Fantastic job on the outpost, Drew!

... "Burp!" ... Oops!  Pardon!  :D

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Cheers! Alan
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'If you aren't living on the edge, you're taking up too much room'.

http://tangfastico.blogspot.com

Sorry for the absence of any progress lately as this was due to being on 2 weeks hols!

Expect progress updates from here on in now that the project has resumed...

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Drew

My Portfolio

"No aerodrome there now!" Flg Officer Vatne's official report after the bombing raid on Lohausen airfield in Germany during WW2.

Again, looking forward to seeing it
     James

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Airfix club #597359               My Portfolio                My Works in Progress

Well... there has been progress and pics will follow soon!

Since returning from my holidays I have cut a base board for the diorama and have added some earth in the form of wall tile adhesive Surprisingly it is VERY good in place of modelling clay and much cheaper and comes in much larger quantites! Dries quite quickly as well and can be made up into various consistencies depending on how much you want to shape it.

I have laid out the board with a flat grassy area on the left where a small stream cuts across the middle of the board and then on the right hand side I have built up a small grassy rise where the hut will sit.

I havn't added the grass yet though, just the earth underneath the grass to form the shape of the land.

I am now building a little rickety bridge to go across the stream and then the grass will be added followed by water in the stream and then some trees around the back of the grassy rise to enclose the hut a bit more.

After that I am going to work on my Sea Knight and GMC truck to add into the diorama followed by the figures I got for this project as well.

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Drew

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"No aerodrome there now!" Flg Officer Vatne's official report after the bombing raid on Lohausen airfield in Germany during WW2.

Just discovered this build thread. The vac form base moulds disappeared over the years and any which may appear form this decade onwards are re imagined ones copied from original pics.

Its an interesting build. Whilst researching Airfix history for this website I came across a licenced diorama set from Airfix given to MPC for exclusive US sales. This was called Chopper Chopper and contained a vacform base, US marines and a CH-46A Sea Knight. It was depicting a re supply mission to a hill in Vietnam.

Did you see that on the internet somewhere Thomas or in a book or something? It's actually uncanny how alike it is to my idea. I got my inspiration from an episode of Stargate SG1 of all places In one of the episodes they visited Bolivia or somewhere like that (can't remember exactly) and they were captured by rebels in the area who were living in huts and using an old airplane as sleeping quarters. I thought it would be a cool idea to use for this GB. That's when I set about finding the Airfix outpost as a basis for it and then had to decide that aircraft to use. Having been mostly building planes I wanted a change and looked in my stash... the only Airfix aircraft I had that wasn't a plane and was suitable to use happened to be the Sea Knight.

Instead of Marines loading it up though I bought some Chechen rebel figures which I intend to modify slightly to look like a group of gun runners who live in this outpost.

Even down to the idea of the hill, it was a last minute addition as my original base idea was going to be flat without even the addition of the stream

Can't believe how similar it is though to that which you are referring to!

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Drew

My Portfolio

"No aerodrome there now!" Flg Officer Vatne's official report after the bombing raid on Lohausen airfield in Germany during WW2.

I found it and others on the net whilst researching the missing Airfix releases from the early 80's.  Did you know that the current BoB airfield set is an ex MPC exclusive  Airfix bought the licence back in 2005/06 to produce it. They replaced the vacform base with something more suitable and replaced the Spitfire with their old Spit Mk1a. The original Spitfire in the kit was the JE-J Mk IX (hewman100 confirmed for me) which never fought in the BoB

Ok so I finally finished the base board for my diorama... but I got so carried away building it that I forgot to take stage by stage pics of it So here are the finished result pics instead. Have a look and then I'll explain how it was made

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So I started out with a bare bit of wood and I applied tile adhesive across the whole surface. A huge bag of the tile adhesive I used costs around £15 and there's enough in the bag to do at least 50 or more of this particular diorama and I did use quite a bit on this one as it is, so that gives you an idea as to just how much there is in the bag. It is also very fast setting and very easy to work with and shape. Above all I would actually reccommend this above proper modelling clay for the sheer value for money alone!

After applying one layer of adhesive to the board (before it dried) I scraped a "stream" along the middle of the board and also added two small mounds, one on either side of the stream to form the basis of a bridge.

I made a little bridge but putting some cocktail sticks side by side and then gluing on top bits of wooden stirring sticks cut to size. When the glue was dry I painted it brown. The bridge was then placed across the two mounds by the stream with the cocktail stick ends just poking out past the surface of the bridge and then more adhesive was added to each end to cover the ends of the cocktail sticks and therefore "burying" the ends of the bridge into the "earth" for more security and rigidity.

After this I gradually built up in layers, the small "rise" is the land to the right hand side. This was done in about 3 or 4 layers in the end until it was the right height and level enough at the top to support the main hut which is going to be placed there.

Next I added more adhesive to form the rocky outcrop at the top left of the board. Instead of smoothing this out, I just left the rough sides as they were and smoothed off the top. When this dried I used some grey paint on the edges.

