Gday all
Well anyone that read my recent 'before building' topic would be aware that I want to build a new dio featuring some trees, grasses/bushes and a muddy road with a crater or two...
Had a dio half finished from another idea (A Sherman that had run over a mine) and wanted to try some technniques before my new 'quest'...



Tried to see how a muddy crater would look... Also being late Autumn (Fall?) the tree has shed most of its' foliage... The road is far from finished, but it wasn't necessarily something I was practicing on...

DO the fallen leaves look convincing? Had a dark green and then a browny/yellow pack of leaves; and used the latter for the most contrast in certain places...

Basically, I was trying to see how effective I could blend different grases foliage clumps etc.
Wodya reckon?

Oh, and please excuse my lack of a backdrop and avert your gaze from my hobby desk/dining table...!!
Cheers all
Brad

Looks very good! Are those leaves PE?

Martin

practice?i wish i could do it like this...
looks very nice to me
i`ve tried modeling a muddy road several times
butt they allways looked like pooh

Thanks
Martin and Bastian
The leaves are Hudson and Allen, but they are birch seeds with some colour treatment, and IMHO can therefore be easily obtainable a lot cheaper from nature!!

All in all I like what you have done. The pluses- the variety of textures are great and make it more convincing can't stress that enough. The key to good ground work is just what you have done. The trees - branches and the structure are good, Foliage in the trees? What did you use?

The colors... Hmmmm? May be a bit green for fall, but you said this was a practice run.... The one thing I am not sure about, the photos are blurred just enough I can't tell for sure ... Did you use foam for some of the ground cover? I would try to avoid using the foam products for 1/35th, but instead use dried herbs or dried flower bits (just my prefrence). Nice work Bradley...

Well got to get me some of those leaves as well, they look very cool. Really adds something to the diorama!

Martin

Looks really great.....very realistic......great colour contrasts, the muddy water in the crater looks very wet and real to my eye......the whole feel of it reminds me of a very wet autumn in Europe.
Cheers
Gene

I'll have to agree with Paul: the grass is too green for Fall... it looks more like Spring! The rest is very, very good! If this is only trainning, I can't wait to see the "real" thing!
Cheers and happy modelling!
Prato

Yo Honeycut:

Well, well. . . dude, I'm becoming a big fan of your work,
plus I feel from reading your threads that you have an
artistic sense of things and write in that vein; I'm trying
to say I feel we have similiar views on composition,
effective use of color, etc.

But as I look at this experimental piece, I am feeling
jealous!! Isn't that terrible? Perhaps confession
is good for my soul? . . . maybe just the souls of my
worn out shoes? :-) :-) But I can't do what you're doing
or achieve this kind of terrain building. It looks great and
there is so much different kind of roots and foliage and
leaves for eye appeal, but everything looks so natural
the way it all fits together.

Like Paul, I wonder about the brightness of the green
grass but it could be the low light situation as you shot
the pix. I hope some day thru experimentation as you
are doing that I can start to learn to improve. Alas! In
the meantime I'll squash my jealous emotions with a
Vodka Tonic and a glazed donut, mkay?

Ah hah! Paul, That's the info I needed to know... Don't think we have the clear cut seasonal changes here, so what would you recommend for a grass tone?
Prato, seems you think the same, so I'm open to all suggestions... I know I said this was practice, but esentially the dio I am to build is going to be during the same time period, so colours are needed to be gotten right here also...
Rick~ Watch the waistline, me old mucka... And no, I've seen some of your work and I don't think you have anything to fear...YET. hehehe
Gene! Thanks for your comments on the crater! It was initially deeper, so I used pre-coloured runny (To make a perfectly level finish) plaster to pour in the hole, then once dried I simply used Tamiya Desert Yellow thinned well. On this I used WS realistic water, but now know I need to actually paint the 'rim' of the base colour a little higher up the edges as the water goes on thick, and you can just see that the water thickness at the edge is dark where it has dried higher than the Tamiya base colour...Does this make sense?! Basically I'm saying that it is very difficult to have the realistic water spread consistently when it is applied thinly...

I would suggest toning the green down a bit with some tans and yellowish tans. A little airbrushing will fix that right up. No worries mate. What kind of paint do you prefer to use? See if I can give you a more direct answer...

Is this the part where I tell you I don't own an airbrush?! :-) :-) Is drybrushing the grass viable? I guess it would 'stress' the grass as it is.. but then What comes out can be replaced easy enough...

Sorry about that mate, didn't mean to assume... Yep, you should be able to dry brush, just might take you a little longer....

We really need to do something about that, need to find you an airbrush one of these days....

Brad - looks really really good. I don't think the grass is too green. Round these parts it tends to green up in the fall, after it has dried out all summer. It stays pretty green until the first snow. As to the foam - while I am not a big fan of it, you have used it convincingly (sp?) The only thing I dont like is the bright wire for the fence, and you need more fallen leaves!

Very convincing appearance! I agree about the greens being too spring-like.In addition to or instead of dry brushing to make them more 'fall' like,try using pastel chalks or pigments?Easier to correct or remove if you don't like,I would think.As far as your background goes,well........could be my superfund hobby bench too! :-
)
Cheers!

Nice Bradley, the groundwork is very well done and convincing, you deserve an icy flute of Old Croc l.o.l.
After looking at the posts and pics. a few times, I've got to agree with Sticky about the Spring - Fall vivid green-ness of grass after a summer burn. This also happens down here on the Mason Dickson line in the Pine Barrens. [ plus my brother lives in Morrisville and I have seen it alot ].
Also looking at the last pic. I see a variation of greens, some deepgreen - yellows, and with the added leaves looks like a convincing, mid Fall.
How about brilliant leaf colors to give the impression of early Fall ?
Anyway nice groundwork Brad, finish this up I want to see it with the Sherman in it.
Oh yeah is the tree a wire twist scratch job or an inverted root thingie ?
Cheyenne

Bradley, You are doign a bang up job here, I have to agree with Sticky and cheyenne about the grass looks like a pretty good fall green to me, I would however dry brush some yellows and tans kinda of in patches thruoghout it. Also paint that wire a burnt iron or metal color and rust it up with some pastels it will do wonders! Cheers Kevin

Thanks for the info fellas
The bloody fence wire!! I forgot all about it... Yes, it WAS to be rusted up... The centre fencepost has been lifted out by the blast and held only by the wire...
Cheyenne~ the tree whilst I'd like to claim building rights, was a small flowery plant that had died in a planter box at my front door (too much time modelling and here! )
So half think the grass is too green the others not...
If I reconstruct the fence, one side could be browny yellow, whilst the grass is greener on the other... *groan*
Well it's ANZAC day here, so after watching the local march I'm gonna knuckle doon and build the road surface for my new diorama... Then the rest can work itself out later...
Thanks again for taking a T.O. to view...
Cheers
Brad