Category: Dio-Bolical Monday

Now I did warn you in last weeks Musings that some of the posts in this new series would be dull and now I am being true to my word!

In reality this first post is more an introduction aimed at setting the scene as well as getting started.  The thing with dioramas is they can take a long time and require a great deal of thought too.  This build is no exception and I can predict that a number of things will go wrong along the way, they always do.

Let’s begin with the title.  Death and Taxes relates to the Footsore Baron’s War figure range, their third kickstarter to be precise and relates to the period in question.  The Earls visit is essentially the story of the diorama.  The main feature of this diorama are the three Tabletop World buildings but for a story I need to add figures.  I may of course change my mind and the title, a working one, could change at any point during the build but for now I am happy with it.

The three buildings you have seen before, they are a Mill, a Blacksmith’s and a Stable.  There was a fourth building, a cottage, but it didn’t fit on the base and in any event I thought it was out of character with the other three.  The basic premise is that the Earl is passing through the village along with half a dozen or so knights on horseback and the villagers stand to watch them pass by.  Pretty dull really but an opportunity to hopefully paint some colourful looking figures and make the buildings look pretty cool.  There is also an IMPS Scale Model World class for Civilian Dioramas and hopefully this one will fit the bill if I like the end result and get it finished in time (yes it could take that long to do!)

In the picture below you can see the case base on which the diorama is going to be built.  The first thing I needed to do was build it up to take the river section which goes with the Mill.  As luck would have it I had some suitable MDF in the garage and just needed to saw it as applicable and glue it down with some PVA.  In due course I will fill the seem which runs around the joins where the MDF meets the base but that can wait until I start working on the base proper.

In the second image you can see that I have a rough idea of the order of the three buildings.  The position for the Mill chose itself on account of the bridge, it had to lead somewhere so putting it on the left made sense.  The Blacksmith’s which is positioned in the middle will probably be elevated higher than shown and it is between this building and the Stable that the mounted figures will be seen to ride through.  The green wire which can also be seen in the picture will be used to make a tree at some point.

The diorama will for the most part be built from left to right, I think this is the best way to ensure I don’t box myself in.  Accordingly work will start on the lowest of the four levels which make up the Mill first, only then can I start to properly fix it to the base and develop that part of the diorama.  The height of this building is significant and is only just short of the height of the perspex top which goes over the base so I will have to consider that with what I do.

Over the next week I will start painting but I also need to do a lot of lists and research.  Somewhere out there are the figures I need which I will have to track down and order but I need a list of what to look for first but there is plenty of time for that.

TIM

My last update was written in June – “News Update No: 2”– and since then I have achieved my primary storage objective.  Specifically, I have managed to find a safe storage method for all the models and figures that were on temporary view in the below display case in order to leave it now empty.

My storage issue was bigger than this alone but until I could clear out the display case I didn’t have a hope or prayer of contemplating getting started on the diorama I have planned.  With the UK summer behind me it is now time to give serious consideration to what I would like to do.

In my previous update I mentioned how I had purchased some more fantastic buildings from Tabletop World.  I’m not sure all four of them will feature in this diorama, I suspect one will be used in something else, but now that I can play around with the base I can begin to work out just what I might do.  I have a vague idea because that’s what I based my purchase on but, as I think we have all experienced, it’s only when playing around with the bits and bobs that you really get a sense of what is possible.

The basic concept of the diorama I have in mind is a rustic medieval scene featuring three of the buildings – Watermill, Stable, Blacksmiths – and various figures from the Footsore Baron’s War third kickstarter when they become available to buy later this year.  As a working title the diorama will, for now, be called “Death and Taxes” but I expect that to change.  In fact the whole concept might change if I’m being honest.

So where do I go from here?  Good question.

The aim at some point in the next month or so is to reintroduce “Dio-Bolical Monday” posts and chart my progress as I embarck on a diorama which will takes weeks if not months to complete.  At the same time I aim to juggle my normal Wednesday and Saturday posts too so I suspect my “Dio-Bolical Monday” posts will not feature every week as my gut feeling is this is a tall order when I consider what else I have going on.  Much will also depend on the weather.  The more I am confined to being indoors the more I’ll get done but She Who Must Be Obeyed also has decorating plans for me and of course before we know it Christmas will be upon us.

