The Ultimate Group Project - Diorama Construction/Design

[ars30]

Ryan: I Really Like Your Building And Think That Design Would Be Best Suited To Be Around The Imp. Base, I Get The Vibe From The Pictures That It Is That Type structure.
( Trooper Dorm Or something) BTW Nice Sleeping Biker Scout Out Behind The Building
BrentS: I  Feel Your Building Design Is Perfect To Be The Design For the City Housing.
CC1: To Me Your Design Is Along Track For The Adobe Style Native Huts That Has Been Discussed.
All Three Look Great.

Allen

[Phrubruh]

Fantastic job guys on the buildings. If we can reach the look and quality of these buildings, this project is going to great. I like the idea of a maintence shead. Very cool mechanary on the sides. The shade over the doorway looks great and looks very tatooinish. I think this will be a great mix of building styles. The imperials put up the prefab stuff and the natives have the adobe. 

[Darth_Anton]

Hey, where can I post my intentions to donate troop fodder to the project and to help set up at C4?Master Phruby informed me of the goings on and I'm in as far as I can.

[BrentS]

Sorry guys, I've been swamped the last few days.

Ryan - I LOVE your concept model.  I just think its great.  I think the greebles you added really make it stand out (although I wonder if the rebels put the thermal detonator on the roof  ).  Also the texturing and the work on the roof really stand out.  I wish you had some WIP pics to see how you put this together.

I picked up some "spray on texture" but I'm not sure its the same thing you used.  I bought some "Rust-Oleum American Accents Stone" spray finish.  What are you using??

I'm trying to envision how our buildings can mesh together.

CC - Good startup on your building.  I agree with everyone else that you should glue them together before plastering and painting.  I'm curious, what materials did you use to construct yours?  It alsmost looks like styrofoam.  Can you provide more details on the "making of..."?  I've been toying with adding a canvas style awning in my Gardulla's diorama but I haven't been able to pull it off yet.

Joe- any chance you got some photos yet?  I'm anxious to see how it turned out.


On an unrelated note, I'm thinking about making some casts of the door and the metal gutters that I made.  It would save a lot of cutting precise pieces and time and energy for gluing little bolts down.  Would anyone be interested in some of those?  I'm not sure if that is a waste of resin and silicon...

[Joerhyno]

Brent... I was at walmart looking to see if I could find what Ryan used and I think I may have found it, it was in the spackling section, not the paint section, it came with 3 different tubes, for 3 different sized.. um.. spackle, lol..

As for pics.. I'm clearing an area to take some pics.. though, I dont know how well they'll come out cause I have to take them in the dungeon, lol.. it was taking up the kitchen table far too long...

[Ryan]

Ryan - I LOVE your concept model. I just think its great. I think the greebles you added really make it stand out (although I wonder if the rebels put the thermal detonator on the roof ). Also the texturing and the work on the roof really stand out. I wish you had some WIP pics to see how you put this together.

I picked up some "spray on texture" but I'm not sure its the same thing you used. I bought some "Rust-Oleum American Accents Stone" spray finish. What are you using??

Thanks guys. I was fairly pleased with how mine turned out, though there a re few things I'd have done differently if I hadn't rushed it a bit at the end there. WIPs being one of them. The batteries on my camera were dead while I was building the thing, and I was concentation on building it so much I actually forgot abou WIPS until it was too late. I'll see what I can do about getting a mock up of what I did with the texture and roof up ina few days here. I rushed glueing the roof on so I could be done with this too, as a result I didn't quite get it lined up perfectly.

As for the texture I don't remember the brand name (I'm not at home now so I can't check until tomorrow either) but it is from Home Depot. This is one product I've found that the name brand makes a difference. Some brands are too watery and will warp the foamcore if it isn't re-enforced VERY well. The brand I used seems to the best of he different kinds that are out there. I'll check out the name tomorrow, I do know it is from Home Depot.

[Joerhyno]

WEll, here are my pics of My Imperial Tower.  I basically build this with scraps of foam core I had laying around... The only thing I went out and bought for this was the paint.  I've never build anything like this before, most mini buildings I've built, were adobe types, so I didn't have to worry about crisp edges, or anything like that... When it came to doing this.. I tried it the way Ryan mentioned, covering the "foam" edges with posterboard, but it just didn't look right.. so I had an idea, what if I was to tape over the edges, and when I 'd paint over them, I'll make them look like steel, or some metallic edges... kinda like in Ryan's concept drawing...

