Hi John ,

i must say this is top class , fantastic model building !

Thank you so much for the lay out and sharing with us.

I admire your work !

And me as a Belgian , a tribute to all the brave Canadian soldiers who fought and died in Belgium during the two world wars.
Merci beaucoup
Kurt

Thank you Kurt,you make this old guy happy to know that you are enjoying it.

Because parts of this Camel kit are essentially already painted I will try to take advantage of this by roughening up the shiny plastic surface to give it more of the texture of wood and also prepare it for the pastels.(pastels will not stick to a shiny surface)I have experimented with different sandpapers etc.. and I have found that a very fine needle file works best for getting in and around the detail.Some fuzzy residue will be left behind but when I wash it down with an abrasive cleanser (Comet)it will be removed.It is a long and tedious job but it will be essential for this experiment to have a chance to work.
If I decide to use acrylics after all the roughened surface will ensure that they stick as well.

It is important throughout a shadow box build to check every once in awhile to see how things look under what will be the principal lighting source.In this case it will be somewhere from above but the final positioning will made only late in the build when the composition is finalized.

There is a certain freedom and responsibility involved when working on a museum piece.The freedom comes in knowing that once it is in the case it will be subject to the best conditions possible and also will be maintained in the future. Therefore the use of some materials such as pastels is a realistic consideration,
knowing they won't be handled a lot in that setting.
Also painting figures is a lot easier when scale distance,lighting and angle of view can be established ,especially in shadowbox work.



The responsibility lies in making sure that only the finest materials are used and that they will stand up to what can be the very polluted atmosphere of an enclosed case.To be on the safe side I have recommended that they allow for some air exchange.
Metal is especially subject to corrosion so I seal it well and try not to use incompatible materials together.

I have had a mixed media HMS Victory in a ventilated case for almost fifteen years now without any problems with corrosion or dust.Also the only material I used that doesn't have long standing durability record is a little super glue on the rigging.(I have since developed an allergy to it so that hasn't been a consideration for awhile now.)

I will put the composition back together now in order to see what parts of the Camel will actually be seen from a shadowbox perspective.There is no sense in building stuff that will never be seen.It did that when I built the Nieuport shadowbox and wasted a lot of time.At the time I was not planning to make it a shadowbox but I have some really nice pics of it from 360 degrees from before it was boxed up,so it wasn't s total loss.

I find it hard not to finish things 360 degrees but have never built a shadow box before. On vehicles I sometimes finish parts of engines and drive trains that will, when finished, never be seen again. Not knocking anyone who does this, just admitting that I am crazy like that!

I am thinking about a major change in the composition and storyline for this shadow box diorama.
I am thinking about eliminating the DR1 completely and concentrating on the Camel .Two large aircraft in such a limited space bothers me especially because this is a shadow box type diorama with very limited viewing angles.Too much up front and the whole back wall would mostly be hidden eliminating the perception of depth that I am trying so hard to achieve.
Instead I would like to concentrate on this scene as being a research area, with wing load testing and wind tunnel experiments going on.
So now it is back to square on the composition.I will move things around a bit and see what I can come up with.
The DR.1 I'll let go for another day somewhere down the line, but at 73 it better not be too far down,I guess.I still have a Peregrine Falcon /Bleriot 11 sculpture to finish and a bunch of "Old West" shadowboxes to complete.
The title "The Contenders " still works but now it is more of a fight for aircraft design between Sopwith and Fokker.Like I said in the beginning nothing is written in stone when I am working and that's the way I like it.Now for a little research on wing loading and wind tunnels.

nother pic