Hi all,

As you might know im currently working on a diorama with a destroyed tank on it. I wanted to make some smoke with it as if it was just destroyed. What do you guys think of this, does it look realistic or totally not? If not, what element is wrong in this? Thanks

Hi Thor

Iam no expert on this but i think it looks pretty effective its a very difficult effect to create and i think you have done pretty well ,i put it up on my desk top and stood back and looked at it and to be honest it was pretty good ,i would think that with all the other elements of the dio are in place i think it could be quite effective ,and well done for hsving the guts to have ago.
Just my two cents.
Looking forward to seeing the dio
Cheers Chris

I believe is good! Just a obs: The smoke has to come out from all of the "holes" of the tank, like the periscope and all

I'm not sure if it's possible to judge just based on photos. I think it is something that has to be seen in person. Honestly, I'm not crazy about it, but it's really totally up to you.

I honesty don't like it. I admire your attempt to do it, but, personally speaking, it doesn't convince me at all....Jim

mmmhh....I don't like it, but I appreciate your try!!
I remember I read article on old Fine Scale Modeler issues about smoke...you can look for them

ciao
Luca

It is such a difficult thing to make convincing. I've never seen it done yet. Sorry. Brilliant attempt though....

Vinnie

You have made a good attempt. If you would thin it out a bit by pulling it up and re-shade some of the areas in a lighter color of gray, I think it would be more convincing.

]Here is an attempt I did for a Dio I built a couple of years ago.

Honestly and after 25+ years of dioraming, i am convinced that there is no way to make smoke and fire in a way to convince u ..so .....its a good try but these effects are not easy to do . Bravo on ur trying though

I'm with Costas on this matter... there is no way to pull off convincing smoke and/or fire.... I'm sorry, I love your attempt, but it still looks like cotton wool. Not your fault... I have never seen smoke in scale that could convince me.... sorry !

As its been said many times in this thread, its going to be hard to represent smoke in a dio as there doesnt appear to be a suitable substitute for smoke apart from having the real thing in your dio.

Its looking good thus far though.

i remember seeing a vignette of a french tank wih real smoke comming out. i jsut cant remember were

sorry.

Frank

Though it's a good try, it isn't really effective. I think there is a nice article somewhere on the site about putting real smoke in a dio, you could use it in collaboration with the article in FSM a while back, thue one about using red LEDs attached to a radio to make fire.

here it is

https://armorama.kitmaker.net//features/363&page=4

Ok - with the above posts being noticed - if you're still interested here what I would do.
- pull the smoke apart a bit more, it's not airy enough
- add darker color near the middle to give it depth. It's very one dimentional right now.
- add some white to the tips

If this is a personal project for yourself I'd keep trying. If it's for a show I'd consider different options. If you want to try with this method and enhance make the suggested changes and then take black and white photos of it that will help too.

Take a stroll down to your local model railroad shop and ask if they can get a "seuthe" (i think) smoke generator that goes in a loco. That might be of help to you although it'll need wiring up to a power supply.

HTH
Pete

For Seuthe smoke generators try here

m g sharp

Pete

I have found only one way to do "real smoke" for armor... remove the turrent, place a small paper cup with water inside the hull, then drop in some small chips of dry ice. Replace the turrent, and then in a few seconds you have a nice white smoke coming out of every opening of the tank turrent... depending on how much water and how much dry ice you use, you can have 5-20 minutes of smoke... certainly enough for a good photo session. The only drawback is the smoke will be white, not dark as you might expect to see in an internal tank fire.

Thanks for all your replies!

This is indeed for an upcoming modelcontest, so with all the replies in mind, i think ill just skip the smoke in this project and maybe give it a try with one of my next models. If you guys dont like it, chances are big the judges wont like it either
Next time iI will pull it apart more and use more colours, see what the results will be then.

The smoke generator sounds like a good option, but i was looking for more "permanent" smoke, thats why i choose to give it a try with the cotton.

Oh well, all things need trial and error and in this case an error. Back to the drawingboards
Appriciate your reactions!

Ok - for a contest you will need to make some drybrush black smoke residue around the hatches as 'left overs' from the fire.

Some video clips on modeling real smoke can be found at bottom of:
Smoking King Tiger

This appears to be an operational - rather than destroyed - Tiger, I suppose permanent smoke would not have worked for the 88 main gun and diesel exhaust. Turn up your audio volume - the use of sound and smoke together is an interesting twist.

Thor, i think its pretty well done. Personally i should make the dots a little thinner than this. Maybe you can use more shades of gray for the effect.
Greetz 043

Ola Guys

I don`t think the smoke coming out is really convincing and I also will second what others have said that Smoke and fire are 2 things which almost are impossible to make convincing in scale. Then on the other side I also dislike the smoke generatorsIn the vehicles as I also think the smoke coming out of it then is not looking convincing. Indeed it is real smoke coming out of your vehicle and it is behaving like real smoke but it more looks like the tankcommander is sitting inside and smoking a gigantic cigar. Instead of the oily greasy fat black smoke you often see bullowing out of vehicles in Pictures and footage. (You even read it in eyewitness accounts about the Thick black greasy smoke.... you never read in an eyewitness report that it looked like the TC just lit up a Giant Corona

Just my thought.

I think the way you did it is actually not bad at all. I haven't found another way to do it. Not overdone either.

Thor,

I think the shape and size looks great, but the gray color in unconvincing. I KNOW there is a gallery photo on Track-Link showing the same thing, (darn, can't find it! It's either a T-34 or a WW2 German tank) and the modeler painted his cotton balls totally black, which looks extremely convincing.

If you browse through the T-L gallery, perhaps you can find that photo. I think you just need to paint your cotton a darker gray or close to black.