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09.12.2006 » Diorama Concepts

On this page I will go into detail on constructing, painting, and weathering the display base for the JGSDF Type 74 model kit by Tamiya. My plan is for the tank to be resting on a slight back-road incline and on some railroad tracks. There will be some brush and a few figures as well. I got the railroad track idea from some images I saw in an issue of Xtreme Military Modeler. The way the tank tracks sag over the tracks is a beautiful thing to behold.

09.12.2006 » Riding the Rails

On the way back from preschool today I stopped into the model railroad shop a few blocks from my house. Usually I never step foot in these as they don't have much I ever need. This time however they were the perfect source for a main piece of this dio. Railroad tracks! They didn't have anything in a larger scale with only 2 rails and the ties so I opted for what I think is an HO scale length of track. I got 2 feet of it for $5.00 which wasn't too bad.

I need to do a fair amount of modifications to it. Yes... I know... there's 1/35 scale track available. I've not heard good things about it though and didn't want to wait for it to be delivered. First up I needed to take it apart and cut it to the length I needed. I slid the wooden ties off and used a razor-saw to cut the tracks. I guestimated based on images of people walking on railroad tracks the width I'd need. I decided to use the existing ties in the center and use the cut-off edges for the parts out-side of the track.

Next I cut a thin piece of balsa wood that fit into the shallow box I'll be using as a base. This will be the base for the tracks so that I can add them to the base after painting. I glued the widest pieces of "tie" in the center and the short pieces ou the outside with white glue. I can remove the metal track parts for painting which is nice. When I place it onto the base when done I'll fill the gaps and edges with those little gray rocks called ballast. That'll help blend it all in. Also since the tank will be resting on the tracks, I'll be adding some wood or rusted metal dimond-plate planks as a cheap railroad crossing. This would keep the tank/normal traffic from damaging the tracks in real life.

Below you can see the widened track sitting inside of the base (although when done the track will be sitting up on a slope an inch higher) and the "scale fig".

09.14.2006 » The Grassy Knoll

I made some more progress on the base today since I got my Silflor grass mat. The weird thing is... I ordered it from Scenic Express yesterday. I totally did not expect it to arrive so soon. Express is right! Wow. Anyway, I got the fall sample set which comes with 5 different 4x6 inch pieces. These will last me a very long time I think so the $15.95 price tag wasn't *too* horrible. They're very nice though and have a realistic look. See an image I shot below.

I also started building up the groundwork on the base. I first used floral foam and put paper mache over it. Then I added celluclay over that to get the bumpy base I want under the grass. I didn't add any on the "hill" as that's where the track section will be placed and will be covered with ballast. (little gray rocks) I added styrene around the edge of the groundwork to section that off flatly. I'll paint that black later and also stain the wood.

09.16.2006 » More Grass

I had some requests to show the entire pieces of the Silflor grass I got from Scenery Express. Here's all 5 pieces and the description from the website...

Silflor® Autumn Sampler Pack 5 sheets 4" x 6" each as follows: SF71024 Autumn Short 2mm Lawn SF71124 Autumn Medium 5mm Lawn SF72024 Autumn High Pasture 8mm Lawn SF72124 Autumn High Pasture W/Weeds 8mm SF73024 Wild AutumnTone Moorland Silflor gives ground cover a whole new meaning. Silflor's unique beauty will add subtle distinctions of texture, length and color to any landscape. Grass heights are available in 2mm, 5mm & 8 mm lengths. Choose from a variety of color including spring, early summer, late summer, and autumn tones and our favorite, wild moorland texture. A realistic natural scenery can be achieved by incorporating various sizes of mat, textures, colors and heights. Take care when mixing and matching colors. Adjacent periods of the year must be utilized together. Yellow colors prevail closer to road surfaces while further from the road, ground surface is often greener. Fields rarely consist of one type of grass. Some places are wetter, other dryer. Some places tufts are longer, others shorter, Feel free to add wild grasses, weeds and flowers for visible variations.

