my minature gardening project...

The Doktor

So I made a tree... (see "Shakin that tree" thread)... and I have to say, I kinda liked it, and reckoned I could use it.
So.. I decided to start into a bit of landscaping.
I wasnt quite sure what I wanted to do. A landscape with a tank on it? Im still mot 100% exactly how Im going to finish it, but I decided I want some water, at tree and at least enough room to put a large tank on it.

First thing I did was make a base 25cmx40cm. I used fairly light ply wood for the base itself, and framed it with some nice hardwood molding that you get in woodies for about €6 a strip. I only needed one strip for the whole thing.
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I then layed out polystyrene on the base in a few different ways, until some kinda picture of what i wanted formed in my mind. When I settled on this, I cut out sides from thin plywood, and stuck them in. Then covered the whole base with PVA glue, and set the Polystyrene down.
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When It was dry, I covered the whole thing with plaster bandage. This is a great way to build up a landscape as it ensures the finished model will be light, and that it will all dry out quicker.
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Then I stared to build up the area i wanted rocky, where the river will go. Using an artists palet knife i.e. mini trowel, I covered the area with polyfilla, and just before it was dry stuck scrunched up tinfoil in it. This gives a nice uneven finish like rock.
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At this point I was planning to do some sandy coloured rocks, but changed my mind.
I used some nice liscannor stone that was left over from me patio and started to set it into the diorama using pollyfilla coloured grey. Ignore the sandy paint in the photo, this was just experiments.
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The Doktor

After covering the whole river bed with grey pollyfilla and stones I ended up with this. I also put a wash of grey and black oil paint over the rock that wont be covered by water.
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I then airbrushed green paint onto the bottom of the river bed ( i decided to do this after some experiments on a "test river"). I also began to airbrush a browny/yellow mix that matched staining already on the rock. This was because the rock was broken up with a hammer, and had marks and fresh rock areas.
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Next I decided to put leaves on my tree. I wanted an autumny look. So here is where I am using a bit of the aul artistic license and used different colours browns, golds, yellows and greens for the leaves. Its one of those "autumn foliage" things ya get for trees in trainsets. But cut up, and glued on with PVA. Im still not 100% if this is how the finished tree will look, so tell us whats ya think on that one. I think the yellow might be a bit much of a contrast?????

I then Planted me tree and started to build up the area with plain pollyfilla.
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I then covered the whole area with Pollyfilla that I coloured brown. The reason I used plain stuff and then brown, rather than just mixin up a big heap of brown stuff, was that the Mig pigments are dear enough, and you need a good bit of it to get a good colour.
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This is where I had a bit of a change of mind.
I decided I wanted a path through the landscape.. imagining that its at the edge of a forest or somthing, I also felt that the ground should look wetter.
So I cut some of the pollyfilla out, and covered the area with a mix of pollyfilla, acrylic resin and MIG pigment "Mud". The acrylic resin makes it look nice and wet when its dry. In the picture below, the "mud" is actually dry and hard.
I then started to cover the area a bit at a time with leaf mold.. is that what its called?? But this was made from actual fallen leaves that were chopped up very fine after they were dried out for a few days.Its better if you can get a few different coloured leaves and mix em up. You start by painting PVA glue (not watered) and then sprinkling the leaves all over it. Then give it an hour for them to grab a bit, and using a wide brush cover them with watered down PVA glue.
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The Doktor

Then I started adding some pant life.
The dead grass clumps are made from a cut up pasting brush. You can buy one for a fiver, and it will give you a huge supply of the stuff.
Some green grass is also beginning to poke up through the dead leaves, static grass is used for this.
Also beside the rocks there is some undergrowth which is one of the woodland scenics products. This is undergrowth as it will later be covered with some bushes.
Then on the path, using varnish, I built up a few layers of "water" that would gather on a path like this. After the last layer, I sprinkled some of the cut up leaves in it.
In this pic you can see that the PVA is still wet. You can also see how much of the stuff you actually put on when you are using the watered down stuff to stick the leaves. There are a couple of patches of it around some of the greenery.
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At this point I am making some bits and peices, like a bush or 2, some plants, and fallen branches. These will take a while before they get put on the main model, so I decided to start on the river next.
I sealed the whole riverbed with gloss varnish, cos otherwise the "water" will find any holes and leak out all over your bench, and ye really dont want that.
In the pic below the first layer of "water" has been put down. It is fiberglass resin with a a drop of "clear green", "clear blue", "smoke" and brown tamiya acrylic paints. Its pretty dark, as this will give a nice impression of depth. There is about half an aerosol cap full of resin used, with about 3-4 drops of each colour paint mixed in. I used as little hardner as i could as this colours the resin red. You can get resins that use clear hardner, but I havent managed to source any where you can buy less than a gallon of resin... this would probably last me 40 years...
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This is about as far as I have got... so far im happy enough, and have decided I will be putting a few ww2 soilders sittin around the place on it...

