How I Build Dioramas(step-by-step)

JohnReid

Member since
February 2004
From: Montreal/Canada

Posted by JohnReid on Friday, January 13, 2006 3:41 AM

Guide my hand in your work today.JWRR. My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am. My Photoshop: http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

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JohnReid

Member since
February 2004
From: Montreal/Canada

Posted by JohnReid on Friday, January 13, 2006 4:21 AM

Now back to the Workshop Module

In this pic you can see the beginning of the general arrangement of the workshop.The office module has not yet been thought of so there has been some changes.Where you see what looks like a bookcase is now a window/heating opening to the office.On just the other side of that wall I have punched through the office/hangar door opening.
The heating /cook stove is temporarly in place in one corner and the walls behind the stove have been insulated with brass sheet.All the walls facing the exterior have been insulated grey cardboard,battened and weathered with acrylics and pastels.Some of the overhead shelving has been installed.
I havent yet decided if I should leave a portion of the workshop roof off for viewing or should I cover it completely.I also have the option of just putting in the ceiling joists.(remember I have left a viewing hole in the hangar roof so the workshop floor can be made visible if I want to do so.)What do you guys think would look best?

Guide my hand in your work today.JWRR. My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am. My Photoshop: http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

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JohnReid

Member since
February 2004
From: Montreal/Canada

Posted by JohnReid on Friday, January 13, 2006 10:41 AM

Looking down thru the rafters at the Jenny in its jig

v

Guide my hand in your work today.JWRR. My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am. My Photoshop: http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

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JohnReid

Member since
February 2004
From: Montreal/Canada

Posted by JohnReid on Saturday, January 14, 2006 6:27 PM

Guide my hand in your work today.JWRR. My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am. My Photoshop: http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

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JohnReid

Member since
February 2004
From: Montreal/Canada

Posted by JohnReid on Saturday, January 14, 2006 6:57 PM

The workshop from a different angle.The door opening along the hangar wall is where the enterance to the rear entrance /WC/coal storing area is now.At this point I hadent yet thought of the modular additions to the main hangar structure.The large screws will be removed eventually as the workshop will be one complete module.The ceiling joists will be removable much like the rafters in the main hangar are now, for ease of maintenance.Through the workshop door you can see some shelving and also the windows facing outside.These have now been stocked with various items that would be found in any woodworkers shop of the era.The central theme in the workshop is the finishing of that second scratchbuild propeller I built when experimenting with various glues.(keep things long enough and eventually I find a use for them)In the diorama story,the prop is shown getting its last few finishing coats of varnish.

Guide my hand in your work today.JWRR. My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am. My Photoshop: http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

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JohnReid

Member since
February 2004
From: Montreal/Canada

Posted by JohnReid on Sunday, January 15, 2006 6:22 AM

Guide my hand in your work today.JWRR. My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am. My Photoshop: http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

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JohnReid

Member since
February 2004
From: Montreal/Canada

Posted by JohnReid on Sunday, January 15, 2006 6:40 AM

The workshop interior from above.Note:the floor has been laid at a 45deg angle for visual interest.The walls facing the hangars interior have been insulated with cardboard.some shealing has been installed.everything has been weathered with acrylics and pastels.Since this pic was taken I have added a large work table and most of the furniture and tools.Just the stove requires permanent installation and finishing.

Guide my hand in your work today.JWRR. My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am. My Photoshop: http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

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JohnReid

Member since
February 2004
From: Montreal/Canada

Posted by JohnReid on Sunday, January 15, 2006 9:27 AM

Here we go again! I was looking thru one of my Time-Life aviation books today and saw an old radio shack picture with old telephones ,radios etc..etc... in it and said to myself, that would make a great addition to my "Memories of Flight School" diorama.It would require me building another module add on.In fact, I like the idea sooo much that I am thinking of this kind of being the never-ending project.If I plan now I can provide for many more add ons ,such as machine shop ,car garage and storage area(which would solve the hangar space problem) or whatever I can think of.
I am 65 now and because we never know when we may be going to the "Happy Hunting Ground" this would be a perfect way to end my modeling career, without ever ending my modeling career, if you know what I mean.

I can build these add ons as seperate units waiting to be added on ,whether the dio is here or at the museum.I have lots of ideas about this and now is the perfect time to plan for it.The dio can be called finished at any time, once the main structure is finished, but it never really would be finished as long as I can keep building.The only provsion that I will have to make will be for some of the major components to be removable (cars,trailers,airplane parts and pieces) in the future so they can be moved to other modules as I go along.I am very excited about this whole idea.What do you guys think?

