Brass Name Plates

I had some brass name plates made and am slowly attaching these to my pieces. The shiny name plates do enhance the displays.

Assyrian Scene 13 Finished

I attached all the pieces that I wanted into this scene. The lighting was tested. A very warm effect was obtained. A harsh edge light over the background was muted by placing a tracing paper over the light source.

The glass cover was placed over the scene and you can see me taking the pic.

Close-ups of the scene.

The finished piece. I just have to find a place to display it.

Incan Women bathing

This set was given to me by a very good friend. The set is available at Berliner Zinn. I soaked the figures overnight in vinegar and when dried, sprayed them with matt white.

Assyrian Scene 12

Finally some movement. I fitted the LED light. This will be used to light up the backdrop as well as the room. A small slit was cut on top of the ceiling for the light.

The room scene was glued to the picture frame for stability. I painted the wall decorations.
I am now populating the banquet room with my Ochel figures. Dancers and musicians in the centre, with the revellers on either side.

2nd hand set includes some Mignot pieces

I bought a 2nd hand set of figures which included some Mignot pieces from their famous Tea at Malmaison set. The pieces were cleaned in vinegar overnight, rinsed and dried. The set is shown before and after being spray painted with white. I may use some of these pieces to pack out my Sacre scene.

Assyrian Scene 11

I finally bought another set of LED lights. I have glued a strip of wood to the upper inner frame of the box to create some depth for attaching the LED light with screws.

Assyrian Scene 10

I decided to paint some friezes onto the bare walls. I selected two images from my books on design.

Tracings were made of the images, with some perspective distortions made to the winged bull.

These tracings were transferred to the walls. One pair of images was always reversed.

Assyrian Scene 9

This is the batten painted up and attached to the ceiling.

I painted some decorations on the walls and als oadded highlighted to the wings and the columns. I think that this scene is ready to accept some Assyrian flats.

Assyrian Scene 8

I decided that the frame had to be more symmetrical and changed the pattern of shading accordingly. I delineated slightly more detail for these frame columns and will add further details to the bases. I painted the rest of the frame, awaiting detailing.

I masked the edge of the walls with thin cardboard strips to add details. I added a batten across the ceiling to repeat the frame edge. This will become clearer in the next posting. The picture below is upside down as I had added wood glue to stick the batten to the ceiling and did not want it to drip onto the floor.

The frame columns and batten were strenghtened with thin wood glued behind..

Assyrian Scene 7

I readusted the height of the horizon downwards to make space to represent a moon and painted the background carefully to represent a night scene. I got this idea after watching a ballet production of Swan Lake. The background was painted in various blues with a red moon.

Buoyed by the background colours, I painted the architectural columns to represent various shading patterns, depending on the position of the moonlight. I then painted the ceiling, walls and floor in vibrant colours to match the background scene.

For the frame, I went for a wash technique to represent the Assyrian winged bulls in the wings. This was make or break for this diorama as these were iconic symbols and very prominent. The result was extremely pleasing to me and I am left to do the rest of the frame.

Assyrian Scene 6

The Ikea mat frame is meant to display three photos. It was adapted to create four pillars. The winged bull panels were glued to the mat frame. I started to paint in some background colours for the scene.

Assyrian Scene 5

This diorama is starting to take shape. I sourced for images of winged bulls and printed them out to suitable size. One of this image was flipped over to create a mirror image. These images were carbon traced onto cardboard panels. These panels will form the "wings" for the Assyrian scene.

Long box diorama 4 Assyrian scene

The Ikea frame comes with a pre-cut cardboard. As this was meant for displaying three photos, I adapted the frame to represent four pillars. The photo shows the proposed lyaout. The edges can be masked by other devices.

Long box diorama 3

An idea is taking shape for this piece. It will be a court scene with pillars overlooking the background scenery.  I plan to create an Assyrian banquet and orgy scene.

A flared interior structure was made up and the pillars were cut out based on Assyrian examples.

Long box diorama 2

I puttied over the gaps with a spatula. Following light sanding on the surface, I coated the surface with gesso. I then used more putty to smooth over any surface unevenness with my fingers. This step is necessary as the surface is curved.

Long box diorama

It has been some time since I last posted. I had been quite involved in my other 3-D projects.

This is a long box diorama for a panaromic outdoor setting. The box was made from simple plywood sheets to fit into an Ikea frame. I did a small experimentation to curve the background along the horizon, to create a cyclorama concept. In retrospect, I don't think it matters here as the length of the box is not that long.

The background was too short after construction. I had to cut it in the middle and extend it by about 3 cm to fit the box nicely without the edges showing along the proposed frame.

I haven't decided on the scene yet.

Javanese Gamelan Set

Some modest progress on this set. I cleaned them up and sprayed with white primer.

Grunewald Java set

Since I got hold of Mike Taylor's book flats about 8 years back, there was this one intriguing picture of some Javanese figures. There was also a short mention of these figures in one of the older BFFS journals.

When I contacted Grunewald about 4 years ago on these figures, they could not locate these figures as it was made so long ago.

More recently, I tried again and with some luck, Grunewald located the moulds and sent me the figures I wanted.

So here are the pristine figures for my proposed recreation of a Javanese gamelan and wayang performance scene.

Some pics from the Dutch Tin Museum Ommen booklet

I have had this booklet for some time now. There are some nice looking pictures with zinnfiguren.

The Sacre

Sometime between Xmas and the New Year, I took out some of my flats to look at them. The Sacre from Segom caught my attention and I continued to work on it. I had bought two sets and am working on both simultaneously.

Finished most of the figures except for the last picture showing the Empress, the Emperor, the Pope and the Princesses.