The next step was to paint some blue into the river bed. Then I took a precision bottle of the Revell Contacta glue which had somehow broken on me and was missing the nozzle. So as it didn't go to waste I poured the glue over the blue painted area after it dried to give a shiny thick layer to the stream. I was taking a punt at this and hoping it would work as it was a previously untested method but thankfully it worked. I then set in a few small stones before the glue set overnight.

Next I used some dark brown flock to form the mucky edges of the stream. For the grass I decided not to use my usual flock which is like little grains of sand and I instead bought some static grass from eBay that is like little minature blades of grass and used that by putting down a layer of PVA glue brushed onto the surface and then adding the grass on top.

Next I needed to add some trees as this diorama is supposed to represent an area at the base of a mountain. I had some artificial greenery I got off eBay for 99p which came in 12 bunches of 12 branches and I seperated the branches and cut them to size and then after drilling a small hole for each branch, I dipped the end in PVA glue and inserted each branch into the holes.

The very last step then was to just add a bit more vegatation along the stream and within the trees. For this I used some stuff I had from the Woodland Senics range. I forget the right name of it but it looks like little bits of sponge in various colours to suit what you are trying to represent.

Voila! I diorama base board of the gun runners camp at the base of the mountain in Vietnam! I did have some more slightly tropical trees I was going to use but they looked to plastic-y and cartoonish once I seen them after ordering them off eBay and so I decided not to use them.

Work has begun on the Sea Knight to go into this diorama next and then I just have the GMC truck to do after that. Once all that is done I have a few figures to add and a few other bits of detail such as a campfire and stores hut etc. Also I plan to add some vehicle tracks into the grass and also a rough path way worn into the grass where the men have walked along over the years.

I'm optimistic I can finish this on time for the deadline!

_________________
Drew

My Portfolio

"No aerodrome there now!" Flg Officer Vatne's official report after the bombing raid on Lohausen airfield in Germany during WW2.

Thats a pretty cool diorama Drew.

David.

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If you forget the past, you may lose the future.

That base looks fantastic, can't wait to see the complete diorama.

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My portfolio: http://airfixtributeforum.myfastforum.o ... 27595.html
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Absolutely great ground work Drew,  :thumb:

Superb work

Brilliant, Drew!

_________________
Cheers! Alan
*****
'If you aren't living on the edge, you're taking up too much room'.

http://tangfastico.blogspot.com

Thanks for the great comments everyone!

As anyone who has read older parts of this thread will know, my hut is also finished, and I am going to add that to the base board soon. Work has only started on the Sea Knight so there isn't much to show on that at the moment. There will be soon though

The bit I'm most pleased about is actually the trees! As well all know to buy trees for dioramas can be very expensive if you need more than a few of them. This stuff that I found on eBay is actually for use in flower arranging but is the right scale for 1/72 or 1/76 trees. One packet consists of 12 bunches with 12 branches in each bunch for 99p! Since each branch represents one tree thats a total of 144 trees and I have another 3 packets of this stuff on the way!

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Drew

My Portfolio

"No aerodrome there now!" Flg Officer Vatne's official report after the bombing raid on Lohausen airfield in Germany during WW2.

Thanks for the info on the trees Drew.  :thumb:
Last week I spent about £14 for 100 trees, that don't look just as good as yours  :cry:

Edit: I looked up my invoice and it was actually closer to £17 - and I thought that was reasonable too!

PM Sent Re: Trees Fred

The only flaw I think I could account for with the trees would be that I'd like the "trunks" to be a little thicker but it's only a very minor issue as they still look good anyway. I'm sure if I think about it long enough I could probably fix that anyway. Maybe wrap the trunks in something to thicken it and paint it brown might work

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Drew

My Portfolio

"No aerodrome there now!" Flg Officer Vatne's official report after the bombing raid on Lohausen airfield in Germany during WW2.

Really like the base,great job and really like the trees.

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I wanna see it painted black, painted black
Black as night, black as coal
I wanna see the sun, blotted out from the sky
I wanna see it painted, painted, painted, painted black

From my days of model railway-ing, I used to warp the "trunks" with wire then supergule to bind it together - dont do this to thick - because you can rap a pipe cleaner around the trunk and supergule over that.  It leaves a bark texture and then you can just paint over in the colour you want.

At Pendon model railway museum (recommend a visit  :wink: ) they use this type of putty which looks extremerly. A pity I dont remember what it is called!  :(

Regards Tom!

Thanks for the tip Tom! I never thought of using pipe cleaners... and thats shameful considering as a child in primary school, pipe cleaners were used to make just about everything Oh the innocent days of childhood!

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Drew

My Portfolio

"No aerodrome there now!" Flg Officer Vatne's official report after the bombing raid on Lohausen airfield in Germany during WW2.

Its ok! Ahaha too true If you like I could make a short demo.

Regards Tom