March 21 2007 | The Groundwork #3

Then I used a mix of some rougher sand and the thin sandy acrylic product mentioned below to do some of the tide's limit. I put some crushed dyed in black plaster on the top.
it looks a bit terrible like that, but hey, I still didn't put the real sand...

March 24 2007 | The new mold for the sea is done out of silicon

I had to put on the table the biggest amount of money for this diorama yet: some silicon stuff to do the mold for my sea. I hope this will be the right one, i would hate dumping such a stupidly large amount of money..
I used feather cardboard for the "walls" as well as platsicine and strong paper to fill the holes between the different elements.
the stuff actually stes right now since yesterday night, I hope it is okay, i don't really dare having a look at it at the mo'

March 24 2007 | Setting up to the table

In some recent forums, i saw this nice Belgian guy coming up with all his very tidy diorama stuff , what a luck!
i am a messy guy, I use the top of my pigments bottles as some place where to mix 2 component epoxy glue or other things..
anyway, good music, bright coloured pigments a,d paints, a few old brushes and here we go! the idea is "hunt for the red"

March 24 2007 | Mixing the pigments

here is my way of applying the pigments, first the darkshadows and then some light touches of this and that colour..

March 24 2007 | Painting the hillock

the point here is just to paint for this time the hillock and the small patches of nature just below. So first a bit of paint to yellow the top of the hillock

March 24 2007 | The painted hillock

here's what it looks like after 1 hour of various pigments, and then a wetbrush (by opposition with drybrush) of a whitey colour followed by yet more blending between the different shades

March 24 2007 | The table after 90 mn of work

Okay, here is what the table looks like after 90 minutes of work, I show it because it is very important to clean regularly the place where you work with some tissue, otherwise you begin to throw some pigments everywhere if you are as messy as i am -but then there is no nice diorama without a bit of mess i am sorry to say ;)

In addition you may notice the vegetation near the hillock is quite dark compared to the yellowey colour of the hillock, that was done on purpose.. (later)

March 25 2007 | Setting up the table for the serious stuff

Now all that work on the hillock was nothing compared to the work that waits for me on the sand.

The various elements must be embeded realistically in the groundwork...