I don't mind the hats, but helmets are hard. Maybe that's why I buy the bald hornet heads? Mostly. I took a minute this mornin to paint over the head of M2...again!

Just the newest base coat. Hopefully I can get it right this time. I did leave his lips and teeth un-retouched. I am very happy with them.

Gotta love the hobby. It usually gives more than it takes.

Hey Dave, what I meant about the wall area that comes up to the roof on the left side. The building extends into the base at an angle and the bottom wall section should go higher to meet the roof and close it up. If it was at the edge of the base, fine, but extending into it is open wall below the roof where the wall comes up to meet it is open. I don't think the floor beams would support the massive weight of the tower corner. Where the tower corners meet and hang over you should put in a very thick wood arch straight across from wall to wall running under the tower s 2 corners. Cut blocks are real heavy so the arch would be needed. Done some stone work with some old Italian guys back in the day, glad I don't any more.Check out some sites on ancient castels and towers and you'll see what I mean. bob

Thanks Bob. I probably should plan things out more before setting out on such adventures. But where's the fun in that?

I should have, I suppose been a bit more careful in setting the scene. My intention or story is that the church is still very much intact and that the rest of it does in fact extend past the border, which I made as an arbitrary choice based on the size of my picture frame.

Carrying that logic forward the damage on the one end would not be sufficient enough to decrease the stability of the roof as the roof and exterior walls out of the view of this base would still be intact and load bearing.

Your point on the bell tower is a good one also and I will probably do something about it..... eventually.

Thanks for your time here, hope to see you back again soon.

Dave

Had a blast at the IPMS Edmonton monthly meeting tonight, so no modelling done thus no official update. I will post a few pictures I some of the other models presented at the club meeting though. I hope I don't need a press release form or anything?

Dave

Hi, we spoke briefly tonight and I didn't realize until now that this was the same diorama. I was close looker guy.

Folks, seen in person this build is great, it's very imposing but there is a ton to see.

I easily believe the dio looks great in the flesh!!! Wouldn't mind seeing it myself!!

Dave, your faces are really something m8!! Biggish eyes can easily be corrected, but I think the complexion was actually OK.

Well done indeed!!! Great show!!!

Cheers

Romain

Thanks Romain but I have already begun the process all over again. Totally stripping the hornet heads paint right off.

Thanks Barry. I appreciate the compliments. We have some really good builders and painters in our club. A number of them were absent last night, but the stuff that was there is high quality. I especially liked the Scnellboot.

I will se you in a month. Take care.

As promised here are a couple photos I took...















For anyone who has not seen one, in 35th scale the schnellboat is HUGE!! Twice as long as the base of my diorama probably. Dwarfs the tanks that are beside it.

Here's a picture I took on the way to bed too...



It's the reason I put the jester sign beside my name here. Given to me almost 30 years ago by a friend. Said it captured me and my personality quite well. Who knew?

Ba de ba de ba de. All for now folks!

Dave

Don't like this two steps forward three steps back kinda last couple days. No real work done today, other then to take almost all the paint off of Mecher2's head one last time. I will get this right this time.





The good news is that I was able to nearly get all the paint off, the bad part is you may notice he has lost part of his model1943 cap's brim. Not to worry though. I found it on the floor and put it in a safe place till I get the face done.

Jerry, I hope it is easier to paint him without his cap, but I hope more that it will look ok when I glue it back on again!

All for now lads and lassies!

Dave

If it doesn't work out you can always replace it with a brim of lead foil. Been there,done that.
J

Don't have any photos of the fiasco that had become the head of Mecher2, but let's just say nothing good came of it.

I HATE painting figures. Maybe I hate not being good at it more, cause it's definitely not fun for me. Not like scratching something out of nothing. That is for sure.

After six attempts and way too much windex, a broken cap brim and finally a slip of the hand and it was over. I was just about to prime it for the 7th time when I dropped it on the floor at my feet. Then, while leaning over to pick it up my drum stool I use as a seat collapsed, and I crushed the head as I fell arse over tea kettle.

Yep. Gone. Todt. Kaput. I almost cried over it. The I primed another head and decided to leave it there on my bench and switch gears for the day today.

I decided to look into the two stained glass windows I plan to out into the church windows.

More on that next...

I always planned to have some stained glass in the windows. Just has no idea how I would do it.

Being that I did not make the windows exactly the same in size and shape I knew it would be difficult to make the pattern fit perfectly, so I decided that a more intricate design would not work, and not just because of the size and shape issues. I mean how do you accurately portray the lead framing between the pieces in 35th scale?

A simpler design I believe is the way to go. And at first I thought that I could just take an image off the web, and print it on some clear sheet which could be sandwiched between a framework of very thin evergreen. It may work but I'm unable to figure out how to scale an image and print it off the right size so I chose the following method.

I began by scavenging some plastic from a vacuformed packaging that contained my new hobby knives.



Put it up to the first window an simply traced around the opening with a sharpie marker.