Guide my hand in your work today.JWRR. My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am. My Photoshop: http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

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JohnReid

Member since
February 2004
From: Montreal/Canada

Posted by JohnReid on Sunday, January 15, 2006 9:41 AM

Guide my hand in your work today.JWRR. My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am. My Photoshop: http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

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Jim Barton

Member since
February 2003

Posted by Jim Barton on Sunday, January 15, 2006 1:59 PM

JohnReid wrote:

The checkerboard roof:
Over the 1/4 ply I glued on, with carpenters glue ,squares of medium emory cloth that I cut out of 8x10 stock. I painted each square with white or black gesso about 75/25 gesso to water.Do not paint on too thick as you want to retain the roughness of the cloth.You can see that I have started to lay down the wood battens.Nothing has yet been weathered.
The sign is one that I made up from my imagination and I have since doubled the size.
Note:Why the checkerboard pattern? In the early days of flying the mail,pilots had little navigation equipement and what they had was totally unreliable.Compasses were often off 90 degs.They therefore relied on there sight to navigate from point to point usually along railway tracks(the iron compass) of rivers etc... Railway stations often painted the towns name on the roof and the local aviation field may have had a checkerboard roof on the hangar to help guide the pilots.
As a point of interest on just how crude flying in poor weather could be,pilots in order to clear known objects on the ground ,such as transmitter towers etc.. would pull up into the "soup" ,count to 30,and let down the opposite side.No wonder that it was called the suicide club.
Cheers! John.

Even as recently as the 1950's, Boy Scouts in Arizona made a huge sign in the ground east of Mesa that spelled "PHOENIX" with a large arrow pointing the way to help pilots find Phoenix, which was way smaller back then than it is today. This sign is still visible today near Mesa.

Beautiful diorama so far! Someday, I'll build one myself.

"Whaddya mean 'Who's flying the plane?!' Nobody's flying the plane!"

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JohnReid

Member since
February 2004
From: Montreal/Canada

Posted by JohnReid on Monday, January 16, 2006 7:59 AM

Yesterday ,for something a little different i began to paint "Harley" the company mascot.He is a Bull Mastiff breed of dog with a dark face& biege body.I am using the pewter casting that I found in a dollar store as the basic model.He is in a sitting position, so I plan to have him sitting in an office chair, with the office manager standing beside him, and both of them looking through the door at the action taking place in the hangar.
I have had quite a lot of experience texturing surfaces to make them look like feathers or fur using a high speed rotary shaft so I added texture here and there as required.I sealed the casting with my standard laquer plus thinner mix and then brushed on a couple of thin coats of brown gesso.I am presently working out a pallette of Jo Sonja acrylic colors.
As you probably already know, I have painted the military type figures for this diorama but I will be painting many more cilivian type figures in the future.When I get to that stage I will give you guys a step-by- step method that I us for painting them.
The more I think of the expanded diorama idea that I mentioned yesterday, the more I like the whole idea.It does not mean that I will not be doing other dios in between ,such as finishing off the classic car radio cabinet dio,it just means that the "Memories Of Flight School " dio will be an on going project.

Guide my hand in your work today.JWRR. My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am. My Photoshop: http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

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JohnReid

Member since
February 2004
From: Montreal/Canada

Posted by JohnReid on Monday, January 16, 2006 8:26 AM

Finished workshop exterior( except for windows)

Guide my hand in your work today.JWRR. My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am. My Photoshop: http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

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JohnReid

Member since
February 2004
From: Montreal/Canada

Posted by JohnReid on Monday, January 16, 2006 8:28 AM

Thanks Jim! What kind of diorama do you plan to do?

Guide my hand in your work today.JWRR. My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am. My Photoshop: http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

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JohnReid

Member since
February 2004
From: Montreal/Canada

Posted by JohnReid on Tuesday, January 17, 2006 6:38 AM

Guide my hand in your work today.JWRR. My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am. My Photoshop: http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

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JohnReid

Member since
February 2004
From: Montreal/Canada

Posted by JohnReid on Tuesday, January 17, 2006 7:16 AM

Here is kind of an interesting shot through the garage door into the hangar,through the workshop window and then the other window into the far wall of the office.This covers a distance of about 55 inches.

The following I posted on another thread in response to why I do dioramas.I thought you guys might be interested.

