August 24 2007 | Sokol's bits of things

 I have been designing a few extra details like this wheels and also various smaller details for the diorama. but i will make a small pause with the boat and will get on with the GROUNDCOVER,
now that's going to be fun :)

August 27 2007 | Reeds!

here are all the ingredients to create some reeds -well except 2 of the main ones!
So the trick is to coat a small sheet of paper with superglue -it then takes a weird plastic texture and gets a lot stronger and very well cutable.
Then cut all the leaves one by one!
Then do some tubing with Duro so that one end is thinner than the other one.

August 27 2007 | Reeds 2

So well, that was the theory. duro you see stays very plastic when it dries -i used it so that  it would'nt broke when i would glue the leaves on it. It sure works, but then the stuff stays too elastic at those thin-ness rates i am working on! So i did only 4 of them that way.
Then yesterday night I did 17 using some thin piano chord -it worked but then they all have the same thickness which is also a bit of a problem...

So tonight i will try with stretched platsic sprue under a flame and we will see!
I need at least 30-40  of those plenty of work still....

September 02 2007 | Reeds #2

What i have been doing all week whenever I got a few time? that's right, reeds, reeds and reeds. I have 48 of them, I don't know how many I will be abble to use..
This week will be water lillies!

September 02 2007 | The full Sokol elements

Here's a picture I have been taking for a forum which shows the complete parts of the Sokol I will use in the diorama.

September 07 2007 | The idea of this diorama

let's take a break from ground cover will you?
It is time to explain why I cut everything in half!
Look at this picture below:

there is no way that you can do this with resin, simply because the stuff retracts while drying...

September 07 2007 | The idea #2

In this drawing (just send me a mail to get it big size if you will), i explain all the ways of the resin and how to bypass this "retracting" thing.
the only way is just to mould the base while cutting everything below waterline.
The following pictures should help you understand is the idea doesn't speak for itself

September 07 2007 | What's below the waterline

OK, so here's the work in process. you will notice that I glued to a glass surface most of the elements that will be below the waterline, while taking care that the top of those elements just reach the waterline -which is here another glass surface the size of the dinal diorama