~Hi Richard~Sorry I've missed a few posts--there so much going on on this forum I lost track i guess  ok ,not really...actually there's next to nothing happening on this forum . You are an an amazing standout. This is Coming along by leaps & bounds my friend~!

that's the kind of thick,lush beautiful place you we're talking about huh? Puctuated by the delapidated old shack(loved the real world photo you showed too!---Wow--#$&*%@--that place is punched!)    Sorry too for no comment on the helicopter scene---it's very well done and I had thought I lesft a comment, but failed to--it started with " there's a heli forum?" cause that's way off my radar---but again--well done with the rotor-wash marsh

I can't get over how great the above scene looks --I always like the realism of a good base prior to placing the models--it will only get better, but for now I'll enjoy the well-modelled roadway and nicely layered plants.

Mic

This is just stunning work. Your groundwork is magnificent... incredible eye for detail.

 

Thanks Mic for the nice words. I only just got used to adding brush bristles after experimenting with it on my Vietnam heli build. I'm glad it turned out okay. I still need to add some ferns around the mile stone and storm drain outlet.

I hope to start on the figures soon after I detail the banana tree. At the moment it's still stock standard and paper like.

Thanks for the looking and patience.

Cheers,

Richard

This is just stunning work. Your groundwork is magnificent... incredible eye for detail.

Hi again,

Just wanted to share my progress from the last two days. I'm concentrating on finishing the base by adding the sawgrass and painting the ground work first.

I spent quite a while cutting and placing the bristles carefully composing it after I had added the moss. They were secured with white glue. The finer individual strands of bristles were secured with UHU glue.

I made tyre tracks with spackle and while it was still wet I rolled a spare tyre over it. This method seems to be my constant doing as I always do things backwards. Most would have done the tracks while the whole base was still wet at the beginning. I'm wierd but then again this was a last minute thought.

I dry fitted all the components just to see how it looked.

I masked off the building and Billboard with cling wrap. Then I proceeded to paint the foliage with different shades of green starting with the darker tones and finally with yellow.

Then the dirt was painted with an airbrush. I highlighted the tracks with Tamiya earth brown.

The storm drain got some attention with rust and patches of white and grey to simulate concrete. The culvert also was treated the same with splotches of green to look weathered and encrusted with algae and moss.

The other end of the drain outlet was rusted with Humbrol Leather.

Another shot of the overall from another angle.

Thanks for looking. C & C welcomed.

Cheers,

Richard 

Hi Everyone, it's good to be back working on R & R after some side distractions on other projects.

Well, the last time I promised some picture of an old local house that caught my eye while building R & R. I'm surprised that it's still standing next to a highway.

More surprising is there are still occupants and a small business selling junk.

Notice the modern bus stop next to it.

Okay, here are some progress shots of the dio base. I removed all the loose items to work on it.

There are some improvements where I carved out a new path assuming that it's coming from the main road.

I added cement literally to the porch of the house. You can see the masking tape to protect the wall.  I tend to do things the hard way...the correct way is to do all base work before adding stuff like the house...I'm doing it backwards which I don't recommened.

Then I also cemented the road and embankment to seal it for the bushes and vegetaion that I'm going to add.

I've also decided that I'll put the banana tree in this corner. It still needs final painting and detailing.

The cement for the porch has dried so I've weathered it with olive drab to simulate green algae due to the wet and moist surface and sun.

That's all for now. I'm still working on the painting of the rest of the base and the sawgrass. Ive also decided to switch some of the figures with the new ARVN troops I got as they are more the right Asian size.

Thanks for looking.

Cheers,

Richard

*INDY

~Any progress Richard?

How are you?

 

Hi Adam,

Thanks for asking, I'm fine, so far the progress for this dio had to take a back seat as I was rushing a 1/72 Heli Dio for a local GB. Didn't finish on time but it was enough for a decent display. Here's a glimpse of it minus the figures and some minute details on the heli:

I managed to ad figures to the Heli for the GB that just concluded last Saturday. Here's the pix with the figures:

I'm now continuing with the Marines to be added to the padi field. You can catch the whole WIP in the Helicopter forum. Look out for UH-34.

Once this is done I'll probably renue progress with R & R .

Cheers,

Richard

~Any progress Richard?

How are you?

Gamera

WOW! Figures and buildings look great! Really looking forward to seeing her finished.

Thanks Gamera, I'm as anxious as you are with completing this dio. I've been at it, off and on for three years now.

Cheers,

Richard.

vespa boy

Richard: Here is a link to Chuck's photo albums....really inspirational stuff. The effort he puts into getting every detail is just amazing.

http://public.fotki.com/chuckdoan/model_projects/

Thanks for the link Narayan,

Really amazing work from this artist. Chucks work is way ahead of mine and I can get new inspiration from him. So far I'm pleased to have seen some similar applications between us and I'm only at 25% of where he's at. I'm surprised that the materials in the pine trees in his Red Oak Garage dio are the same as those in my Before The Bulge dio. Cool.

His Dr Peppers signage will be the reference basis for weathering my Marlboro bilboard from now on. Great link.

