Hello, I recently finished a couple of builds, one, a dio, right here on Armorama, and another, two trucks for a campaign on Automodeler (Deathrace 2014). As it turned out, I liked the two trucks I built for the campaign so much, that I decided to build a dio to go with them! - and one more truck - and this is the place for dios -

The idea for this dio is somewhat out of my realm - between the sci-fi end of days stuff and Mad Max.

Essentially, a patrol team out on the edge of "the wasteland" camped out at a long abandoned service station -keeping an eye on things!

I'm not a big expert/enthusiast of either genre, but, do enjoy building interesting stuff - and this seems to be an opportunity to do so!

OK - here we go the two trucks from the campaign:



this Ford is a heavy duty kitbash - I kept, but then heavily modified the body from a 1/32 scale snap kit - the rest from scratch, and some extra stuff from the "extras" box - like the mini-gun and .50 cal



the Toyota started life as the Meng kit - but, I figured if it was to be seen with the Ford, it needed to look bigger a bolder - also well armed...



I built truck three a while ago - a bash of an RG-31 and Chevy pickup cab - - I built it just to see if I could - and it sat....until now - perfect for this build! It also received the CROWS and .50 cal....

The service station will reflect one of those found in the American southwest - vintage late 50's early 60's - sweeping architecture - but now suffering heavy decay!



Above is the general concept - the big canopy over the pumps - and ratty old building behind - the canopy above didn't look tall enough - so I've since added some height to it -

And some progress pics:





the iconic sign, and underside of the canopy - missing a few panels - wires dangling...





This is the beginning of the service station - the framing is basswood, clad with evergreen - the basswood is fairly easy to manipulate and control - whereas the evergreen can be weathered to within an inch of its life, so a perfect combo!! you can see panels missing and bent - more walls to go...

finally:



the base is laid out to allow for a driveway, a portion of a building footprint, and some surrounding landscape. The driveway will be colored hydrocal - which I hate doing!! but, the results are usually pretty good!

thanks for having a look!

cheers

Nick

You Nick....are a mad scientist. This is gonna be awesome.
J

This is very cool! You have a great imagination.

Very kool!!! Thanks for sharing -- looking forward to seeing more!

--mike

The man is a genius!! Imagination, skills, mojo..!!!
Wish I were half as good!!!

Thanks for sharing m8!!

Cheers

Romain

Hi Jerry, J, Mike and Romain - thanks for dropping by and the votes of confidence! Thanks!

Yeah, about this build....uhhh, it's a bit out there...but, I feel pretty good about it!

Oh - my internal regulator makes me say this - the name of the project is supposed to be "where do you think you're going?" Not: "your going?" Sorry! Typo by me!

I'm building walls right now - as you saw in the last build, these can go pretty slowly! But, that's ok. Most will be like those shown already, just different details. A key difference between this build and the last is this is comparatively small, and wall framing less complex...but, painting and weathering might become the real challenge for this project.

I will also have a wall or two that I'd like to show having peeling, cracked or heavily chipped plaster - so far I'm thinking of a combo of vallejo Mat Gel and Golden crackle paste over the evergreen - who knows how or if that will fly ??? The problem I think will be getting this coating on thin...? and at least somewhat level....? Fair amount of experimentation I suspect...

Another alternative might be to use rigid insulating foam for those walls?

I've been doing some tests with insulation for the build that was supposed to start before this one! It will have to be next.

Thanks again for checking it out!

Cheers
Nick

!!

Julien

AMAZING keep going cant wait to see it done,the vehicles are excellent.

Can't wait to see how this one winds up!!!!!

Wow! Mad Max on the Left Coast,going to keep my eye on this one,looks good.

Mike

Nick!!!!!!!

You are a machine !!!!

Looking forward to the next update with great anticipation good sir...

Hi - my first set of progress prints -

First tho, Julien, Stephen, Matt, Mike, and Dave, thanks very much for checking in and the support! as you'll find out below, the support is greatly appreciated!!

The next trick will be to pull this dio off!

I've been working away on the walls and base - For what is a comparatively small dio and building, it has a lot of walls! ten so far! you'll see a few of them below:



As you can see above, the basic construction is evergreen and basswood - so far so good. I've built several, and only a couple to go. If I get through the last few, maybe I'll get them primed tomorrow - maybe some update photos too...

Now, on to what became a very nerve wracking part of this build - the concrete driveway.

As I generally don't like working with hydrocal (but have had very good luck with it), I decided to try something new - first, to gain depth, place a cork base down, next coat it with gesso, then a final topping with Acrylic Paste, and paint!....genius!....or not so much...



first step, wash my basswood "form boards" with and alcohol and ink wash - then, fill the spaces between with cork sheet - fine - in fact, I was thinking, "this is looking pretty good...and it's easy to do!"

next, paint on gesso:



lookin good!

and then....Houston - we have a problem:



uhhhh....to say "a problem" would simply be an understatement - we had a disaster. While the depth of the area to be filled with the acrylic paste was pretty shallow - for the life of me, I could not get the acrylic ground to fill uniformly or level!!! it was getting uglier the more I tried to "fix" it...meanwhile, it was setting up -

So, in an act of desperation, I quickly mixed up a thick batch of hydrocal - tinted with some Vallejo Camouflage Grey acrylic - and spent the next couple of hours frantically blending, respreading, messing up, relevelling and so on - no fun at all!

