king derelict

Great to have you EG. Well, that's an incentive to get the walls up as soon as possible!.I think you will have plenty of time to build a siege train Alan

Thank you very much OC. That is really very handy. The instructions are more of a guide and do not show images all the way round the model. The formers at the one edge of the outer wall suggest that the brickwork only covers the upper section of the wall I'm guessing that the hillside rises there to join the inner walls and structures but there are no pictures of that side of the model. It may become more apparent as the other structures are added but I will be looking at a lot of pictures of the real thing too Thanks again Alan

Thank you OC. I hope you have pillows, snacks and something warming to drink Alan

Hi Bruce The blocks are called ceramic but are really softer and easy to file, cut and sand. Maybe more of a reconstituted stone. Alan

Thank you Ken. I'll try to make it interesting Alan

Glad to have you Jack. Settle in for a long haul. Alan

I think it would be worth trying a false gate if it will still look good in the shortened wall. Otherwise I suspect there will be so much going on in the scene that the gate will be lost in the action Alan

Beautiful work. The detail, nets, fish boxes really pop Alan

Magnificent work. The hoist rigging is so very good and the deck is much nicer after the wash Alan

Hi Mark Actually, I'm vacillating over whether to start this one Alan

Thanks Craig Alan

Well, possibly an ill judged foray into something different. This is the Aedes Ars kit to build the Castle Loarre in Spain out of individual ceramic blocks. All 8600 of them. I built the Towers of Rochelle by the same kit manufacturer a while ago and although there were some caveats about the scale of some elements it looked decent when I finished it. A great friend of mine sent me this kit (and paid postage all the way from Spain) a couple of years ago and I am ashamed to say it has languished. I found I got bogged down in the Rochelle build. In that kit there is a large multi-curved tower that used about 80 blocks per tier and it seemed like in spite of the hours working on it, it felt like it was going nowhere, I'm hoping that this one might go better having a widen array of smaller elements but 2000 more blocks. I suspect there will be regular breaks to play with something less demanding. Inside the box, plans and general guides. Some basic landscape elements which will be ditched in favour of the Woodlands Scenics investment for the howitzer diorama. Lots and Lots of blocks The kit is built on a printed cardboard base which I decided to glue to a piece of 3/4 plywood. The finished kit is going to be heavy and a piece of cardboard as a base is not going to do it. The structures are created by building up the walls against card formers. These are die cut and just need easing out of the frames The kit provides lengths of scored card strips to create tabs to glue the formers together and to the base. The kit provides two bottles of glue which is unlikely to be enough. I switch to Weldbond when it runs out. A syringe is an efficient way to dispense the glue The curved sections of walls and towers require the formers to be curved. ts easy to crease and ditort the card but using the PE rollers produced decent results A variety of heavy things are used to hold the sections down until the glue sets up. And the first section of wall formers are up This may get very boring so I will only update at intervals when there is discernable progress. I'm hoping that with a bit of community spirit I can complete this without getting overburdened. I hope you enjoy watching it come together. There is one outstanding question - where will the completed model go. The base is 26 inches by 22 inches. Oh dear! Thanks for looking in Alan

Thats a great question. I am finishing off a few small models and experiments which probably don't warrant showing here - unless they are tremendously good of course, ! have a long-term project I want to start in the next few days that will be in this forum. In parallel I want to do something a bit shorter but can't decide between the Vampire, Typhoon, a 1/35 AFV, a 120mm figure or a 1/700 ship. I have a 1/350 Flower corvette that I want to make into a diorama but That might depend on the current experiments Alan

Mike That looks really good I feel like I want to make a frozen sea diorama Alan

Thank you very much Patrick. I need to stop this - they take up too much space. Alan

Thank you so much Mike. I would have just liked a couple of additional figures standing by the gun smoking a gasper but I couldn't find anything I could even sensibly modify, The guy on the tank was sort of the starting point for the whole scene Alan

Thank you very much EG. Your howitzer in 1/35 will be a treat to look forward to. Alan

Thank you very much Edward I just printed the third sepia picture on photo paper and it looks real enough that I am quite chuffed. Alan

Very many thanks Andrew First time I have used figures and you are right - it really adds a sense of movement to the scene Alan

Looking forward to seeing a 1/35 diorama, especially with your weathering talent Alan

Thank you very much Ken. I think I should have taken more photos from a lower, more natural eye line. The higher sight line is a bit unrealistic but it shows the layout better. I was happy I had made a backdrop - which will probably appear again Alan

Thank you Bruce. Its close enough to make me feel I ended up with what I had in mind Alan

Thank you very much Gary. I am still in awe of the realism you produce in your shadow boxes. This is the first time I tried to photograph something with a backdrop and it was well worth it. Alan

Thank you Ken The Woodland Scenics stuff really helped. It certainly bets sawdust dyed green as ground cover which seemed to be about as good as it got when I was in my youth Alan

Thank you very much OC. I really enjoyed making this, working in the various elements. It gives me big insight into how much work is in your Waterloo diorama aand the great work in the figure painting. Alan