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First I was to realize that you need readily at hand some really good reference. So I choose one readily available kid, which was the one on some DVD cover. Browsing through the movie, I managed to get enough screenshots so that i could cover most angles of the kid’s head.
Then I modelled roughly a head shaped ball of Magic Sculp while leaving enough stuff below the head itself so that i could actually handle it and put in on a table without actually touching the sculpted part. Once this ball has set, I roughly carved the neck and the jaws on the ball. And proceeded to add cautiously with a modelling knife some very tiny Magic Sculp bits at the right places –forehead, eyebrows bones, cheeks and lips. The nose proved particularly difficult to come with as I realized i didn’t have any sculpting tool that could be tiny enough to model the delicate nose cheeks as well as keeping the cheeks themselves in a good shape –same thing for the lips.
I let the whole dry overnight and added details for the eyes and ears the following day.
So now what lessons did I learn from this experience? First no sculpting knife available from hobby stores is thin enough to sculpt such tiny details that are the ones of a kid’s features (pic 16).
Next time I am doing a kid i will first build an array of very fine sculpting tools –i think of using some sculpted and superglued covered toothpicks but also some flexible metal ones that i would cut and sand from a Beer can!
I painted the kid with oils over acrylics –and as usual i fell the pain of painting my own compositions as every defect be it as small as you want proves to be a nightmare to deal with.
For years I have been bypassing that step by simply not showing any groundwork at all.
I model seas, beaches etc, but ground cover always was kept in the more rudimentary form.
The main reason is that I believe in displaying it accurately, I simply cannot understand people that will make a difference between Ausf Cs and Ausf Ds and yet model generic trees in their dioramas.
Most people can’t name vehicles in dioramas, but they are able to tell the difference between a cypress and a pine tree, between an oak and an apple tree.
So here I started my long quest for accurate ground cover by modelling simple beach ferns.
When i was a kid I was spending most of my holidays on the Atlantic sea shore, places crushed by the sun, with very clear sand and also itchy and sometimes tall ground cover –which has got an advantage as it is relatively easy to make.
Looking at some pics of the real Koktebel bay, it seems this ground cover is present there too. As it’s supposed to be only in one corner of the diorama, this is not too important if I only display one particular kind –which is another way to bypass this particular step.
In a lot of dioramas that picture tall grass, it looks like somebody cut some hair from a broom and just glues it on the base. Well this is what you must do basically but there are some variations worth to consider (pic 17).
Issue 1: there is often not enough DISTANCE between each leave and indeed when looking at the diorama it looks like if somebody just glued a broom to the base
Issue 2: usually the leaves are all of the same size
Issue 3: the broom hairs’ tip is square –because it has been cut that way.
Issue 4: the way it is glued to the floor is often too even and also doesn’t follow some of Mother Nature’s basic rules.
Issue 5: it still bloody looks like one glued a broom to a base!
So well the first thing I am doing when wanting to display some groundwork is to find some reference pics and to print them so that I may have the reference near me when I model.
In the particular matter of tall grasses, I choose a broom –usually a bit more expensive than a regular one and made of silk so that I am pretty sure the tip of each hair will be pointy –the 2 other advantages of this kind of broom whose hair tip was not cut is
-they come in different shade ranging from black to white which is a fantastic base for painting.
-the length of each hair is uneven –but then all is in the way you cut them.
So I press a bunch of hair between 2 fingers and cut below with a pair of scissors –hairdresser style- trying to cut at least a length which will be 2 times bigger than what I will eventually be using (pic 18).
Then I roll a medium-thin cylinder of Magic Sculp and apply the hair using all the length of the lump and try to make the size of each hair vary. Then I cover this first magic Sculp cylinder with another one and flatten the whole. Then I roll the MS+hair which produce some lump with hair coming out of it at random –and not just from some hole at the middle of the bundle.
Then this particular kind of beach fern also has some main branch to them with a bit of tuft at the end.
