Diorama 4.0 - Happy Little Tree

I really want a tree on this diorama I think the landscape is a bit too barren. I looked around at Hobby Lobby and on the internet to find something but all the pre-made stuff just looked "wrong" I want a tree that looks like its stood through hell. Off to the forums and the YouTube I went. I found a tutorial on trees made with twisting wires together and I knew that this was the way to go for me.

I grabbed some 1mm brass rod from Hobby Lobby. It comes in packs of 6, 12" rods for $2.39. so under $5 which is much much less then something from Woodland Scenic's.

The technique is incredibly simple.

Here is the supply list.

15 same length rods
Pliers
Nail Clippers (or what ever you use to cut brass rod).
A base of some sort (I used a 30mm round)
Wood Putty/ Green Stuff etc.

Start by cutting your rods to even lengths and make sure you have about 15. In pairs (2) grab one of both with the pliers and start twisting till you have something that looks like this.

Once you have your pairs done, take one pair and twist it together with another. Keep adding a pair till you get the desired girth of your tree. Keep in mind that you are going to add an outer layer that will make it even bigger when all is said and done. Also you will want to create the branches out of the ends of the pairs. I did this by not twisting the entire length of the pairs together starting with the third set. It should give you something like this.

I then made up some green stuff and secured the skeleton on the tree to the base. 

You can see here that I bent the tree in the middle to give it a bit of a gnarled look. 

Once the green stuff is dry I will take wood putty and finish it up.

Diorama 3.0

Let's talk models for this bad boy.

So the terrain part is just about done. I still have to make a gnarled old tree which I am going to do with twisted brass rods (that will be it's own post later). It's time to think about the models that are going to be added into the scene. If you notice there are 4 small base holes on one side of the sandbag wall, and on the other side are a medium and large base hole as well. The 4 smaller holes will be for a few Cygnar models I have already painted and don't have a use for. The large base holder is for Khador's Behemoth. I had already owned and painted one but had to sell it some time back for lack of rent fund. So it was with some joy that I got a new one. Then I rememberd having to put the 2lbs of white metal together..... I also picked up pButcher because really if your gonna do something like this you need a big bad model to really drive it home.

Here are the modes in their very early WIP form. Both were primed with Vallejo Grey Surface Primer and allowed to cure over night. Then Behemoth was base coated in a mix of Vallejo Model Color Grey - Black with two drops of Wych Purple (old GW paint).

I also started adding a bit of water effect in some of the holes on the diorama base as well. 

Next up will be to make and add the tree in, add some powders to give it a more gritty feel, and possible some static grass here an there for color. 

Paint up the models and BLAM.....science...

The next blog post will be back to the GW Vindicator and Predator. 

See ya'll soon. 

I am starting a Patreon campaign.

I love my blog and will continue to post content no matter what. This will allow me to grow the blog and provide more and better content.

I am asking that if you feel my content is worth it and would like to see bigger and better projects such as Terrain. More detailed Diorama's. Specific models or ranges of models. Videos on a YouTube Channel. Stuff that makes us all better. I would ask you to give. Anything helps

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Anything helps and I totally understand if you can't, don't want to. All I'm asking is that if you are able and willing. Please do.

Thanks in Advance,
Your some-what humble painter.

Diorama 2.0

Sadly I am still waiting on the GW models to dry. I went downstairs today and figured well.... If I can't start working on the tanks I might as well do something productive.

The spakle I used takes about 12 hours to cure so it was good to go. I started by carefully removing the place holder bases I had stuck on with blue tac. I wound up having to use my hobby knife to cut around them so as not to pull up some of the spakle. Once done it was time to get the thing into the airbrush booth and prime.

Now to let the primer cure for a day and then on to painting it up. This should be quick and easy. 

Quick Side Project - Diorama

Well last night some painting needed to be done (you know when you get that itch that only working with models can scratch?) So I gathered up my son and we headed down stairs to make some magic. I wanted to start on the Vindicator and Predator but they were not yet fully dried from their Simple Green baths. I really didn't feel like painting my Legion of Everblight, and my son wanted to work on his Protectorate of Menoth by himself.

Then inspiration struck. I have always loved looking at wargaming diorama's. The good ones, the bad ones, the jaw dropping stuff you see from folks like Maz at Winterdyne. I started looking around at my shelves to see what I had that I could use. I decided I wanted to do something fun, on the easier side (it's my first time so why not try and be gentle?) and big.

I remembered that my wife had these 10" basswood rounds in her craft room just taken up space.... I grabbed two of them, some spackle, and it was time to build.

This is going to be a Warmachine Diorama as those are what I have laying around. I had purchased a few models that I wanted to paint but dont have armies for yet so they will go in this thing.

So here is the break down of what I have done and how I did it.

1. Two 10" wood rounds glued together - no picture because come on, use your imagination of a circle people.

2. I grabbed bases for the sizes of models that will be going into the diorama and used blue tack to hold them down on the wood, laying out where I want them to be.

3. As I was doing this my son (8yr old no less) was making sandbags (well cutting them off the sprue) I got these at Hobby Lobby for like $3 fantastic investment I say

4. It was time to figure out where to lay out the sandbag line. I did this dry and then used a pen to loosely mark how I wanted them layed out. Then glued down the base layer using super glue. 

5. Then it was time to build the wall up, we went with 3 layers as I figured it gets the idea across without over kill.

6. Now the fun part, laying down some spakle, I don't own a "spakel knife" nor would it be a good idea to use on something like this (too big) but I did have a few plastic knives about so we used what we had. I like using spakle for something like this as its light weight, can be primed and painted and you can make it smooth or give it some texture depending on how you applied it. It was my go to for basing when I took a month and did a FOW army way back in the day. Also a small tub of the stuff is like $4 and is more than enough to fill this entire thing up.

If you notice from the picture, I filled the spakle in high around the bases and up about 1/3 of the way up the first row of sandbags, its going to be the ground (obviously) so it needs to reflect that. The reason to get it slightly above the bases is so that when I put the models on it they look as seamless as possible.

This should dry in about 24 hours and I can start priming and painting it up. Just in time for the Vindicator and Predator to fully dry so I can work on them.