Why I do it!
To me its all about the viewer.My goal is to have the viewer lose themselves,if only for a moment, in another reality.It is a kind of magical world of the spirit where kids are privledged to live a lot of the time.It is still there in all of us and it is the dioramaists or moviemakers or other visual type of artists role, to take the viewer by the hand and lead him back to that wonderful world of childhood, where everything is possible.When I am working,I try to think like a child.What would please the imagination of a child.How can I draw them into my work? if I can hold the attention of a child for any length of time,the grownups are easy.When kids first see my work ,I make it a point to study their faces.Most of the time they wont say a thing and that is when I know Ive got them.Usually, I am the first to speak and I can tell that they are usually lost in my world,in this little world that I have created.Its the look on their faces,thats why I do dioramas. Someone once said, All kids are artisits,the trick is to stay an artist when we grow up.Hope I havent been too heavy in my response but that is the way I feel.Cheers! John.
__________________
It has been said that the difference between a "pilot" and an "aviator" is that a pilot is a technician,and an aviator is an artist in love with flight.
JohnReid (Aviator)

Guide my hand in your work today.JWRR. My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am. My Photoshop: http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

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JohnReid

Member since
February 2004
From: Montreal/Canada

Posted by JohnReid on Tuesday, January 17, 2006 6:54 PM

Guide my hand in your work today.JWRR. My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am. My Photoshop: http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

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JohnReid

Member since
February 2004
From: Montreal/Canada

Posted by JohnReid on Tuesday, January 17, 2006 7:24 PM

This is the R/H side panel that was modified to provide for the new office module.As you can see this module was an afterthought ,so I had to bore through the side panel to create a new door and window in the hangars side.Because of the foamboard type construction this was not very difficult to do with a small handsaw.
Because the office is so small I could not provide it with a seperate heating stove,so to allow for heat I cut a new window between the office and the workshop .
The office module is located between the high hangar windows and the lower workshop window.

Guide my hand in your work today.JWRR. My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am. My Photoshop: http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

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JohnReid

Member since
February 2004
From: Montreal/Canada

Posted by JohnReid on Wednesday, January 18, 2006 6:27 AM

Guide my hand in your work today.JWRR. My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am. My Photoshop: http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

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JohnReid

Member since
February 2004
From: Montreal/Canada

Posted by JohnReid on Wednesday, January 18, 2006 7:28 AM

This shot of the R/H side panel and rear panel is where all the action has been taking place for the last while.The workshop is situated where you see the 2 lower windows.The office is located on the side panel between the high windows and the low workshop window.It is in this area that I put in the new door and window/heating port.
The rear entrance was already provided for and the rear entrance/WC module is located between the lower shop window and the high hangar window on the rear panel.

Guide my hand in your work today.JWRR. My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am. My Photoshop: http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

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JohnReid

Member since
February 2004
From: Montreal/Canada

Posted by JohnReid on Wednesday, January 18, 2006 3:34 PM

Guide my hand in your work today.JWRR. My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am. My Photoshop: http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

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JohnReid

Member since
February 2004
From: Montreal/Canada

Posted by JohnReid on Wednesday, January 18, 2006 3:57 PM

Sorry I dont have any pic to show you of the office module in foamboard but I have one of the rear entrance/WC module which is basically the same method of construction.
In this pic you can clearly see the base,floor,wall panels and roof.If you look through the rear door you can see the door to the WC.The small opening on the side panel will be a coal shute.
If you look through the window in the rear panel of the hangar wall you can just see the window and edge of the workshop.
It just so happens that I have been working on this module today installing the windows and doors.
The next couple of pics will be of the office Module after sheathing.

Guide my hand in your work today.JWRR. My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am. My Photoshop: http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

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JohnReid

Member since
February 2004
From: Montreal/Canada

Posted by JohnReid on Thursday, January 19, 2006 10:28 AM

Guide my hand in your work today.JWRR. My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am. My Photoshop: http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

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JohnReid

Member since
February 2004
From: Montreal/Canada

Posted by JohnReid on Thursday, January 19, 2006 11:04 AM

This is the beginnings of the office module.Lots of doors and windows!
The roof is medium emory cloth glued to foamboard,trimmed with wood battens .It is painted with Cadmium Med Red with a touch of Pine Green added to tone it down a little.(Always use the color opposite on the color wheel to tone down a color)
The sheathing is the standard batten and board method,painted with a thin wash of white gesso with a little Raw Umber in the mix to take the starkness out of the white and warm it up a little(you can do the same with Black by adding Burnt umber)
If you look closely through the office door you will see the entrance to the hangar and next to it a window to the workshop.
I have decided that this will be strictly an office and later I will build a seperate structure as a radio shack/operation room.

Guide my hand in your work today.JWRR. My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am. My Photoshop: http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

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JohnReid

Member since
February 2004
From: Montreal/Canada

Posted by JohnReid on Friday, January 20, 2006 7:15 AM

Another view.