Cheers,

Richard.

WOW! Figures and buildings look great! Really looking forward to seeing her finished.

Richard: Here is a link to Chuck's photo albums....really inspirational stuff. The effort he puts into getting every detail is just amazing.

http://public.fotki.com/chuckdoan/model_projects/

*INDY

!~Beautiful update my friend---this thread is no doubt one of my favorite stops!

 I found this to be entirely convincing

That has to be the product of someone very familiar with such a place. Grade A stuff

Thanks Adam, glad you liked that particular picture.

I'm lucky to be surrounded by these references. Nothing has changed much in the old part of town or villages. There's this one house next to an elevated highway that I want to photograph and share with you before it's torn down. It has a character on its own. Will post as soon as I shoot it.

Cheers,

Richard

vespa boy

Nice work on the basket. When you copy the method of construction for the protoype for your model you get the best results and it really paid off. I like the building, and the small details like the flashing at the edge of the awning.

Have you seen Chuck Doan's modelling? He manages to age signage like no one else I have seen. Well worth checking it out.

Thanks Narayan, yep there's no other way than to copy. No I've not seen Chuck's modelling. Would like a link to his site if you have one?

Cheers,

Richard

telsono

Thanks Richard for the addtional reference pictures. I doubted that I have ever seen Durians other than the Thai large ones. With that Northwest flight, the fruit was in cardboard cartons without plastic. The plastic wrap would have caused rot, but the scent probably made people think that it had already. My wife is from Vietnam so I have been well acquainted with it. We had a tin of durian flavored wafer creme cookies. You had to make sure the cover was tightly secure or the entire house smelled of it. At the airport working passenger baggage we had the fire department come down to investigate possible "gas leaks" after the fruit was seized from passengers.

Export fruits are usually of a highest quality. To Japan we ship cherries which are "Grade A over selected". The cheap cherries people sell at the roadsides are the "doubles" and "splits" that are graded out. we have alot more splits this year with intermittent rains that swell and causes ruptures in the fruit skin which is only slightly elastic in nature.

Mike T.

Oooh Cherries, my sister used to bring a carton of them from Australia on her visits and we used to overdose on cherries. Our local fruit tend to be tougher, hardy and naturally sweet.

Cheers,

Richard

!~Beautiful update my friend---this thread is no doubt one of my favorite stops!

 I found this to be entirely convincing

That has to be the product of someone very familiar with such a place. Grade A stuff

Nice work on the basket. When you copy the method of construction for the protoype for your model you get the best results and it really paid off. I like the building, and the small details like the flashing at the edge of the awning.

Have you seen Chuck Doan's modelling? He manages to age signage like no one else I have seen. Well worth checking it out.

Thanks Richard for the addtional reference pictures. I doubted that I have ever seen Durians other than the Thai large ones. With that Northwest flight, the fruit was in cardboard cartons without plastic. The plastic wrap would have caused rot, but the scent probably made people think that it had already. My wife is from Vietnam so I have been well acquainted with it. We had a tin of durian flavored wafer creme cookies. You had to make sure the cover was tightly secure or the entire house smelled of it. At the airport working passenger baggage we had the fire department come down to investigate possible "gas leaks" after the fruit was seized from passengers.

Export fruits are usually of a highest quality. To Japan we ship cherries which are "Grade A over selected". The cheap cherries people sell at the roadsides are the "doubles" and "splits" that are graded out. we have alot more splits this year with intermittent rains that swell and causes ruptures in the fruit skin which is only slightly elastic in nature.

Mike T.

Thought I'd add more to the WIP with the build up of the shop house. It all started with basic art cards and then strips of card was glued overlapping each strip for the walls.

I painted the walls a peppermint green so well liked by the chinese comunity.

Chicken wire made from wedding veil screen was for the ventilation screen found at the top of the walls of most village houses.

The side wall got a window with corrugated zinc roofing made out of corrugated card.

I made the window louvres from clear plastic and rods. The frame was made from strips of thicker plastic sheets.

The front door is balsa strip. The doors were usually planks slotted in grooves and held by a single horizontal timber bar from the back.

The fruit stall stand was fabricated from card and balsa. The boxes were made from card as well.

The following are some of the components that are going into this dio.

What's a basket got to do with the dio? Well it better fit in as I had to painstakingly piece together strip by strip paper thin plastic sheet to simulate a vege basket used to throw trash at fruit stalls.

And ofcourse bananas that will accompany this dio. As you can see they're not quite finished yet. They were made from glueing spices together(Jintan Manis).

The finished basket painted rattan brown and next to the fruit stand and boxes.

That's all for now. C & C welcomed and thanks for looking.

Cheers,

Richard

Hi Mike, thanks for your comments and a very good observation on durians. I would have chosen to use the casuarina seeds, unfortunately the smaller young seeds were at the top of the 30' to 40' trees. They do have the characteristic look of the durians before they pop open when dry but had to settle for the papaya seeds instead.

