Well the last two days it has been snowing here. There hasn`t been so much snow in my region in 40 Years. 30 Cm thick. Wuite impressive. Well I had a day off and went armed with the camera and the bike through our village and the region to make pics of it. Guess what happened I got inspiration. I searched through my stock of long forgotten figures that I had built long ago and found two figures suitable for a small scene. the storyline I won`t tell yet but it is a funny one.
Well I took pics of the whole process. Which I`m going to show you all now. I have to say that I was freewheeling a bit as I went along and I found out that some dimensions were a little odd when I added the figure but it was more an experimenting experience then a Serious built non the less I`m satisfied and I`m going to share it with you
Step 1: The base
I started off with sawing a piece of MDF wood. 10 cm by 10 cm were the dimensions of the base. I drew the groundplan of the dio on the bottom to give myself an idea of the sizes etc. And I made sidewalls from plasticstock.
Step 2: the first layer
When the layout was more or less finished I started the first layer. This was a very thin layer of Styrofoam on which the Area of the ditch was first done with ordinairy cheap wall spackle. A thin layer is enough. Further I added some plastic stock leftovers to make some height for the ice layer in one of the further steps. Then it will become clear why I did this. All the plasticstock was glued down with whiteglue.
Step 3: prepare the ice
The Icelayer was cut out of clear plastic which was once a packaging for something. I also added strips of plasticstock for the same reason as in step 2.
Step 4: more layering... the banks
I measured out the size and shape of the banks and cut them out of the same thickness of Styrofoam as the bottom layer. I glued 3 Identical pieces on top of each other. same happened with the other bank. then I first did cut the shapes of the banks roughly and later sanded them with sandingpaper
Step 5: Coloring the water.
Often when you look through an icelayer you`ll see it is pitchblack under it. This looks very cool in my opinion and it gives some good depth in the dio. So with Humbrol panzergrey I panted the dried wallspackle
Step 6: Ice part deux
I actually never had done ice so it was a big experiment to me. Of course I have read a lot about it through the years and there are about a dozen techniques but it is always different when you try it yourself. I once read about dripping candlewax on the backside of the clear plastic. This eventually simulates the airbubbles onder the ice. Well I tried it and so far no problems.
Step 7: Making the ice look more... Ice
Well of course it is fun to have airbubbles under your ice but shiny see true ice never happens. Always you have this white mist and in nature ice always have this matt frosted look. I done this by first adding a matt varnish coat on the side that didn`t had the candlewax. When that was dry I ran a really thin white wash over it. When that was dry I added another matt varnish coat on top of that. I also painted cracks in the ice on the backside with thin white paint and a really small brush.
The above shot shows the ice on top of the grey spackle but because of the matt varnish still being wet it is shiny.
Step 8: a knotted Willow
I wanted to do a tree again. was a while back that I did a thing like that. I used the twisted wire technique of which there is a brilliant article by General failure here on the site. I decided to make a knotted willow. I took 10 strands of wire around 30cm long and twisted them together in the basic shape of the tree trunk. Then I took some thinner wire and started at the top and twisted it around that. forming the big ball the knotted willow often has. When everythign was twisted I used the good ol`spackle again and added the bark around it. I also added some putty for the hard places but further no problems there. I scribed some texture in the bark and on to paingting.
Next thing I did was giving it wash of Dark grey and after that a good drybrush with Green mixed with dark brown.
When everythign was painted came the painstacking job to putt all the branches on. All were glued by hand and it took me a good half hour. See next image.. The branches still need to be painted:
Step 9 the road.
I wanted to have a piece of road that was heavily damaged by vehicles and personell. Again teh wallspackle came out and I added a good layer of it on the roadarea. Then while it was still wet I sprinkled birdcage sand over it. directly after that I took some wheels I had in my sparebox and made some tire inprints and I took to DML german figures from the spares box and started walking them over the roadsurface. the result was a nice and torn up surface exactly what I wanted.
Overview
Well I learned a lot of new things again. The ice was less hard to do then I expected. It`s a fun little project and although the story isn`t there yet it will be when the other figure is re-assembled and both are painted. What you see now in the pictures is the result of only a couple of hours on one day. Here are a couple more pictures:
There is quite some work to do but... The weather forecast is snow.. So wait till the next update and the title will become clear. If you have questions, comments, critiques, I want to hear it all. I hope you guys and gals like it
