Custer and The Battle of Little Big Horn

I finally started to work in earnest on this delightful set from Braune. There are numerous figures with multiple poses for which one selects the pose and cuts off the alternative limbs. All figures were given a basic flesh undercoat. I regrouped the pieces to ease painting chores.

                      Red Indians were given a reddish brown wash over the flesh colour.

                                                        The first two pics show the complete set.

 Flesh and off-white highlights were then added to build up the musculature and darker areas were painted with burnt umber. I adopted a loose painting style, alternately applying washes and impasto techniques.

                                     This picture gathers all the troopers for ease of painting.

                Detailed shots of the figures. Note the light blue highlights added to the jackets.

The horses are brilliantly engraved and their musculature is denoted by simple highlights and shading. Note the Custer figure. 

Baby Moses Scene IV

I installed an LED lighting into the box and framed it. This delightful scene is completed.

Baby Moses Scene III

I created rocky cutouts to add interest to the scene. After final painting of the scene and adding a few bullrushes in the river, the figures were bent upright to conform to the gradient and fixed into place. Although I had originally intended to add the river craft to the scene, the larger-scaled craft was not compatible with the smaller-scaled figures in the foreground.

Final scene with painted backdrop and rocky cutouts

 Close up of the figures

The framed scene

Baby Moses Scene II

I made a shadow box from an ikea frame. A basic background of sky and river was painted and the foreground was built up and textured.

Baby Moses Scene

I doodled more on this set, combining some Wilken and Braune figures. Following a wash of burnt umber, flesh highlights were added. The translucent clothing had pure white highlights added. The figures are near finalisation and I hope to create a framed scene soon.

Doodling some Egyptians

I gave most of my Egyptian figures a darker skin colour, except for Cleopatra who was of Ptolemic descent.

Larger pictures on all my posts

I've just discovered this latent feature which allows really big splash pictures on all my postings.
I am now redoing many of the earlier postings to enable this feature. Enjoy!

Doodling on some roman sets

I took out some Roman sets and started to doodle on them. Basically some flesh colour with a little shading.

 GO Intl Bacchanalian feast - interesting set with some mythological figures

 GO Intl Procession of Aphrodites - this could be paired up with the Bacchanalian scene in a grotesque display

  GO Intl Gladiators

Roman Surgery from Wilken

Byzantium from Wilken

Palm Sunday Diorama 2

Background buildings were cut out from strong cardboard and fixed into place. The foreground will have to be modelled with more groundwork.

The painting of the zinnfiguren set is being finalised.

Palm Sunday Diorama

I decided to work again on this diorama following a break. The key thing here appears to be the representation of Jerusalem town, the East or Golden Gate by which Jesus entered Jerusalem from the Mt of Olives. During this time, that part of town was dominated by the Holy temple, overlooked by the Antonia fortress, all built during the time of Herod.

I cut up some cardboard pieces to represent sections of the wall, gate , the temple and the Antonia fortress towers. Simple non-rigorous perspectives were observed. I posed some figures from the zinnfiguren set to get a sense of scale.

This initial layout shows the main features wall, gate, temple and the Antonia tower. I rather liked it as it could show quite a bit of Jerusalem spilling over the hills behind. However, it seemed to waste quite a bit of the sky portion which would be unused. So I decided to enlarge the front elements and, maybe later, to paint in higher hills in the background.

               

In this next layout, I created more of a perspective in order to enlarge the gate.

Deciding that the gate had to be even bigger, I sketched in the main features of the gate as a guide. Its turning out to be quite an interesting project.

Glad you liked the postings on this blog so far

I haven't posted for a while but noticed that the number of visitors to this blog continue unabated. There must be some real flats fanciers or diorama lovers out there.

The break has allowed some dust to settle in the wake of the recent Kulmbach festival for which I continue to hope for the eventual re-release of much sought after Gottstein/Krog and other fine sets.

Meanwhile, I have been doing some 3-D modelling and brushing up on my modelling skills. As alluded to earlier, I hope to marry 2-D and 3-D techniques to make even more interesting dioramas.

So keep watching this space.

Mammoth Scene Completed

I finished this diorama , creating a suitable cardboard matt frame and completing the lighting.

 The scene without lighting

The scene with internal lighting

This piece was on the workbench for a while and completing it gave me immense satisfaction.

Progress on Mammoth Scene 5

Now for the final touches.

The foreground was repainted and all unsightly marks covered. All the rest of the zinnfiguren were fixed in place.

Close up showing the main scene

Foliage was added and the log jam was created in a fit of inspiration to show the classic animal trap in a canyon

Close up of the scene

Progress on Mammoth Scene 4

The whole scene was levelled with cardboard pieces glued at the back.

sideview of the cardboard scene balanced on a stack of cardboard pieces

backview

noticed this statement

Progress on Mammoth Scene 3

I repainted the background mountains in oils, refining the colours and shapes.

Close up of background scene

Gouged out foreground to fit a large zinnfiguren

zinnfiguren slotted into position between the cliffs

foreground was built up with more plaster

close up of foreground with zinnfiguren and rocks placed in position

Progress on Mammoth Scene 2

I  repainted the scene. Colours on the rocks were vermillion with yellow. Shadows were created with dark purple. I also painted the background to create a more refined atmospheric setting.The sky was ultramarine blue with warm white, yellow and red.

 The rest of the zinnfiguren pieces were placed in the scene to test for their final positioning.

Progress on the Mammoth scene

The scene would be one of a herd of mammals entering a canyon to be trapped and killed by Cro-Magnon hunters. I pasted some cardboard to serve as scene cutouts. Some of these figures are already positioned on the cutouts. Over these, I pasted some rock surface castings made from resin, added more plaster and rocks, and started to paint the scene. I lightened the sky and will probably repaint the rest of the scene.

Some progress on the Palm Sunday Scene

I finally made some progress on this scene. I painted the background, then decided that I needed stronger colours.

Did some reading on the theme. Jesus entered Jerusalem through the Golden Gate, east of Jerusalem. Current pictures on the internet show a double gated structure (rebuilt in the 6th century AD, so we can only guess as to how the original must have appeared.