So that's what I went with.. and while everything was still in W.I.P. stages.. it looked pretty neat... of course, after I painted the first coat, I saw the problem.. almost every little imperfection showed in the edges.. where it once looked like nice crisp corners, lol.. it turned into semi rounded in some places.. and actual corners in others.. so next one, will take a different approach for corners for sure.
Anyway.. without boring you any longer, here's the pics..



I cobbled this radar tocether from some old modelkits.. it actually rotates which I thought was pretty cool...

My son(2.75 years old) tried helping me paint this roof, lol.. we was so into "Daddy's clone trooper house" and while I was painting the dish.. he thought he'd help the paint dry and blow on it.. and some black got on the roof so I had to add the little drippies, lol.. I plan on adding vents of some sort, so I'm not too worried about it... the Radar dish was from the Clone Pilot, chopped the base off, then added some model parts to the dish part so it looked a little more complicated... the dish swivels and rotates



This is the main reason I fell behind... I just wasn't feeling the "tower" before as imperial.. an dI saw my bunker.. and thought.. hmmm. so I made this entrance.. and well, spent a little too much time on it, lol..

I do plan on going in and adding vents on one side(like the concept) and windows on another... I'm not making the balcony.. maybe on another tower.


And of course.. a mini dio..




I made the cool little eye scanner and entrance lever thing.. but I couldn't get a good pic of it.. it's the thing the Scout is using...

This last pic is to give you a good idea of the scale...



I actually measured out how big it's be if it was around 2 stories and had all these measurements and crap, lol.. I honestly didn't think that much went into making buildings like this.. man.. it was a lot of work.. but I guess the more you make, the easier it'll be..
Well, let me know what you guys think, I'm kinda not really happy with the way it turned out, mainly, the corners, so, I think my next building will be a smaller, shed, type of building, so I can practice on corners...
-Joe

[Phrubruh]

This is turning our great. This is probably the biggest structure in the town and should look very impossing. Its basically the centerpiece of imperial operations. It looks like you still need to add the details to the main tower. I like the rivit strips in the concept picture and the slanted windows. Is it possible to extend out an area on the tower for a gun turet? I think the drips make it look more authentic like its rusting or just dirty but the drips need to come from somewhere.

[patreektherodian]

Very cool concept and design. Maybe this note belongs in the fodder section but you mentioned paint. If you go to a city dump that recycles. you can get free gallons of 2nd hand paint. I personally have 4 gallons just for the sand color of tatooinestone and adobe. My other suggestion for freebees, are construction sites for styrofoam. They always toss that pink stuff out

[Phrubruh]

Great looking buildings guys. Now lets move on to the next set of buildings. Ryan, how about a shopping district complete with little shops and the JediDefender bar?

[Ryan]

That's a picture of the stuff I used, sorry it's so small, it was all I could find.

It is really easy to use actually. Here's a real quick picture-less tutorial on it:

The first thing you are going to want to do is make sure that your structure is reinforced, so that it won't warp. I've noticed this particular brand seems to be much better about not warping the foamcore than other brands. Why that is I don't have the slightest clue.

The foam edges in the foam core have a tendency to absorb some of the texture and then they don't really fit in with the look of the rest of the walls. So I like to cover them with poster board first. I don't like leaving seams showing so it the edge of the foamcore is right up next to the finished side of an adjacent piece I just cut one large piece that will cover the entire wall.

If there is anything you don't want textured you can go ahead and mask it off, though it is much easier to leave off all the greeblies and other details until after the texture is applies.

When you are all ready go ahead and spray the texture on, I usually use the heavy setting in order to get more coverage. Once you've covered the entire area you want textured wait about 3 minutes before knocking it down.

To knock it down you want to use a fairly large putty knife, mine is about 3 or 4 inches wide, and wet the blade a bit. Then lightly run it over the texture several times until you get close to the desired look. You may need to scrape the excess off the knife a few times so it doesn't clump anywhere.

It usually takes about an hour or two for this to dry completely, but the process can be sped up to about 15 minutes with the aid of a hairdryer. I've found it is usually better to just let it air dry though. Once it is dry you can sand off any large clumps or uneven spots. Because this is supposed to look like concrete in 1/18 scale I usually like to give it a good sanding so the texture isn't too incredibly noticeable.

One it is all sanded you can go ahead and prime it and paint it.

This spray is really great stuff, and I've been happy with the results I've gotten from it so far. It is a little expensive $13 for a 1lb and 4 oz can, it is well worth it.

[BrentS]

Good Stuff Ryan.  Where do you find that stuff at?

[Ryan]

I've only seen that brand at Home Depot.

[Phrubruh]

What are your thoughts on the next diorama pieces? I think Ryan wants to talk about terrain.

[Ryan]

(Deleted so post starts the next page)