Then I cut it out a little proud of the line, which was a little proud of the original window opening. You know the old saying about cutting the board three times and it was still too short, well if you start your blanks a little large you can whittle them down to fit right in. Thus is especially helpful in situations like mine where the openings were not standard.

Then I cut out the blank making small adjustments until it fit into the opening as best as I could make it. Then I covered it with tape...



And drew a rough pattern on it, trying a couple different looks till I was relatively happy with the look. Keeping in mind that the simpler the better is my thought.





Then I scribed lightly with my brand new knife over the tape, just leaving a faint but distinct line to give some relief for the panels on the stained glass.









So far so good...

Also did some work in the back of the church to see if I could give some more life to the dreary plastic wood of the inner wall sections. Not sure how it looks yet as the light is quite poor in my dungeon. I will post some pic Sunday if it looks ok, if it doesn't I will cry some more.

Bought some more pigments at an art supply store too. Lots of colours, lots of volume for the same price as the small bottles of Vallejo pigments from the hobby stores here in the capital city. May have to go there more often.

Dave

Hey Dave - sorry to hear about your smashed mechanic...that's a drag...but, I'm sorry to say I can empathize - btw - your figures (those not smashed that is!) usually look pretty good - the "old" guy maybe even great!

I like your leaded glass - neat trick!

Take care
Nick

Thanks Nick. Fortunately it was just his head and not the torso too. It's just faces I really struggle to get right. It may be my perfectionist gene rearing it's ugly head during the process. Nevertheless he will be Completed!

Dave

Well I think my experiment will work, although I think I will have to spray the color on the window, and not brush it which will take a lot if masking. However I think the result will be better overall.

The brushing didn't give the right texture and left lots of areas of "goopiness" which I don't think looks very realistic.

I may also have to scar the surface of the windows to give a bit more of an opaque look which may also hide the fact that they are painted.





I will ponder this over the sermon today at church and see what becomes of it.

Later bouys...

Dave

Nothing like divine inspiration to set things moving!
J

Word brother!

A couple of shots to show they are a bit weak looking. How many times did Thomas Edison try to build a lightbulb?





This one I "frosted the window first by sanding it. It not as bad as the first one...




All for now

Dave

A couple more with a little more color. I am probably going to try a thicker piece of clear sheet and definitely frost both sides. I tried painting both sides and think that's the way to go too.





Will see what the afternoon brings.

Dave.

With her blessing I cut up one of my wife's tupperware type containers because I needed thicker stained glass panels, and none of the hobby shops in town are open on the Lord's Day.

It was opaque, but I scuffed it up anyway.

Just getting the panels outlined and defined.

Pictures to follow.

Dave

Ok Dave....in the spirit of experimentation....at work, we often color the backside of trace paper (the opposite side of the drawing) We do this because the colors blend, you can't clearly see irregularities in color (markers can pool ink) , and the line work on the "front" side doesn't get blurred -

How about this: 1) draw your leaded glass pattern (with a fine tip, permanent black in pen) on a piece of trace (held over your window): 2) color the back side of the trace with a colored marker: 3) spray mount the front side of the sketch to the back side of the glass - be careful - spray glue ( 3M) isn't all that forgiving) - only a quick overspray!!!! Not too much!! - maybe you know another adhesive? The 3M isn't 100% transparent, so I'm (optimistically?!??) guessing the glue residue could add to the appearance of the texture of stained glass(?) under it...

By doing this , the crisp black lines will read like lead, the colors will be a bit subdued, and finally, the plastic window will remain in tact and what's behind it will show through.

Another example of this could be painting taillights on AfVs ( clear plastic) - I paint the bottom, or inside (?) red, and leave the top/outside clear - the red shines right through and never looks "muddy"...

Final step would be to paint a highly diluted wash of acrylic dust over the glass (I use life color dust, (not dulcoat - not transparent enough) but any diluted light beige color would work) to knock back the shine of the glass. Maybe a clear acrylic spray over the outside of the "glass" before the wash to give the glass some "bite" for the dust wash....see, easy as that!

Ahhh, the fun of scratch building!

Yes...I've hit my coffee limit for today!

Cheers
Nick

Nick. Light bulb! You know as soon as I started reading this, I thought of when I was younger and my day was building some architectural models that he occasionally used Parchment paper for exactly that purpose as it had some opacity built into the makeup of the paper.

I may try it too. One thing in obviously not afraid to do is to try different things to see what's best.

Thanks for the reminder of days gone by

Dave.

Of course I meant my Dad, not my day...

So the second generation stained glass windows in all their glory...



Quite a bit thicker...









And...



All done before Nick suggested the tracing paper idea and while I may still do it that way, I will make these ones to the best of my abilities before I try the other method.

All for now, need to try painting them. I'm going to look for my felt markers as they may work better than the transparent paints.

Dave

Tried these on my spare window and love the effect. Can't wait till they are completed and the "lead" is added.