The bottom line was to not stop before it looked at least decent - with acrylic paint, blended with the acrylic paste and hydrocal, the mix turns into something a lot like real concrete!!!; however, it's easier to do flatwork on real concrete!

I finished it and went to bed. The picture above shows how it looked the next day...

The following image is mid-sanding and scraping down the numerous irregularities in height



The only good news is that I added in the paint when I mixed the hydrocal - being integrated color, I could sand and grind as much as I wanted, and the surface color would always remain the same - something positive!

Once I could finally live with the surface, on went several washes of a blend of alcohol and ink - I used a little hand pump spray bottle and a chunky 2" paint brush:







All things considered, this turned out OK - as the dio is intended to show dilapidation, well, this comes pretty close! Sorry about the mediocre workbench photos - but, I think you get the point!

OK - on to better parts of this build!!! I hope!

cheers

Nick

Wow, great job, but you've been lucky!!!

With walls and vehicles the focus will be less on the concrete surface, yet, nevertheless...!!

Situations like that one make you sweat!

Well done Sir!!!

Cheers

Romain

Hi Nick ,

i bow my head again for your skills and talent.

It's looking very promising and those vehicles are fantastic sir.

Continue to entertain us and we will be very grateful.

Cheers

Kurt

It does look pretty good.

I'm wondering if using a premixed joint compound for drywall on the cork would work better than the Acrylic medium?? I'm looking forward to more progress!!!

This looks like it would have been a really cool entry in the Deathrace campaign. Looking forward to seeing how it turns out since the trucks look pretty sharp on their own.

Nick,
Nice work and nice recovery! The concrete work looks very convincing.

So will there be a 'No Skateboarding' sign out front or has the owner just given up at this point? ...

--mike

Hi guys -thanks for having a look! I made some big progress on walls - first tho:

Hi Romain, Yes - very nearly a disaster!!it did add more action than I expected! very close to messing this up but good!

Hi Kurt - thanks for having a look - yes, the last "episode" was indeed "entertaining" haha! hopefully back to the more conventional tedium of slow going, redoing and then redoing it again! but, with less potential for bad results! hahaha

Hi Matt - well, that sounds like a pretty good idea - but, it will need to go into the memory bank for a while, as I don't want to pave anything again anytime too soon!

Hi Mark - yes, the idea of the Deathrace campaign was pretty cool - if you look on that thread, you can see some work in progress pics of the Ford and Toyota - That campaign was a pretty good idea...to follow the rules, by not following a particular kit or other "rules"

Mike- NO BMX'er either!!! thanks for having a look.

OK - here we go - most of the walls are about done, so I taped them together to see what it all looks like together -placed the trucks too - but only for scale:











The pics above a general walk around of most of the front of the scene - it's shaping up - the next steps of priming, painting and weathering should be where the real fun begins - the basic colors will be red and white with grey and yellow accents - but lots and lots of rust and fading...



As this building's front wall will be largely open to view, the interior will also be weathered into severe decrepitude. I realize the wood framing and metal siding...on a service station none-the-less isn't right - but, for the sake of what I'm doing I can live with it - I've done bldgs in all styrene - they look great - but take more time than I want to spend building this (for me anyway, a long, long time!)- As seen above - the siding on the inside will be torn, bent and missing....

the following is the build sequence:



All of the wall framing is done more or less like the above - just different material dimensions as needed. I'm a big fan of using blocks in my framing. While a bit of a drag cutting and placing them all - they are excellent for both stabilizing the wall and for keeping them square!

the finish is all evergreen:





You can see each wall has a bottom and top - that is, shorter sheets of siding on the bottom, and longer on the top. Each panel gets holes - representing countersunk screws etc, a few panels missing here and there, and others curved and bent - done with the help of my little friend, small needle nose pliers!!

Ok - thanked for checking it out - on to the paints!

cheers
NIck

I can only imagine thew amount of stuff piled up around the building to "secure" it as well as make it still look abandoned at the same time!

Those trucks are so awesome they need an awesome base to park on. And you are providing it for sure!
I am lovin this one.
J

Hi Matt, Jerry - thanks for dropping in. As for the direction of this, it probably won't be a base....instead an abandoned place, found along the way. The debris in and around it may well include the likes of an oil/chemical drum or two, but also pieces of the building itself...torn off siding and body panels, debris of unknown origin...just a desolate, abandoned, quiet place, but from where, trouble can be seen in the distance.

Bad choice of words on my part. I meant "base" for the diorama and not "base" to be stationed at.
Sorry.
J

Jerry - whose on "base"? second base? - what?

no worries! - I read your post this AM on the way to work - barely an ounce of coffee in me!

Yes - I get it - tho - sorry!

As for the "base" despite it's, or maybe as a result of it history....I'm hopeful it will include several layers of decrepitude....metal siding, gravel, wires, pieces of board, undefined debris, weeds, etc, etc.....

thanks, Jerry -

Nick