Justice City Dioramish

[MartyO]

Slowly as she goes...

I've been working on the waterfront a bit.

- I added cap stones to the retaining walls
- built a stone staircase from the waterfront Road to the main dock area
- created wooden docks for 3-4 large boost and 3-4 smaller craft

I when to the scrap bin and used up all the small thin pieces of scale wood. I will sand them flat and stain them later. But for now it gives me an idea where to put pilings and adjust the heights of the docks. A lot more work still has to be done before it will look good.

Until next time.

There were more photos, but the solar eclipse erased them from where I put them. hehe

[MartyO]

The sun gods have returned a few photos.

To create the retaining wall cap stones I had to cast strips of plaster between a couple of strip wood and aluminum foil base. I repeated this about 12 times, then filed and carved the individual stones, concrete looking.

It was a pain to do and they often cracked and I crazy glued them back together leaving a seam, that looks real.

Crazy glue and panel chauk helped getting them in alignment. The yellow yard stick and old batteries ensured the cap stones stayed flat(ish).

When all said and done it is beginning to look like a waterfront.

The docks etc will tie it all together, eventually.

[Janbouli]

That's going to look great Marty

[ReadingBob]

Shaping up nicely.  I really like the stairs down to the water level.

[MartyO]

Shaping up nicely.  I really like the stairs down to the water level.

You see these along the shores in UK, that's where I got the idea

[MartyO]

I am getting to finalizing the geometry of the boat slips. It has been a bit of a research project as there is no real standard to them. In the drawing is the closest I could find to get it close to a more real world area.

Now the building of the slips can begin; more in the next post in a few days.

[MartyO]

Just when you thought I had not done anything I surprise you with a major development of the waterfront docks. Really Marty, what do you think you are? You are just lazy and get motivation from how many cinnamon buns and coffee you have had.

Somehow I managed to horde a bunch of sticks from Candy apples, no I did not eat them all. I cut them into shorter pieces, scuffed them up and went through a process of soaking them in brown and black dyes.

[MartyO]

Then I cut the waste scraps and cut them into shorted 10mm chunks to act a dock supports under the deck. Using superglue It was easy to get it down. The side effect was I got SuperGlue on my thumb and now my phone can't read my fingerprint to allow me to get access to the photos.

I placed the dock on the baseboard and used the soldering iron to "guess" where the duck supports would end up. I made a botch job of that and had to use ballast and PVA to fill the way too big holes. No matter I smeared the base with PVA and dusted very fine sand over it. I also added some barnacles to the docking piers and see trash was laid about.

Here is how it turned out. There is more deck detailing to d, but that requires me to collect and paint stuff.

See you sometime in the future with another "exciting" story how a bumbling old man models. 

[Mark Dalrymple]

Its really coming together Marty.  Looking good.

Cheers, Mark.

[deemery]

I can't wait for the tide to come in. 

dave

[ReadingBob]

That's shaping up to be quite something!  Keep up the great work.  

[MartyO]

Hi there, you thought I had done nothing over the last month. Well you maybe right!

Like the weather, my mind keeps changing on how the Distillery scene will look like. I thought the smokestack itself looked ok, but the building around it seemed disjointed. Also, the smaller building on the left side of the main building looks out of place. Add to this the access road to the distillery was a bit crowded.

So another re-re-vamp was needed.

I moved the smaller building to the right of the main building, giving the illusion of added height to the main building. However, putting the smokestack to the left of the main building just would be too close to the building. I plan that the ITLA building for the corner to act as a background and an ultimate visual impact along the diorama leading the eye through the layout. I managed to blend the tones of the buildings closer to each other as they would have been made about the same time.

To solve the crowded access road issue I had to reduce the footprint of the smokestack building and provide a connecting hall (building looking thing) to the smaller building. This tied everything together and tucked the smokestacks away from the road and opened the scene up a bit more. Scenic detailing later around the smokestack will blend it all in.

So here are a few snaps of what I did.

I still need to wire up the red warning light, but that can wait until feel guilty for not doing any modelling.

Enjoy (?)

[nycjeff]

Hello Marty, I like the adjustments that you made, also the color of the stonework is very natural looking. Good job.

[Vietnam Seabee]

Gotta luv that chimney

Terry