You know it is funny how it goes with art. I started off wanting to do and learn about everything.Take figures for example,I wanted to learn how to do them as I thought at the time, that they really completed a diorama.Normally this is true ,they add a sense of scale and life to the scene.In my work I only used them in relaxed positions,standing talking in groups for example.No action not even walking as I felt that it broke the illusion of "a moment in time."My first diorama had three figures,the next five,after that too many for the fourth diorama, then it was back to one, and now none. A lot of artists are the same from what I see around me.In the beginning they want to prove that they can master the techniques,then having done that they want to experiment with their own ideas and a lot of the time it is about minimizing things to the point where you can get say what you have to say as simply as possible. Some artists minimize a whole aspect of their art and tell an even more powerful story by letting the viewers imagination fill in the blanks. Making a film with 15 pages of dialogue in a 3 hour piece is a wonderful example of this.When you do it right it can become a masterpiece !
Changed my mind again . I won't be doing the interior of the luxury car after all.I reviewed the film again today and it just contains too much stuff.Fine scale furniture building is not something that I really want to do and buying that stuff costs a fortune.It really would not add a lot to the diorama and actually it might be distracting.The primary purpose for the car is to have a Morton Railway logo which is on the outside anyway.I can just make up some wooden blinds ,light the interior through the blinds to add atmosphere and put a sign on the stage door side saying something like "Movie Set,please keep door closed." The car/shack plus the fake locomotive should get the sub-story line of movies being mostly about illusion, across to the viewer without going to all the trouble involved with building the interior of the Morton car.
Next up will be the locomotive "The General".I have gathered most of the reference I need.I plan to make this locomotive a complete fake and build only about half of it so that it looks real only when viewed from the directors chair on stage ,as if he would be waiting for the actors to come on the set.(or maybe it was the other way around,they were waiting for him)I am sure that you have seen this kind of thing many times in the movies and never even realized it.Movies are all about altered reality and deception,were not doing History here.A lot of so-called history is illusion anyway but that is another story. I really like this kit and I am really looking forward to bashing it into something completely different than what you usually see in scale modeling.In full scale 1:1 modeling it has been a long established tradition to fake it.Even for the"Titanic" movie they built a 3/4 scale fake of the real thing.How many models life size or scale model have I seen blown up and destroyed in the movies ,especially before the modern era of animation.
Hi guys ! I wouldn't be posting as often(some will say thank goodness) or working on the train diorama for a couple of weeks. The aviation museum called and they will be picking up their stuff within the next month. I am not expecting a lot to do to finish their first three dioramas.The fourth aircraft and the train diorama will be worked on over the winter.I will however still be doing research on the train diorama and will post anything interesting in the meantime.
This is pretty much the final composition of the major components of the diorama in HO scale, in G scale that is a diameter of almost four feet.The space between the locomotive and the station/shack, as represented here by the red car, is as close to a front of the diorama that this design gets.The empty directors chair will be in the center.The green boxcar will be Morton's luxury car, which will be a closed set, with a sign on the rear sliding door saying" closed set ,do not enter".From the directors point of view everything will look normal and lifelike but from the viewers point of view it will be a movie set.This diorama will be my idea about how movies were made in the past before all the animation we see today. It is essentially an artistic license piece about artistic license.A behind the scenes look at how I think the magic was made.
Quote: Originally Posted by choo choo Hey John, Your concept is as fascinating as the modelling exercise. How do you think up stuff like that? Greg Well thank you Greg that is the biggest compliment you could ever give my work! I have been doing different art forms for many years saying to myself "why didn't I think of that?"It is the originality that always alluded me until now,I found myself saying the same thing " how do they think up stuff like that?" With ordinary modeling it is still that way with me but with dioramas I seem to have found my niche late in my life.I think that it is the storytelling I like most and taking pictures of the project underway and when it is completed and "in the can" so to speak.After that the fun for me is over and I just enjoy putting the stuff in museums and such for others to see and hopefully have a few of the young ones catch the bug of making dioramas too. I find that most modelers are "History "minded and stuck on replicating reality ,I just want to bring some fun back into it like when we were kids with unbounded imaginations.Just the mention of "artistic license" drives some modelers crazy,Why? I don't know because anything fun to do requires a certain suspension of belief and modeling like other entertainments is no different. Because of this fact I thought that it would be fun to kind of play a little trick on Hollywood and the like and switch things around a little by having the director from his point of view think everything looks normal while the viewer is really in on the magic. Anyway,thanks again ! you have really made this old guy happy.One last thing and really what I am most happy about is that I was lucky enough to have the time and good health to accomplish this in the decade of my 60's.With art it is never too late to work on your dreams.Cheers! John.
Gap & Seam Repairs When I was building this base for a diorama I made, somehow (but I can't remember why ),there was this gap in the plywood that now needs to be filled.This is a common modeling problem so I thought that you guys might like to follow along as I try to fix it.The gap shown in the pic is similar to the one I am working on now maybe a little smaller. It is now crunch time so I can't put it off any longer ! Normally this would be an easy job,just fill the gap and blend the terrain.My dioramas are different though ,as they were designed to come apart and be broken down into modules.This was done for maintenance purposes and ease of moving or storage if required. Well anyway now I have to find a solution for this problem.My usual method of doing basic landscaping is the glue,water and sand over plywood kind, as described by Ken Hamilton in his book "How to do creative car dioramas".It is now out of print but is available on line.This repair will be using the same basic methods .
See my Albatros Dv album in photobucket for the following pics: 08-2 The gap.Double check that the plywood edge has been well sealed as this fix requires the use of water.I use lacquer for this. 06-1 2 sided carpet tape. 07-1 cut the tape in strips. 05-1 tape is applied along plywood edge.A second layer of tape was applied over the first beause of the width of the gap to be filled. 01-1 all materials are soaked in achohol before applying 02-1 apply your earth or fine sand' 03-1 apply your thin glue/water mix. 04-1 add turf then more of the thinned glue mix. 05-1 remove tape backing and de-stick the surface using dry earth or fine sand as you want the panel to be removable from the other panel edge.If this is a permanent fix carefully line up both edges and stick the panels together. to be cont........
11-1 put wax paper under both panels. 12-1 add more wax paper between the edges of the two panels and begin laying down your soil or sand. 13-1 continue filling until gap is filled and level,then spray with alcohol. 14-1 apply glue/water mix drop by drop. 15-1 fold over wax paper and fill the other side . 16-1 both sides should now be level,let dry overnight.
Meanwhile back at the rail car build,I have put in the floor.The movie set shows a very damaged area as though the floor had been ripped off at this point.I used my usual method to weather the wood but with no rusty nail heads as it would be subject to more recent wear.The pic was taken from the outside, through the car door window, using an ordinary light bulb.
This is the outside of the rail car from the movie prop side.In my storyline they took an already old car and made it older.The original car would been more carefully put together and some of that carpentry is shown here.I assumed that the window casings were removed along with the glass therefore only the basic frame remains. All the wood was carefully selected for grain pattern,color and texture.I am assuming that the original color was red but is now aged to orange.I removed the sashes from the windows and build the frames with strip wood that had been tinted orange.The large boards above the windows are part of the carpentry put up by the film crew for their purposes. The pics in my photobucket show the various steps and the tools used for this operation.
For those who may be a little confused as to what I am building here don't feel alone as I feel like that sometimes myself. The above pic shows the area of the set I am working on now.I don't plan on building all of the lighting grid as this is basically an abandoned set but I do plan to show where some of it was attached to the rail car prop.This will be confined to the prop side only and will not be visible from the directors chair.
