Tim Martin shares with us his idea of modelling and getting just the photograph he is after.

Link to Item

If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

Amazing work and photography. Thanks for taking the time to share it with us.

these pictures look very realistic, as if they're the real deal. i almost forgot that they are just model builds. may i ask, how are the explosions made in some of the pictures? because that's what makes you think they are real.

Awesome Work. Some of those Pictures really looks like the real deal. It sort of takes me back to the good old days, When Verlinden published those dioramas in Black and White with a back ground Picture.
Jacob

the diorama special are 5/5.

Works for me. Some of the scenes are almost indistinguishable from the real thing.

Amazing shots - I esp like the ones set in the railway station itself. Did you look into whether any companies manufacture Soviet WW II railway cars?

Great stuff Tim - Thanks for posting! I really like the 'natural' settings and the action shots. Are you telling us those explosions are for 'real'?! I don't think many would put their fine models up for that treatment! I think
you have that market cornered! :-)

(Oh rats! Now hitting 'enter' does not sumbit my reply!!!!)

Great stuff Tim!!! Message to Jerry Rutman: stop throwing the old models away!! Send them to Tim for "recycling"

Thanks guys for your kind comments, much appreciated. In reply;

I guess it was always going to come up, what makes it go bang. I’m reluctant to elaborate for reasons I covered in a reply (May 10) within my original Diorama forum post last week (“Alternative reality”). All I’ll add is that the combustion agents are freely available in any supermarket or convenience store, and the shells are made of different materials depending on their placement. It took a while to perfect a fuse that gave me enough time to duck but not long enough to melt the model. One problem I haven’t resolved is thick black smoke, I’ve tried most materials with significant carbon content but miniaturisation adds a degree of difficulty. If/when I nail it you’ll be the first to know.

Leading on from that, yes I half thought submitting the Feature article was futile because the sponsors of this site wouldn’t be impressed I appeared to be destroying their products. However apart from the odd pioneer tool or aerial, all targets surprisingly came through unscathed (even the Marder III)….well, except a Dragon early Hummel - I replaced its barrel with what was effectively a brass pipe bomb in an attempt to capture a shell being fired. Got it right eventually, but two successive ignition malfunctions resulted in total rebuilds of the entire fighting compartment. I never found the first barrel, it’s possibly still in orbit.

So to counter any suspicion it’s fakery I’m posting a full sequence of single-frames of the clip of the Tamiya SdKfz 222 back-flipping - you can find them under today’s date in my original post to the Diorama forum “Alternative reality” (And Kevin, there’s a few train shots there too plus a reply to your query).
Tim

Tim, absolutely impressive and motivational! have you thought about trying a green or blue screen then adding in blast effects later? I have got to give this a try now....shrapnel be damned!

A very interesting thread, some very good pictures I struggle to take a simple picture

Thanks guys, to answer both comments above at once; as I said in the article I use what most self-respecting photographers would class as a crappy little camera - although I would disagree, I've been an Olympus fan all my life and they've served me well, even the 2008 bottom-of-the range model I use now. And I'm nowhere near a good photographer, I have next-to-zero technical knowledge.

Very incredible shots of scenery... I put my interest on how you present your work with railway tracks there and I learn a lot from your work, many thanks for your sharing, mate!



Warm regards,


Garry

Thanks Ricky,

I assume you found the other train photos in the "Alternative Reality" post too? (last activity 14th May 2016). A mate has ever since been trying to provoke me into an explosive derailment dio (Russian partisans, dynamited track, loco & trucks crashing down an embankment etc. Maybe next year.

Cheers, Tim