Ciaran_Dub

Looks class Dok. Good to see you are putting the tree to some good use. I think your idea of putting soldiers in the diorama would be a much better idea then the tank. I am just going by the scales look of it.

Quick question for you when making your base how did you attach the trim too the plywood? is it just glued?

The Doktor

Ciaran_Dub wrote: »

Quick question for you when making your base how did you attach the trim too the plywood? is it just glued?

Yep, just standard evostick woodglue.
I am really really bad at wood work. No matter how many times I measure, bits never fit. Even with a mitre box I always make a bollix of it. Though this time seemed to work ok. I barely needed to fill any joints (wood glue and sawdust)

The Doktor

So I got a bit more done.
There are 3 more layers of water poured on (fiberglass resin). One of the reasons I have been doing so many layers rather than just maybe 2, is cos in afraid of messing things up. If I make a mistake now, I may throw the whole thing in the bin, cos there will be no removing the resin.
Again there is a mix of resin, clear blue, smoke and brown paints. So far im happy with the results, in the pic the water is rock hard.
p13.jpg

I have put on the fallen branches. These are made of wire covered in pollyfilla in the same way the tree is. The moss is made from a mixture of PVA and woodland scenics "snow". This is some kind of plasticy powder and when dry gives a slightly "hairy" look. Its painted with tamiya acrylic greens and washed with burnt umber oil.
I also made a few shrooms out of milliput. I like em anyway!
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I then made a couple of bushes. I made 2 frames (couple of branches) like the tree was made. This was then covered with the material that you use to line hanging baskets. This stuff is great, and doesnt even need to be painted. You just tease it out and stick it on.
The leaves are made from chopped up/dry corriander. Using a spray bottle for plants I sprayed on PVA and water and sprinkled the leaves on. When it was dry, I sprayed it again to seal the leaves in.
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coolwings

It's shaping up very nicely Dok. Keep up the posts!

The Doktor

The last 2 nights i got most of the river complete.
I wanted to build up the waterfall section. Fiberglass resin is no use for this as it just runs down into the pool. I used a hot melt stuff I got before called "scenic water". It comes in pellets, and you melt it in a tin over a flame.
This stuff hardens pertty quick, as it just has to cool a little. So i poured a little at a time on till the water fall was built up. I then sculpted it a bit with a gas soldering iron the blows out hot gas and an artist paint knife like a little trowel.
I then poured over some more resin to darken it.
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Now the last layer of resin was poured on. This was again a similar mix of resin and paint as before. This will bring it up to the level I want i.e. the edge of the frame.
As you can see in the pic, it looks like still water. Obviously this is no use for this model.
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So what ya do, is make sure you keep a little resin from the mix in the container you mixed it in, so you can see when it starts to go off. It will go jelly like before it goes hard. At this point using an old hard bristled brush start stippling the surface of the water. You can also drag it to form little waves, say where there is a rock.
This is a bit of a paint in the bum, cos from what I can see when ya agitate the resin it takes longer to harden. So I was at this with the brush for about 30 mins.
I could have put more hardener in, but that makes the resin get hot, and it doesnt bind to the layer underneath so well, and you can acutally see where the hardend resin has come away from the layer underneath.... experimentation pays off!!
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Tomorrow... is white water time..

