Making dioramas (base)

[Guest]

Hello all

Ive been doing modeling for about 8 years now and I've done many military vehicles over that time however i want to move onto making dioramas for them

I tried making dioramas with clay as a base ontop of a wooden board however the clay eventually shrunk and cracked so i will never use that again

What i want to know is what processes do you go through in the creation of a diorama

Many thanks

Ryan

[Guest]

A lot of us down under use this. Don't know what your equivalent is sorry

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[ATTACH]311716[/ATTACH]

[Guest]

9mm plywood square or rectangle of required dimensions. Add 6mm edging all around the perimeter top surface, to hold the ground work in. This will make the Base about 15mm tall. Iron-on laminate trim to tidy the sides up (trimmed and sanded to size). Varnish gloss this with x3 coats. Cover sides and top edging surfaces with masking tape. Fill the recession with Polyfiller or similar, scrape flat and allow to dry. This surface can be sanded to make it flat and smooth.
You then have the starting point for the scenery you want to create.
Hope that helps.

[minitnkr]

Use Plasticine instead of clay for modeling. Clay needs to be fired to retain shape where Plasticine does not. I use it extensively for sandbags where they've held up for thirty years just fine. They were stiff, but with some kneading softened up ok to reuse. I think you'd find it kind of expensive to use for an entire base unless it was pretty small, but not difficult to work with. Very easy to make impressions in and it doesn't mess with the wood, plastic or paper underneath it if used. PaulE

[rtfoe]

Hi Ryan,
You already have a wooden board so for the base it depends on how thick you want your base to be. Any kind of filler applied in thickness of more than 2mm will eventually have cracks as they cure due to shrinkage. You can beef up the thickness with discarded polysterene form packing found with purchased TV or household equipment. Glue them down with PVA and carve the surface shape you want then only fill or coat with Polyfilla a form of spackle (you can add waterbased paints to the mix for ground color) sprinkle dirt, pebbles, sand or flocking for grass while the surface is still wet to the touch. Once dry and hardened flip over to remove any excess or debris that didn't stick. You can paint the surface if you want in places that the spackle show through.
The rest is trial and error until you get the desired effect you want...that's how we get to where we are. There's no over night miracle to this just patience and experiments. But the above would be the basics. The other advise is to watch tutorials on YouTube or check out some of the diorama blogs here in the forum. Below is what I did using cement mixed with polyfilla and sand and applied in a thin layer. Once cured I airbrushed with brown and then coated with PVA and sprinkled with flocking and some spagnum moss, then airbrushed with greens and yellows and tan to uneven the look of the grass. Hope this helps.



Cheers,
Richard