I could make quite an extensive list of potential distractions but essentially progress will be what it is.  That said I am excited to be able to at least think that I can get things underway.  There is a fair bit of planning to do and more purchases to be made as and when I can identify the items I need to buy.  I’ll make some bits where I can but have no plans to reinvent the wheel, if I can buy it then this time around I probably will.

Hopefully my next “Dio-Bolical Monday” post will be the commencement of the project but quite when then will be is anybodies guess right now.

TIM

Several weeks ago in “News Update No: 1” I mentioned that I had placed an order for some more Table Top World buildings for a diorama that I aim to start building later in the year.  The plan for the diorama is far from detailed at the moment and, as I previously mentioned, I also have a significant storage issue to address first.  The purpose of this brief post is just to say the Table Top World buildings have now arrived all the way from Croatia and I thought I’d share with you what I bought.  Before that though two other things worthy of mention.

Firstly, the packing of these models was fantastic.  Inside the big box, pictured below, was three smaller cardboard boxes each containing a share of the kits which were in turn all wrapped in newspaper with even more packing around them.  No chance whatsoever that these would be damaged in transit unless the box was literally crushed.  I mention this only in case any of you ever decide to buy any of these kits.  If you do then you can, based on my experience, buy with confidence.

Secondly, having paid for the order online I was expecting to pay additional costs due to Brexit.  I had anticipated paying the best part of £80.00 or more in respect of VAT, Customs Duty and Courier costs.  My experience in the UK is you get notified you have a parcel and if you want it you can only have it when you stump up the costs.  I was therefore taken by surprise when the parcel just turned up.  Nothing more to pay!  Yipee!  Did I just get lucky or was I wrong to expect additional costs in the first place?  In truth I neither know nor care!

So, what models did I buy?

Well I bought a Cottage, a Blacksmith’s Forge, a Watermill and a Stable.

The following images are all care of the Table Top World website.

The quality of these kits is simply amazing and I am looking forward to painting them later on in the year as I really want this to be a project that will see me through the winter months.  I’m also going to need plenty of time to work out just what I plan to do.  As things currently stand I have a few ideas but they will evolve, or not as the case me be, when I start playing around with them.  I also need to decide if I will use all four building in the one diroma or only two or three.  Thinking about it all and doing more research will be fun but before I can get to carried away I now need to concentrate on my storage problem.  More on that in a future post.

TIM

After I completed my Wizard’s Tower diorama I announced that it was time for a break.  I think I also mentioned that I have a major storage headache to resolve before I can even consider undertaking anything new.  Well things have changed and I thought I would post an update on recent events which have led to this.

The first event of significance was the annual Table Top World Competition.  In all honesty I did not know they ran one, I only discovered this when l browsed their website yet again to drool over their exquisite buildings only to be hit by their home page advert.  After a little inner debate with myself I decided to take the plunge and enter the Wizard Tower.  Fortunately I never took the trouble to look at past competition entries before I did.  Had I done so I would never have entered.  Some of the dioramas which people have submitted to this annual competition are simply stunning but with a top prize of 500 euros to be won and spent in their shop it is hardly surprising the standard is so high.  Feeling somewhat embarrassed that I had now entered and not exactly put myself out to take better photos I decided to forget all about it.

Having done such a good job of forgetting about the competition it then came as quite a surprise to receive the following email from Ivan at Table Top World (the company is based in Croatia if you weren’t aware).

—000—

Hello David,

we have chosen your work as one of the few that we decided to grant a  30% voucher this year, since you where very close to entering the top 3!

Keep up the great work!

Here is your 30% coupon for our webshop.

Kind regards,
Ivan
Tabletop World

—000—

Now the cynic in me immediately concluded that probably everyone who entered most likely got a similar email but then I decided to accept things on face value if for no other reason than it made me feel better.  More importantly, given how expensive their buildings are (and even more expensive now due to import duty having to be added now the UK has left the EU), there was no way I wasn’t going to use the voucher!  

Highly motivated to build a very large diorama (very large for me that is) I was determined to solve my storage problem, something which had been bugging me for some time.  I’ve known for  a while that our double garage held the key but it is well fitted out already and extremely tidy too so a quick win was never on the cards.  Then I had a light bulb moment!

My car and the family estate are both kept in the garage but She Who Must Be Obeyed keeps her car parked on the drive.  She does this because she drives our daughter to school on a daily basis (had it not been for lockdown my daughter would have passed her driving test and driven herself) and it is easier than opening the garage (yes you’re right, she is a lazy women!).  The thing is her little car is much shorter than the family one.  Short enough to enable me to buy and install a meter wide six foot high office style filing cupboard giving at least 5 meters of shelf space!