The ones you see imported are the larger variants from Thailand. If we do export, it would also be the huge versions that were specially cultivated from the 1980's onwards. The ones depicted in my dio would have come from the local nearby villages and would be the sort after semi-wild versions that have better aroma and flavour. They're usally quite small about half the size of the export versions and sometimes hold only five to six seeds.

Here are some pictures of the notorious durian...

This shows a stall in Hong Kong with the imported Thai durians.

This is what the Thai or cultivated durian looks like with its perfect neat arrangement of the pulp and seeds. Very compartmentalised.

These next photos show our local fruit. Notice the various sizes and shapes...

I appreciate what you've said and like how you described the durian. Now I know whenever I turn on the gas stove I got the urge to get some durian.

telsono

I can remember when a Northwest passenger flight came in to SFO. Part of my job back then was to read the cargo manifest upon arrival, the door was cracked open and what could I smell, but durian. The flight attendant was blaming the stench on the refugees onboard, but it wasn't bodily odors, it was durian. She couldn't believe that the cargo could smell that bad. After that, Northwest carried it only on the cargo aircraft.

Mike T.

Yup, even when it's vacuum packed, the "pong" still gets out.

Cheers,

Richard

It looks very good. The composition is great and unique.

I would have gone with the casurina tree seeds for the durian. As part of my job I have actually inspected them on import and they were larger than a human head. I would hold the stem and slip the point of my knife into the other end of the fruit to have a proper grasp on the fruit avoiding its spikes. The Casurina seed would also depict the very large spikes on the fruit. This fruit is known for killing people when a fruit drops from the tree unto an unspecting person. The smell is quite strong, in fact the butyl mercaptan causing the odor was synthesised and used as the odor marker in natural gas. I have tasted it, but as of yet can just tolerate what is called the "Queen of Fruits" or the nickname I prefer, the "Heaven and Hell fruit ' - tastes like heaven smells like hell. 

I can remember when a Northwest passenger flight came in to SFO. Part of my job back then was to read the cargo manifest upon arrival, the door was cracked open and what could I smell, but durian. The flight attendant was blaming the stench on the refugees onboard, but it wasn't bodily odors, it was durian. She couldn't believe that the cargo could smell that bad. After that, Northwest carried it only on the cargo aircraft.

Mike T.

looking very good!

Ok, with the comments I got from my collegues, apparently the blouse is different in each state or province and since this dio is situated in the northen region, I had to make some changes. I've modified the baju with the collar unbuttoned. Since I had extra bondite left I made a collar and shirt fold for the squating suspected Chin Peng(famous communist terrorist leader in the 50's).

It's a little rough...bondite gets a little powdery as it hardens when in contact with water so I'll leave it over night to harden completely then I'll sand it or mix a new batch of bondite and thinly coat the surface.

Thanks for looking

Cheers,

Richard

OttoVonStapleNuber

Alot of impressive creations going into this one Richard--I guess this is the current build? The others are all older ones? Great info on a great blog--please never stop!

Thanks OttoVonStapleNuber, yes this is one of my current builds and it's been ongoing for the last two years. I've been dabbling with it occasionally adding new stuff whenever I remember an image and an item that was significant of the '70's. So I don't know when it'll stop or be completed. The sub-assemblies took most of the time for instance the house, stall, motor bike, land rover, fruits, dogs, slippers, clogs, billboard.

Thanks Adam...

I am now tackling the figures and ground work. I may have to switch the figures with new ones I found to be the right size. Anyway here is more progress

I was intrigued by a collegues sculpture and decided to try my hand with thin layers of Bondite and talcum to form the sarong and baju(blouse) for my Pakcik and his Honda cub. The figure used was from the Dragon standing Vietcong.

First I had to sand away the trouser pants and use the motor tool to carve out the shape of his calfs. I'll let the pictures do the talking...

...then using flattened bondite rolled with a bottle as a rolling pin and talcum so that it didn't stick, I formed the sarong and wrapped it around the torso...

I let it harden over night then I added the layer for the baju and pockets.

Thanks for looking.

Yeah Richard..it is an amazing great blog

What is new on the Malaysian Front??

Alot of impressive creations going into this one Richard--I guess this is the current build? The others are all older ones? Great info on a great blog--please never stop!

*INDY

  
I thought it was halarious--but you never be sure how someone will take a few typed words---still---you did point out 1 missing rivit  Of course you we're dead right---Richard had left that puppy out

You guys are real jockers.

Cheers,

Richard

  
I thought it was halarious--but you never be sure how someone will take a few typed words---still---you did point out 1 missing rivit  Of course you we're dead right---Richard had left that puppy out

Adam: You are literally right:. That is very funny.

*INDY

 Narayan ~  RIVIT COUNTER!!!   

                               Richard ~ I love the scale . You continue to impress!

Thanks Guys,

Adam, funny you calling Narayan a rivet counter. He's quite right you know. The majority of weighing scales have the bolt in the center of the cross braces. There are some that are metal stamped or welded too. The plate will be on the scale in the dio so I might not add the bolt. I'll make an extra plate though which is usual in fruit stalls here.

Cheers,

Richard

 Narayan ~  RIVIT COUNTER!!!   

                               Richard ~ I love the scale . You continue to impress!