Guide my hand in your work today.JWRR. My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am. My Photoshop: http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

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JohnReid

Member since
February 2004
From: Montreal/Canada

Posted by JohnReid on Friday, January 20, 2006 8:20 AM

This is something that I posted on another forum in response to a question .I thought you guys might be interested.

Key ingredients
You are right, Stephen, it is important to please yourself as your creative heart has to be in what you are doing at the moment.I remember once on a trip through St Jean de Port- Joli here in Quebec I once requested a well known woodcarver to do me a copy of a piece that he had done for me, for my cousin, at my cousins request.There just was no comparison between the original and the copy .One he wanted to do ,the other he had to do and that made all the difference.

About Key ingredients in a diorama, on another level the first thing I look for in a great diorama is,is it believable?Does it look natural?When I taught decorative bird carving ,the hardest thing to get across to my students was to avoid lining things up in a row,having things equi-distant or 90deg to each other.In fact, even today when I am working on a piece, I willoften have to go back and screw things up a bit to make it look more natural.What may look perfectly natural has sometimes taken hours of thought,placing and replacing things until they look just right. Only man plants trees in rows.It is a human tendency that I find that I have to be constantly aware of when I am working.It cannot look too staged,too square,too correct ,to be believable.In life things get dirty,dusty,worn and a good diorama must reflect this. What do you think,Stephen? Cheers! John.
__________________
It h

Guide my hand in your work today.JWRR. My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am. My Photoshop: http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

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JohnReid

Member since
February 2004
From: Montreal/Canada

Posted by JohnReid on Friday, January 20, 2006 8:38 AM

Does this sound familiar?

We must ask ourselves:why would an otherwise reasonably normal person forsake the pleasures of family,garden,TV,bowling,hunting,fishing,sailing,b arhopping,vacationing,fixing faucets,and playing poker to sit for years at a time,hunched over a cluttered workbench,squinting through an Optivisor,fashioning tiny bits of plastic(or wood)into what eventually emerges as a miniture representation of a long-extinct piece of machinery which few still recall and about which fewer give a damn?

The most rewarding goal is psychic satisfaction:knowledge that the finished product really is good-reflecting the best you had within you.Sure,it was an epic struggle,but it came out well,and now you can rest upon your laurels for awhile.You go out and lie on the hammock all afternoon(or until the bugs find you);rent a few old movies(Test Pilot,Men With Wings,Dawn Patrol-the usual fare);go to the zoo.But before long,the old urge begins to return(no,not that one,this one)and pretty soon you are back at the workbench,happily wailing away on your next masterpiece.

John Alcorn from his book ,Scratchbuilt! A Celebration of the Static Scale Airplane Modellers Craft. Cheers! John.

_______

Guide my hand in your work today.JWRR. My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am. My Photoshop: http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

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JohnReid

Member since
February 2004
From: Montreal/Canada

Posted by JohnReid on Saturday, January 21, 2006 7:25 AM

Guide my hand in your work today.JWRR. My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am. My Photoshop: http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

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JohnReid

Member since
February 2004
From: Montreal/Canada

Posted by JohnReid on Saturday, January 21, 2006 8:10 AM

After building the basic rear entrance structure I proceeded to the garage door ramp area.This is also a modular type structure with a base much like the others.The garage doors are actually attached to the module and not the hangar wall.
This is an area that sometime in the future will be modified again to become a garage or machine shop etc...That is after I finish the radio shack/operations building.
Note:through the main hangar doors you can see the front of the workshop.

Guide my hand in your work today.JWRR. My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am. My Photoshop: http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

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JohnReid

Member since
February 2004
From: Montreal/Canada

Posted by JohnReid on Saturday, January 21, 2006 8:33 AM

Guide my hand in your work today.JWRR. My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am. My Photoshop: http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

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JohnReid

Member since
February 2004
From: Montreal/Canada

Posted by JohnReid on Saturday, January 21, 2006 9:07 AM

Barnstormers Showcar

When looking around for a 1/16th showcar, I closest thing that I could find to what I wanted was, a Minicraft 1928 Mercedes Benz SS.I had noticed when doing my research there was a picture of a Lozier showcar in one of the Time-life Epic of Flight books(Barnstormers & Speedkings).It is shown on a beach in San Diego during a 1920 airshow.It was modified for a stunt called the car to plane transfer.
I coundnt use any other type car of the period because they were not fast enough to keep up with the speed on the aircraft in flight.The 28 Mercedes was highly modified to look more like the Lozier complete with a wood ramp on the back for the stuntman to stand on. to be cont....

Guide my hand in your work today.JWRR. My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am. My Photoshop: http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

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