My daughter finishes school shortly and then has a four month break before hopefully heading off to university.   The thing is she wont need driving to school any more and therefore SWMBO can “keep her precious car” (that’s the selling line) in the garage instead of the estate! 

Brimming with confidence that I can sell this to SWMBO I have now placed an order for four Table Top World buildings and a few accessories that they do as well.  I suspect it will be several weeks before they arrive and I need to wait for my daughter to finish school before I can buy and install the filing cupboard, therefore nothing to do for now but wait.

I’ll issue further news updates in the weeks ahead but all being well a new diorama and an accompanying Dio-Bolical Monday series will start later in the year.  A series which will run far longer than anything previously so consider yourself warned. 🙂

TIM

PS – Although she doesn’t read my blog, which is just as well, Happy Birthday to my lovely daughter who is 18 today!

 

 

This time last week I thought there would be two more posts before this diorama was complete but it is looking now like this will be the penultimate post.

Before I started on this diorama I knew I wanted to have a bit more drama going on rather than just the tower, some waves and a wizard prancing about.  The question of course was what?  In keeping with a mystical theme I decided to have the tower under attack from a dragon if I could find the right figure.  After a fair bit of research I settled on the Narthrax dragon produced by Reaper.  There was only one problem though, the dragon was only available in the Reaper Bones range.

From what I have been able to gather Reaper Bones has very mixed reviews.  Now I am no fan of plastic but at the same time I needed to be able to bend this figure about a bit in order to position it how I wanted.  I decided I had little choice but to take a punt on it.  All I can say is I fully understand the mixed reviews.  The figure was well boxed and looked superb but the touch of it was something else.  Right from the start I knew this was something I didn’t want to paint and I can say with 100% confidence I will never do another bones figure again.  I know some of you like them and have produced great results so I am happy for this to go down as my aversion to plastic and bones models in particular.

First up I needed to assemble the thing and remove the plastic pins which slotted into the base which came with the model as I wouldn’t be using that.  Then I had to play around with some hot water to bend various body parts to get the position I required.  This took several attempts because the plastic had a life its own and wanted to spring back into its original shape.  Perseverance paid off in the end and I finally felt confident that it would remain in shape and I could start painting.

Already in the wrong frame of mind my mood wasn’t helped any when after priming the figure I learnt that you didn’t need to prime this bones figure!  Nevertheless I continued to soldier on and for the first time ever I used contrast paints.  I didn’t know quite what to expect but I found them to be pretty good and for something like this they were ideal.  I’m not sure I will use them that often but I certainly have nothing against them and can see why people would use them if they are looking for very effective and quick results.

Now the store images for the Nathrax dragon show it painted in blue.  I discussed with my inner self what colour I should go with and decided blue was probably the way to go.  Against the tower it would offer a nice contrast and with the sea and waves it somehow felt like the right habitat for a dragon of this colour.  Regrettably I didn’t take that many photo’s of the painting process.  I think I feared that if I put it down I wouldn’t want to pick it up again!  Despite everything I pretty much managed to get there with it and a few images are below.

The dragon isn’t fully finished and the uncompromising and magnified images show that it is scruffy in places.  It clearly needs some tidying up, quite a bit actually, and more dry brushing but I don’t think any of that will make for a lot of work or for an interesting post so next week we will skip straight to the finished diorama.  Well that’s the plan anyway.

TIM

I have mentioned previously that I had to resolve a couple of problems.  Neither were major but they were unplanned. 

The first relates to the second turret which you can see in the image below.  The turret itself fixes to four wooden resin posts but unfortunately one of them was broken on arrival.  It was easy enough to fix but I had been contemplating removing the turret anyway because the wizard figure which I had planned to position there would not have been easily seen.  I took this as a sign and set about removing all four wooden posts and after a few minor adjustments you would never know they were meant to be there. 

All was fine until I then had the presence of mind to try the wizard figure out in position only to discover that it didn’t work!  The problem being that the height of the wall and the angle the wizard would be positioned at didn’t look right for what I had planned.  So now I had no turret and the need to determine where the wizard was going to go.

