Where were we ? Oh yes, that wall.
Once the wall was finished, I added a rusty rainpipe (8 mm tubing, sprinkled with tile cement, spraypainted, weathered and washed).

Then I started painting the wall. First came faded black letters that should spell something like "...natie" and "... Antwerpen", typical inscriptions for Antwerp port warehouses. You see them on the left top of the pictures, very faint.
Then came the graffiti tags and "pieces". I found some nice examples on the internet, and had a lot of fun painting these. Maybe I should now try my luck on a REAL wall in the Antwerp docks
When the tags were finished, I sprayed a faint black coating over them to give them a worn and weathered look.

When the wall and the concrete were painted, I assembled the elements into a diorama, adding a section of dirt. There are some bushes of grass against the borderstone, made from painted chestnut rusks.


The dirt is made up of plaster. On top there's a layer of tile cement (this is really a magic compound to make dio's !) mixed with shavings of red brick. It gives a "dirty" aspect.


All that was lavishly washed with a white spirit / oil paint mixture in black and browns.

To paint everything except the wash, I used Vallejo and Vallejo Game Color paints
. These come in a range of fabulously vibrant colors. Vallejo is too thick to spraypaint (Vallejo Airbrush is not for sale in Belgium), but I discovered you can easily dissolve Vallejo paint with Instanet, a detergent to clean windows with. Instanet and Vallejo make a wonderful marriage. I use an Evolution airbrush. It took some trial and error to find the right mixture, but 50 to 60 % instanet works best. To mix the paint, I use water bottle caps. I collect them at the office, and you see my supply (blue caps) in the container on the left of the picture. I mix the paint in there, then discard them after use. Using them twice could send fractions of dried paint into the paintbrush, and you know what a spoiler it is to have to stop to dissemble your gun, clean it and oil it before you can go back to the shooting range.


All I needed to do next is throw in the M35 and the dio's almost done. I have some more grasses and leafier plants to add, and I need a few figures to make it complete. I'll work on that after the Market Garden campaign.




That more or less rounds up the story. If you need any more info, plse feel free to PM me.

Jan

Thats impressive work! You could probably pass off that wall as being real. Cant wait to see it finished.

General you are a true artist... Well done, those graffiti look incredible. I remember you were thinking of "tagging" the M35 as well; is that still on?

Mario M.

Well done Jan! That wall looks absolutely fantastic - you'd swear it was the real thing. Thanks for the tips, especially about the tile cement - looks great!

Cheeers,

Cokes.

All i can say is "WOW!"

There is a large chunk of the actual Berlin Wall here in Dallas (at the Anatole Hotel), and your rendition looks "SPOT-ON"... very realistic!

That's a nice wall there :-) nice graffiti

Jan,

impressive work dude !!!! I love the looks of the grafitti ! I had to look a couple of times to get convinced that the first picture wasn't a real wall....

Awesome detailing !

How did you do the rust effect on the rainpipe

Very very good work.It was a pleasure to see that..Congrats Jan

Absolutely brilliant Jan. The wall is amazing! Everything from the graffiti, the drain-pipe, the mortar, the weeds, to the worn appearance all are perfectly made. Im glad you decided to spare the truck from the pens of the vandals. When finished this will look awesome. Great work overall!

8mm plastic tube, with 2 mm wide strips of lead folded around at the rainpipe suspension points. I wet the whole thing and then sprinkled some of my *magic* tile cement to create the crubled rust effect. Then painted a primer (spray can automotive repair primer ) and sprayed a range of rust, reddish brown and orange (Vallejo acrylics) over it. Added some highlights and then gave it all a washing in brown tones. (oil color in white spirit suspension). Then glued the whole thing in place. The wall behind the pipe was sprayed with a hint of black to create a shadow effect. At the suspension points, some washing in rust tones was applied to imitate the effect of rusty rainwater on the bricks.



My Irish friend, vandals are vandals. No matter how good something looks, they hit it with their spray cans. The reason I have not yet done it, is because the truck has no large single surface to spray something on. I consider tagging the cabin side, even including windows. Then add a soldier (or a Belgian civilian Antwerp policeman) and two US MP's assessing the 'damage". But whatever happens, I decided to scratch those soldiers first, and do the truck tagging after that. Maybe this could be some anti-war tag. There were quite a few of those around at the beginning of the Gulf wars. That would make an interesting diorama.
I'll go and find some suitable soldiers this afternoon or in the coming weeks.

This is something I discovered by accident. A few diorama's ago, I needed regular cement, but the bag I kept in the basement was dried up. A box of cement tile was sitting there on a shelf and I decided to try that as an alternative.
Tile cement has a clear advantage over regular cement (for modeling purposes) : it contains elements of glue that are required to keep your tiles against the wall for years. Once it's on, it STAYS on. Cement often starts to crackle from your dio after a few year. Furthermore, the stuff is quite sticky when wet, and it dries quickly.
I recommend you give it a try ! It comes in many colors. I have white and dark grey. Dark colors work best. They already have an almost "natural" color when you apply them. The white version really needs painting, whereas the dark version can be stained with washings, allowing more variation...

Very nice! Do you have more photos of the M35?...possibly posted earlier?

Jan, this graffity doesnt look real, IT IS real. Many congrats on your work, the sharing of your techniques and the idea. I hope when finished i ll see the whole scene.

Hey Jan .... I just noticed the yellow box of the evolution airbrush. I have this under the christams tree .... only one week left to get my hands on it. What are your thoughts on this airbrush ... any tips? Cheers