To do these is pretty straightforward; just do some stretched plastic by handling some sprue above a flame, then dip one end in some acrylic modelling gel –the kind of those you would use to do foam on the sea. Then stick the branch in the hairy lump and let it dry. Once it is cut all the hair in excess on the downside.
Once I had a good dozen of those ones, I cut a big hole in the canvas so that the huge lumps that hold the hair could fit and then glued all the lumps together, trying to join them with a bit of my sandy special mix in the process (pic 19).
Then I modelled roughly a head shaped ball of Magic Sculp while leaving enough stuff below the head itself so that i could actually handle it and put in on a table without actually touching the sculpted part. Once this ball has set, I roughly carved the neck and the jaws on the ball. And proceeded to add cautiously with a modelling knife some very tiny Magic Sculp bits at the right places –forehead, eyebrows bones, cheeks and lips. The nose proved particularly difficult to come with as I realized i didn’t have any sculpting tool that could be tiny enough to model the delicate nose cheeks as well as keeping the cheeks themselves in a good shape –same thing for the lips.
I let the whole dry overnight and added details for the eyes and ears the following day.
So now what lessons did I learn from this experience? First no sculpting knife available from hobby stores is thin enough to sculpt such tiny details that are the ones of a kid’s features (pic 16).
I painted the kid with oils over acrylics –and as usual i fell the pain of painting my own compositions as every defect be it as small as you want proves to be a nightmare to deal with.
7/ The groundcover,
Now obviously if there is a domain in the diorama world that can really put some apart from the diorama maker lot, is the way one handles the ground cover.For years I have been bypassing that step by simply not showing any groundwork at all.
I model seas, beaches etc, but ground cover always was kept in the more rudimentary form.
The main reason is that I believe in displaying it accurately, I simply cannot understand people that will make a difference between Ausf Cs and Ausf Ds and yet model generic trees in their dioramas.
Most people can’t name vehicles in dioramas, but they are able to tell the difference between a cypress and a pine tree, between an oak and an apple tree.
So here I started my long quest for accurate ground cover by modelling simple beach ferns.
When i was a kid I was spending most of my holidays on the Atlantic sea shore, places crushed by the sun, with very clear sand and also itchy and sometimes tall ground cover –which has got an advantage as it is relatively easy to make.
Looking at some pics of the real Koktebel bay, it seems this ground cover is present there too. As it’s supposed to be only in one corner of the diorama, this is not too important if I only display one particular kind –which is another way to bypass this particular step.
In a lot of dioramas that picture tall grass, it looks like somebody cut some hair from a broom and just glues it on the base. Well this is what you must do basically but there are some variations worth to consider (pic 17).
Issue 2: usually the leaves are all of the same size
Issue 3: the broom hairs’ tip is square –because it has been cut that way.
Issue 4: the way it is glued to the floor is often too even and also doesn’t follow some of Mother Nature’s basic rules.
Issue 5: it still bloody looks like one glued a broom to a base!
So well the first thing I am doing when wanting to display some groundwork is to find some reference pics and to print them so that I may have the reference near me when I model.
In the particular matter of tall grasses, I choose a broom –usually a bit more expensive than a regular one and made of silk so that I am pretty sure the tip of each hair will be pointy –the 2 other advantages of this kind of broom whose hair tip was not cut is
-they come in different shade ranging from black to white which is a fantastic base for painting.
-the length of each hair is uneven –but then all is in the way you cut them.
So I press a bunch of hair between 2 fingers and cut below with a pair of scissors –hairdresser style- trying to cut at least a length which will be 2 times bigger than what I will eventually be using (pic 18).
Then this particular kind of beach fern also has some main branch to them with a bit of tuft at the end.
To do these is pretty straightforward; just do some stretched plastic by handling some sprue above a flame, then dip one end in some acrylic modelling gel –the kind of those you would use to do foam on the sea. Then stick the branch in the hairy lump and let it dry. Once it is cut all the hair in excess on the downside.
Once I had a good dozen of those ones, I cut a big hole in the canvas so that the huge lumps that hold the hair could fit and then glued all the lumps together, trying to join them with a bit of my sandy special mix in the process (pic 19).