09.18.2006 » Track Ballast

My tracks should be here in a day or 2 so in the meantime I'm working on the base as well as the figs. Today, since the celluclay can shrink when it dries, I filled in the cracks between the styrene sheet and the existing celuclay with more celluclay. If that shrinks more, then I'll use something else for the next cracks. Wood filler maybe. I also laid my track section down and poured some ballast onto it. I just wanted to see how it would look when done. When I do this for the final, I'll have to clean it off the ties and fill in the edges on the ends of the tracks. Adding a few weeds growing in the ballast will be a nice touch too.

09.19.2006 » Dirt

The celluclay finally dried so I was able to get a good bit of progress in on the base. A few days ago I stained the base with a dark Red Oak stain from Minwax. When dry the next day I masked it off from the sides and clay with blue painters tape. This afternoon I primed the base in dark gray Duplicolor primer and when that dried a bit I sprayed the flat sides with a flat black spraypaint. After that dried for about a half hour (dry to the touch) I removed the masking tape and sprayed the whole base with a semi-gloss clear-coat from a spray-can.

After this clear-coat dried I remasked the wood and began painting the dirt with craft acrylics. I mixed a color that was very similar to Mig Pigments Russian Earth (P034). I painted it on and left it to dry.

When the acrylics dried (about 20 minutes later) I took some Mig Russian Earth pigment and placed it into a small container. I then dipped a medium-sized brush into mineral spirits and mixed a thick pasty slurry. I immediately brushed this onto the base over the acrylics. I repeated the dip, slurry, paint process till the entire portion of the base I painted with acrylics was covered. This went on very dark and shiney, but when dry it lightens and makes a very nice matt surface.

The plain Russian Earth base color looked good, but I wanted to add some variation in the tones of the earth to add to the realism. To do this I dabbed on small amounts of dry pigments. (Europe Dust P028 and Vietnam Earth P031) I then worked/blended these into the base pigment with a brush. This gave me a great overall color similar to that seen in some JGSDF Type 74 training images I was sent. See below for images. Next up is the tracks and ballast.

09.20.2006 » Making Tracks

More base progress today. First I sprayed the tracks, metal plates (styrene rectangles) and railroad spikes (straight pins) with dark gray Duplicolor primer. (pictured below) I love the spray tip of this primer as it produces a vertical flat spray that keeps build-up to a minimum. Afterwards I hand-brushed the tracks and such with a rust-colored mix of Tamiya acrylics.

Meanwhile I used 5 minute epoxy to attach the track ties to the groundwork. Then I glued some sprigs of tall field grass in a few spots next to the ties which will simulate weeds. When everything dried I glued thetracks in then the metal plates to the ties on both sides of the tracks. When that ried I drilled small holes in the plates with my pin-vice and into the ties. I cut the sharp ends of the pins and glued them into the holes. Lastly I poured on the ballast and applied Future Floor Acrylic with an eye-dropper to act as a glue to hold the ballast in place.

This larger ballast will be covered later with a dry, smaller, crushed mixture of ballasts. This will fill in the gaps and make a finer looking and more in-scale look. This fine ballast is mixed with powdered ballast cement. When I apply water to it, it will glue everything in place and hopefully be a strong pile of rocks. I'll also use pigment powders after this to rust-up the tracks more. A last step will be to finely sand the track-tops with fine steel wool to regain their shine from use.

09.21.2006 » On The Rocks

I've done a little more with the track-bed. I applied my finer ballast/dry ballast cement mix over the coarser stuff. Looks pretty good. Adding some water mixed with white glue really set the plie down firm. I added some rust Mig Pigments to the tracks and later will apply some dust to the rust to blend it in better. I also sanded the top of the tracks down to the natural metal to simulate the polishing wear of frequent use. As a suggestion from BK I'll darken them up a bit with a little bit of oils and then some powdered graphite. I'll also vary the tones of the individual ties with some oil washes. Below is the latest image and a few reference shots of train tracks. The first image is very close to what I've been planning.

10.04.2006 » Greenery

I've added the Silflor grass to the base as well as some shrubs. The grass went on great, but it's a little shiney so I had to spray it with a little flat-Future. I didn't apply grass where the tracks are so that the tank sits correctly on the ground.

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