Zinnprinzessin figures

I bought several sets from Thomas Koerner. My photos don't do full justice to his figures.

                                                                   Various samurai sets

Samurais with foreigners

Bedouins hunting

Renaissance fight scene

Hsi-Hsia Dynasty

Background and case for Palm Sunday Set

This is the proposed background and case for the above scene, about 2 feet x 1 and half feet. So it is fairly large to accomodate about 30 -40 pieces. The base is sloping as I want to emphasize the perspective of this piece.

Updating the Palm Sunday set

Although I am not enamoured of the sculpting on this set, the painting can bring the figures to life. I have a scene planned and these figures will fit into that nicely.

Large set, featuring Jesus on the donkey.

This last pic shows the completed figures, including the Romans, Metal on helmets, chainmail, pilum was simulated with paint, not metallics. Still a long way to go.

New sets from Wilken

I haven't posted for a while on this blog, but the number of visitors have not diminished. So obviously, you all like what it is that I am doing here.

I recently obtained several sets from Alexander Wilken.

Renassaince scene

Golgotha

Phoenicians from Hafer

Henry VII and Francis I at the Field of Cloth of Gold Feasting

Wilken's own figures

Haiti

Haiti (cont) really vigorous figures

Two zulu sets combined

Larger Dioramas

You may recall that I had made the casings and backgrounds for a couple of larger dioramas.

I am now planning to turn these into a Mammoth Hunting scene and a Panama Canal scene respectively.

Created a higher stage as usual to fit into the background. 

The proposed Panama Canal scene. I am toying with the idea of doing 3D modelling near the front, hence the narrow gauge railway track.

The Titanic Completed

The Titanic sank on a moonless night in a sea of icebergs. All reflections were deemed to emanate from the lights on board the Titanic. I touched up some of the lights with yellow paint to create colour variety.

I painted the sky with some grey clouds to create a more varied background, and stars were tipped in with white paint. The wave ripples around the sinking ship were highlighted with yellow and white reflections from the Titanic lights. White was also used to create reflected light on some of the figures in the lifeboats. The Titanic funnels were also given red highlights and more white colour was brushed over the upper decks.

The completed scene, framed and labelled

The scene, with the internal LED light switched on. Note the smoke coming out of the funnels, made from cotton wool teased out

Reflections

At this stage, a reflection of the direction that this blog is going, is in order.

Although I started with fully appreciating the artistic merits inherent in zinnfiguren flat figures, and was primarily interested in using them centre-stage in dioramic displays, it is pretty apparent by now that the dioramic display is the endpoint here. I am discovering that, far from being fettered solely to zinnfiguren, I can create more personally satisfying dioramic displays either with or without zinnfiguren.

Lately, many of my boxed dioramas have been featuring picture cutouts which allow more latitude in terms of subject matter. What I appear to be pursuing for now is a hybrid artform of various traditional handicrafts - zinnfiguren, silhouettes, decoupage, pop-ups, toy theatre, shadow-boxes, paintings and so on.

I hope you have been enjoying the ride so far. Read on.