1st major dio, could use some help

A lot of the Guys over here use ROCO and similar railraod supplies for their Dio's.

Trees are best scratchbuild and depending on what you want to do with the water and what amount you are looking at than there are multiple options there too.

Is your Kit from Bandai or Bendi(the korean pirate copy)??

Nox, here in the states the easiest to find landscapeing stuff is the Woodland Scenics line. It is for RR and has a lot of posibilities. Of water you can use a lot of stuff, depending on the bordering materials. Trees don't have scale height as long as the leaves look right. The buildings could be problematic. You'd probably have to scratch build but that could be fairly straightforward based on type. Give us the details(or at least the ideas) and we came help you from there on specifics. Lets help The Nox, guys.

well from watching the different gundam series, I would say just make sure the gundam is about as tall as an average apartment building so make the buildings bout 55 feet compared to the gundam, do the math to scale it down and make something like that, I never was good at scratchbuilding. so if this makes no sense or help to u then just forget this post lol and read everyone elses.

Like Cassibill.

Said give us some idea as to waht you are planning than we can give you better advise and suggestions.

Most of the modelers over here don't seem too worry too much about the scale and thus use Railroad stuff.(1/87).

FYI, I nornmally build the whole diorama at the same time, found that doing a base/dio for a finished kit to be a pain.

thanks guys, i was talking with madmodelfactory bout this ealier in the week. im working on some skeatches, i'll post them when there done so you can see as for now i try to explain it as best as possible.

im using the zaku II (not the one in the pic, that was just an example to give you an idea.) the scene is going to be one a number of years after a battle, the zaku is downed in the river, well the most of it; probably just the waist and the upper part of the legs. everything else is just to enhance the scene, trees, a possible building or two and possible even some people looking at it.

also mad i would die if i used pirated gundam kits

QUOTE: Originally posted by The Nox im using the zaku II (not the one in the pic, that was just an example to give you an idea.) the scene is going to be one a number of years after a battle, the zaku is downed in the river, well the most of it; probably just the waist and the upper part of the legs. everything else is just to enhance the scene, trees, a possible building or two and possible even some people looking at it.

Hmmm, seen a similiar Dio once before, was based on a beach(that one used ROCO miniatures).
Since the Robot will be lying down forget about scale accuracy and use straight HO stuff.

So the robot will be immersed in the Water, that kinda limits what you can use unless you get creative(got some ideas for that).

Lots of Water material like EZ-Water needs to be heated and thus can damage/warp a kit when it is poured around it. (no problem with a resin kit, even used a gas-torch to mold the water next to the kit).

After a few years the mecha will have sunk into the ground a bit you will need to gather for that, as well as for material decay, plant growth on and around it.

QUOTE: also mad i would die if i used pirated gundam kits

Was just confused because you wrote "bandi".

Will see if I can find a Pic of the Diorama that I saw.

yea i was thinkin about doing that, adding small river life living under the armor panels for more realism, i was thinking bout doing the same thing with an aquatic kit with on a beach, but i like the aquatic suits to much to do that to them .

sorry bout my bad spelling i really should get some sleep

QUOTE: Originally posted by The Nox yea i was thinkin about doing that, adding small river life living under the armor panels for more realism, i was thinking bout doing the same thing with an aquatic kit with on a beach, but i like the aquatic suits to much to do that to them .

Sounds ok, shouldn't pose any major problems so far. There are a few methods which you can use to achieve such an effect.
Really depends on how deep you want to submerge the Kit and what the major viewing angle will be like, for really deep submersion I would build a faux water-box rather than submerge the kit in something like acrylic gel. Cost and weight issue.

QUOTE: sorry bout my bad spelling i really should get some sleep

No problem, my spelin is also horrendous.

You could do like the guy did for the space capsile in the current issue. That way you could do stuff to the area under the surface the give it age.

The Nox.

Here is something to wet your whistle:



The Vehicles here are 1/87 and are made by Roco/Austria, not sure about the figs but I will read up about that specific Dio and get back to you.

I wouldn't go for too deep a submersion most rivers are not that deep.

If the figure's scale is 1/100 you can obviously work everything in the same scale, taking approximate heights of buildings into account. Scaling down to 1/100 is much easier than 1/87. Thus 1 metre equals 1 centimetre. The average height of a floor in a multi-story building is roughly 3 metres ( floor & roof included ). 25 cm to an inch . A 10 story building would be 30 cm = 1 foot.

Working out the proper dimensions is the hard part of scratch building. After that the rest is just physical, as opposed to mental, work.

very nice dio. Thanks for posting the picture MadModelFactory.
mark956

QUOTE: Originally posted by mark956 very nice dio. Thanks for posting the picture MadModelFactory. mark956

That is one of Takuji Yamada's early works, he does really outstanding stuff.

He started of as building architectural models for a living and later moved into the pro-modeling scene,
many of his works are done for Hobby Japan.
He does basscially anything from Gundam, to Military, to Kaiju you name it.
Pic was taken from his Book.

Honestly wish I could see him compete against Max Watanabe once, doubt that it will happen this Tursday on TV-Chapmion though.

QUOTE: Originally posted by Tappie If the figure's scale is 1/100 you can obviously work everything in the same scale, taking approximate heights of buildings into account. Scaling down to 1/100 is much easier than 1/87. Thus 1 metre equals 1 centimetre. The average height of a floor in a multi-story building is roughly 3 metres ( floor & roof included ). 25 cm to an inch . A 10 story building would be 30 cm = 1 foot.

The Kits in the Dio are 1/100 Master Grade Kits, the Vehicles and Figs are 1/87(HO) scale stuff.
For Dio measurements I used to do my own calculations till a board member put me onto this little software tool:

Scale Master

Most of the guys over here seem to be using HO scale stuff with their 1/100 Figures in their Dio. I wouldn't sweat the scale differences:
180cm person = 2.07cm-1/87 scale & 1.8cm-1/100

You also need to configure where you get your figures from 1/100 architectural supplies(boring poses) or HO scale realistic stuff.

People will see a 1/87 person out of scale to a 1/00 scale building, but won't object to an imaginary robot being slightly off-scale as they have no real reference frame for it.

Just my