cheers

Romain

I actually saw trees that look pretty much exactly like this yesterday while waiting for my car. Go figure. At first glance I thought they looked fake but now I see that they mirror reality. Good job!!
The building is still the strongest part of your work here I think. Very very nice in concept,execution and weathering/colors.
Turning into an epic effort by a "driven" man.
J

Thanks Romain. The barrels were out front just long enough to get a few pictures. They are glued down I. A few of them are staked now between the Sturm and the wall.

I see this type of tree all the time in neighbourhoods here in Alberta. New developers use them as boulevard trees because they grow close to theirs in trunk and straight up to about twenty feet max.

I think the ivy will be okay once I complete it. I will have to repaint it like I mentioned, and will add a little more above the entrance.

Thanks Jerry. I am bent on getting on to the next project, or at least finish this one so it doesn't drag another year cause once spring comes the golf course takes all my spare time too. And our daughter will be four now and she loves spending time with her Daddy.

I appreciate all the comments though. Keep em coming as I learn and grow.

Dave

Hey Romain. Here is the house right across my street from me. The side and back yard. I think he was wondering why I took these. I may have to explain later.




Just so you can compare. These are at least 25 five feet high and pretty thick at the top.


Dave

Here are a few more trees from the lot at my local Safeway.

Hi Dave,

I believe you, that's not the problem. The difference between the real trees and yours on the dio is the number/volume of smaller twigs spreading from the bigger and longer bits.
Would you have that number, I wouldn't even have to mention it!

It doesn't change anything on the overall quality of your dio!!

Cheers

Romain

Romain I Gotcha. I know what you mean now. Logically your argument is sound, and while you say it doesn't make a difference one way or another, I think the very fact that we are bouncing our ideas and opinions back and forth means that it does matter. At least in a small way.

As artists and craftsmen we are using our knowledge and skills to tell a story with our dioramas. Our stories successes or failures are measured by our ability to make those who see our dio's as believable. Just like good fiction it is subjective to each reader. Our job is to make the whole body of work, the sum of all the chapters we write on our styrofoam and plaster pages add up to a good or great read.

That said, and while I really enjoy trying to depict awesomeness in everything I build, I think I will use some " literary lisence" with the foliage and hope the other elements bring the overall story together in an awesome display of my limited writing skills.

Dave

Here's the daily update. Managed to glue down the trees on the back edge of the scene. Added a few up on the front wall area on the left. Tried to get the ivy looking a bit more "realistic".




Put some more pastels or pigments in the walls and groundwork.






Began to paint up some Jerry Cans and some other stuff to add to the Sturm area and contemplated the remainder of the soldaten fur zu Panzers ja...

Ich sprech kliene Deutsch? Nein!

All for now...

Trying out a couple of heads, you know what they say. Two heads are better then one. I say I'm not 100% sure which one I like better...?







Leaning towards the guy with the cap though.

Hi Dave - I'm with you on using hat guy!

Laughing guy....I do believe the mechanic would give him a quick smack with a long closed end wrench!

Keep going!
Cheers
Nick

Thanks Nick. My thought too. A spanner to the chops would be the appropriate reward for his jocularity.

I am bound and determined to complete this build by opening day at my golf course so I will be plugging away every chance I get. Another pretty decent night of work this evening and a couple major decisions made that I think will only make the whole piece seem more believable.

Stay tuned...

Dave

Hey there, i've been checking in on this project for a while now and man oh man did you do work on this one, all the scratch building looks great in my opinion, im still struggling to make decent single figure dio's, so seeing stuff like this blows me away, great work all in all, I realy like the sturm tiger as well, its probably one of my favorite WW II vehicles

Thanks Jonas. I think the Sturmtiger's a cool looking machine as well. My figure making and panting skills are not my best tool in my toolbox but I am adapting and improving with each one I make. That's all it is. Practice practice practice.

Dave

Decided to swap out the big tree that I butchered trying to work too quickly before the model expo back in 2012. Liked the scale but definitely not a well made tree.

Not sold on this new one, from the wicker box but more realistic I think.

The old tree...



The new one, maybe...

Also started to fabricate the two air filters that would reside above the carburetors in the engine bay...

The tree revisited part 2....









Dave


X8-)

You are really adding some nice new details.
J

Thanks again Jerry. Looked at your building update last night. The slope of the roof is insanely steep, would it even need gutters? Oh yeah and the base is well done too :-)

Dave

Yep,it had gutters. Still working on the base. It needs the bottom blocks of stone for the upright posts to sit on,etc. Of course,some more paint is in order. Thanks for the comments.
J

I had noticed it seemed to be sitting proud of the base. The baa looks good though. Do you drill and insert posts in everything, including your figures when you mount stuff on the bases or do you just use epoxy or CA or a similar product? Just curious.

One more for the road.

The right hand group of trees surely represent Poplars? Very close anyway. Is it the angle of the camera lens or something but they seem to be all leaning towards the camera? Otherwise they make a nice representation of a Poplar "hedge".
And yes,I do put brass posts in the bottom of most of my figgies. I learned that lesson the hard way.
J

Jerry. I think it's just the angle and not the trees but I will look again when I get back to building. Mom & Dad had a date night with our 3 year old at the WEM Waterpark last night and just finished watching " Mr. Gru " for about the fiftieth time this year already.

It's her favourite movie this month. Three year olds!

Planning on spending most of the day in the mancave today. Copious amounts of coffee and my optivisor and hopefully I will get a bi production day in.

Later skaters.