The Doktor

right, this is where it starts to really come together.
After leaving it over night until the water was hard I started to build up plaster of paris where I wanted the white water to be. I used plaster of paris because it is so white, where pollyfilla is creamy, and also it hardens in a matter of minutes.
As the plaster was drying, I stippled it with a brush. I continued to build it up until I was happy with the result.
Then I used a high gloss varnish on the surface of the water. I avoided the white water with this, as though it should glisten, you dont want it all shiny. So I used tamiya clear and just rubbed the brush over the peaks of the plaster. I also used the tamiya clear on some of the rocks to give them a wet look.
So far im happy

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No all that I want to do is a few finishing touches, like at the edge of water.. not exactly sure what.. but ill come up with a few things.

BFassassin

Looking good Doktor.
Not really my cup of tea but its something different. it will look cool with a few soldiers on it.

The Doktor

BFassassin wrote: »

Looking good Doktor.
Not really my cup of tea but its something different. it will look cool with a few soldiers on it.

Not really mine either but it is nice for a change. What I like about this kinda thing is that you have to basically make everything yourself. Lots of trial and error involved. Kinda fun... except when you really mess up and have to start all over!

The Doktor

Next thing I did was to finish the edge of the soil in some way. I decided to plant some grass here. The static grass comes on a backing, which is hard to make look real, as it looks like a perfect lawn. So I spread some PVA where I wanted the grass, and pulled small bunches of grass of the backing paper with a tweezers and planted it in the PVA. I did this in a few other spots around where i thought it should go.

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Next thing was to add a fence. I thought it might be nice. I drilled a few small holes where the posts were to go. I used wooden sticks that I picked up in the art and hobby shop, basically long matchsticks. I roughened up the sticks and washed these with burnt sienna and black oil to make them look like old posts. The wire is just light copper wire (from speaker wire) first painted black, the washed with a rusty colour. You can see this in some pics later.

Next was to remove the masking tape off the base and do somthing with that.

I decided to stain it darker, so used "american walnut" coloured stain (after sanding it and washing it with white spirit. Then over the last few nights I wiped it with Teak Oil for the final finish.
On each corner where the base was raised, I made up small brass corner pieces. You can buy this in meter long lengths in B+Q. The brass took a lot of polishing with sandpaper/Micromesh/Metal polish to get em like this.
I also decided to "screw" them on... i.e. the brass is glued on, and the screws are just the heads of brass screws polished up and glued in place.

At this point I decided i didnt like the yellow on the tree, and airbrushed it with "hull red".

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The Doktor

Last few pics cos i couldnt post more than 5 in the previous post.....
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Thats it.. done.

Im looking at the soilders that im gonna put in it as a seperate project..so thats next....after a break!

Spyral

its good - where did you get the resin from ?

The Doktor

Spyral wrote: »

where did you get the resin from ?

Halfords. Though woodies and also any motor factors will have to too.

Plug

Are you going to hang it on the wall?

The Doktor

Plug wrote: »

Are you going to hang it on the wall?

Errrmmm.. no.. why?

Cmar-Ireland

Looks great Dok,
Much better with the leaves darkened down, if ya don't mind me saying!

I've seen this in person and it really does look 'realistic' The resin water is especially good. Just needs a few soldiers having a rest under the tree and an old WWI motorbike proped up against it

The Doktor

So while Im doin a few figures, I decided that I need somthin alive... So I did me an Aller
aller 1.jpg

and for some scale...

aller 2.jpg

Cmar-Ireland

:eek: :eek: :eek:

Plug

:eek:
Did you make that thing?

The Doktor

Plug wrote: »

:eek:
Did you make that thing?

Its not a THING... its Seth the Aller..

And as ye can see Cmar, I got the airbrush to work properly in the end!! A good clean was needed

Cmar-Ireland

Is it scratch built or from a kit? The texture on the fur looks amazing.
Looks like the airbrush is working fine now



(on a side note, the paint did dry lighter, so looks better now:))

The Doktor

Cmar-Ireland wrote: »

Is it scratch built or from a kit? The texture on the fur looks amazing.
Looks like the airbrush is working fine now



(on a side note, the paint did dry lighter, so looks better now:))

Its from a kit.. though it wasnt the best, was made of 3 parts. So I sanded it down and redid the texturing with a mini drill and a dental bur.
3 nights of work for that fecker.. i mean for ..Seth the Aller

Plug

I used to have on those feckers.

coolwings

Nice job! It will add a lot to the finished diorama.