I hope I won't be treading on to many people's toes with this little fun build, this is one of those dioramas that I call simple mode, because these are both easy and because you never quite know how it will turn out, quite a fun little thing to try.
This is also where HO or 1-72 scatter comes in very handy for 1-700 use, in this diorama its back to the rattle tin and basically seeing what happens when we slap together some pieces of errrrr um junk I suppose would be a better word to use.
The idea is about building a small diorama and nothing else, whatever we're likely to add at a later date will greatly depend on how this will turn out, and because we're not 100% certain of that, I believe just adds to the fun.
Off we jolly well go then, for this base I use a small board of MDF and some smaller pieces, broken, used doesn't really matter.

Anything that comes to hand we can use on this little project.

Using blue and the other 2 colours, cover the base and simply let your imagination run for a few seconds.

Oh very nice, love the way the colours clash darling, oh spiffing wot wot. Yeah right, because we're not quite sure where the land will meet the sea, we paint, or in this case spray everything, using the green and black to add a dash of different colour, again, this could be a waste of as we still don't know where or what this diorama will look like. Anyone can build this because there's no rules, no test, no must do this or that, go with the flow and build what you think it should look like.

This is the stuff I use for all my water effects, there many better items out there on the market, but I have settled on this. Being easy to work with, acting both as water effect and glue, providing coats are not applied to thickly this will go off transparent.

I'm not going to bore you with how you spoon this onto the board, common sense will show you that part, because this dry transparent, and we've already painted the surface board, this will come through nicely.

Broken pieces of MDF scattered about until you're happy with the look, a bit later on we'll join all this togther and see what happens.
As you can see from these pieces there quite some hight and because at the moment there's no form as to how, or what this diorama will look like, its probably slowly turning into a bit of a challenge.

We're going to brake out the rattle tin again, and make a slow strat populating this somewhat strange dio with some buildings, these are from ebay, I also sell once and a while seconds, not perfect cast, but my off cast resin and stone buildings.

Also, we're be using this wonderful stuff, cheap and has a thousand and one uses, a great gap filler, you can build, then address by shaping, cutting, gluing and so on, here in the U.K this is what it looks like.

Scatter -


Above is railway scatter HO or very close to 1-72 scale never be afraid of using over-scale bits and pieces. Also (not shown) I brought some rubber moulds of 1-72 rocks, the type of thing you can use time after time, these make 1st rate mountins in 1-700 scale, keep your eye out and you'll be surprised what you can actually use.

With our fingers we're smoothing over the caulk and before drying (a nice sunny day today perfect for model work) we're going to scatter the scatter over the white surface with care pressing down into place.

As I said before, it doesn't matter what colour you're using at this stage, try and cover 80% leaving some area for open spaces.

Only when we're happy at using enough scatter, out comes the masking tape, and I use 3 different colours for the basic ground covering.


This is surprisingly nice, I like the surface colour, so I'll leave this to dry.

Apparently we're going green with this dio, these I use to sell as seconds on ebay, not to bad, a little knocked about the edges, but quite handy to have around.

Another coat of gell, one or two extra buildings, and this high in the sky dio is beginning to take shape.

The brissles make good bamboo or simply strange looking plants.

Some time ago I brought these, well, quite a few for when I built my land battle diorama, since then, these and a few others have laid in my shed at the bottom of the garden, the scale is HO very close to 1-72, and while the hedge and tree are errrrrrrr um WAY OVER SCALE this is great for us as the hedge will come in handy for trees and the huge tree great for bushes and so on.

Where's all my replies, am I honestly wasting my time on you guys ??????

Again we can populate here and there with trees, this stuff was left over from when I use to keep tropical fish, why I kept it I honestly don't know, but then a sudden thought struck me when I took a photo in my garden, looking through the diorama I saw these bushes all coming to life (spring time U.K) so as you do, I've not got to work on a little forest, and as this whole diorama is totally unplanned, does it really matter what it looks like ?

Trees have feelings too man !
With a good pair of wire cutters, we can begin to dismember the hedge, these small pieces will make up out darker green trees, the other tree, obviously the lighter, giving us a contrast beweeen shade and colour.


remember we simply throwing this diorama together, look through the buildings and now trees to see what we've actually created. It is only a simple build.

Not quite happy with the sea effect, which is not a problem, simply encrease the amount of gell, so there's little more to add until everything has gone off.

Alec, your approach to all things model-like never ceases to amaze me. This build is a prime example: you send an explosion of photo's of the most unlikely pieces and parts, (bristles of a broom?), and end up with a very classy looking Japanese landscape to which you will undoubtedly add an equally classy Japanese warship. Nothing but the most sincere respect for the modelling adventures you get up to. Great work sir !
cheers,
Julian

Firstly - that is much appreciated Julian, thank you.
A backdrop -
Some time ago I was searching for a backdrop to a diorama, and like most people I have a printer that churns out A-4 size prints, which I find to small, on the other hand there's four fingers and one thumb eh, oh sorry there's the type of backdrop you can have made, believe me, that would cost a small fortune, then suddenly for no reason I thought about the most obvious, wall paper, on ebay there is quite a choice, and for around £8.00 a roll very cheap considering my backdrop is only 2 foot by 3.5 foot so I have a lot left over for other projects if I want it.
What does this backdrop look like against our little diorama ?

Does this make a difference ? You bet it does, I believe it make a HUGE difference to the diorama, and because this is a cheap old backdrop, you could even curve this round for a more static display.

The chap that left his comment was right, well almost right as this will be our model that we built last week ''rattle tin Vs the paint brush'' outside rain yet again so I'll try my best to post a little later on. In the mean time, please try and catch up on the Flickr site there is a few more photo's I've added.

Nice work, I like how you have downscaled the vegetation - it looks right !

Yes - i have been watching, but it looked like you had it all under control

Cheers/Jan

Thank you Jan -
Diorama -
In the paint and build thread of last week, we built the IJN aircraft tender, and while rather large, this is a very nice shot aginst the background, maybe some will say a little to close to the rock face, remember some of these faces drop sheer and not very often have a beach.

More to see on the Flickr site.

Same sort of thing, this time a destroyer being a much smaller ship.

And finally before I hang up my brush one more time, the same diorama this time in a nice black and white photo.

This whole build was done blindly, pieces simply thrown together hense my method ''simple mode'' because anyone can build one of these the same, or fingers crossed, much better then myself.
When looking at something like this, its easy to fool the eye into believing this looks good, you have to learn to look through the good stuff and think what would this actually look like without the ship (or ships) without the buildings, would it still hold its own ? Considering everything said, I'd say YES, in this case we've built an okay sort of diorama that would welcome both buildings and shipping to make it look even better.
Still waiting for those comments guys - so come on, pull ya finger out and get yourself typing.
Alec.