Knowing that the wizard would be positioned elsewhere I decided there needed to be some visual interest given no wizard and no turret.  Initially I had know idea what to do but later had the idea of a banner so I set about making one.   Using some Japanese writing paper and a couple of pieces of steel rod I got started.  The issue of design was also a problem.  I wanted something that felt medieval but also wizard like.  I settled on the idea of the star sign symbols, Leo, Libra, etc.  These only covered part of the banner so I then added a star at the bottom and then added a flag too.  Some photos below. 

The wizard has now been positioned down below on the rocks.  It will make more sense when you see the finished diorama but for now this is the only image you are getting! 

The plan this week was also to get the ballistrade added and painted.  I also wanted to get some more weathering done.  Mission accomplished.  

Now where do I go from here?

Time to work on the final figure.  Probably a couple of weeks work and then a final post of the completed diorama.

TIM

This week my time was entirely spent on painting the second figure for this diorama, images of which appear below. 

The figure in question is from the Reaper Pathfinder range and goes by the name “Valeros, Iconic Male Human Fighter” and the composition of the figure is perfect for what I have in mind to do with him.  There is very little to say on the paint job itself but some of you following the progress of this diorama my well be asking at this point “so what is going on here then?”.  You’re not asking?  Well that’s OK then because in any event I have no intention of telling you exactly what is going on for at least another couple of weeks.

Now where do I go from here?  Well next week I have four aims.  Firstly to explain two minor problems I encountered and how I have hopefully resolved them.  Do some more weathering and ground work and add the wooded posts and rope ballistrade which goes up alongside the steps.  This last step involves glue and I hate glue so I am not looking forward to that bit very much.  If I get all that done I will move on to the final piece of this diorama jigsaw.  That should take a couple of weeks I reckon balancing it alongside the fact that it is now spring in the UK and I have loads of jobs to do outside in the garden.  If that goes well then I will be ready for the final post which essentially will be images of the end result.

TIM

The plan for this last week was to get the waves done and that is what I managed to do.

There are plenty of techniques out there, several of which some of you were kind enough to bring to my attention.  In the end I went for a combination.  The sea painting that I done last week was almost entirely based on this video.  This video then goes on to use the wave technique and materials suggested by Luke over at Luke’ APS.

Here is the link to the Luke’s APS video.

Last week I ended the sea painting at the point of the first image below. The rest of the images show the build up of the waves.

I haven’t gone into to much detail on the technique as it is is explained much better in the video but will add a few comments of my own.  Firstly, the waves were done over a few days.  Although the Clear Fix and Isoproponal Alcohol 99.9% mix does dry pretty quickly I decided to leave it for an extended period between each layering stage.  I saw no need to rush things and having come this far had no desire to cock things up due to impatience. Secondly, I added no ink or colouring to the mix until the very final layer was applied.  Here I added some white ink and added the mixture sparingly over the top of the waves until I felt it looked OK.

Personally I’m pleased with how it turned out and a little bit of wadding from She Who Must Be Obeyed’s sewing stuff provided a little sea mist.  I’ll let you judge for yourselves how it looks.  What I would also add is it is a very clean process which for someone who works in the mess I do at times was a little bonus.

There you have it, the waves are finally done and overall the base it looking pretty good.  A little more work to be done in terms of weathering but almost there for sure.

Next week I will start on the second figure and think about how to resolve a little problem I have created for myself.

TIM

This week was simply about painting the sea and adding much needed colour to the base rocks.  The first picture in the sequence below is where I finished last week.

The green on the rocks will be dry brushed further and toned down a little bit but the sea painting in the final image sequence is as good as there.  Just how much of the sea colour will be seen once the waves have been added remains to be seen but the colour cannot be added afterwards so there is no choice but to play safe.  

I wasn’t about to use up loads of my Vallejo paints given the reasonably large expanse so I bought some new acrylic paints off of Ebay.   The paints were “Artiste” acrylic paints which came in 59ml bottles and at about £2.00 a bottle represented very good value for money.  More importantly they turned out to be good paints and I wont hesitate to buy more as and when I feel the need to.

I bought half a dozen colours and starting with black and dark blue I worked my way up to lighter shades of blue and finally on to green.  Blending the colours took time and might end up proving an unnecessary step but as previously stated I’ll only know that later.   

Next week I aim to tackle the waves.  I’ve done a couple of dry runs and am feeling good about what needs to be done and how to do them and it all seems pretty straight forward.  I also have a couple of figures which need to be painted and a decision to be made in respect of the tower but that can all wait for now.  The waves comes first.

TIM