king derelict

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

Thank you very much Mark. The girl friend thought the third sepia picture was a real WW1 photo Alan

A lovely trio of buses. I really like the weathering and top luggage on bus number 3. Great work Alan

Thanks Mike I will try the Mr Color series of paints. I am not a fan of Vallejo apart from their black primer. I seem to have drifted from Tamiya to Mig Ammo which i do like a lot. They spray very well even heavily diluted. Alan

I added the figures. They are a bit sparse possibly but they are all I can glean from the sets I bought and I didn't really want to have a display loaded with figures. A couple more for the howitzer team would have been nice though. That officer might have to get his hands out of his pockets and get them dirty! I muddied boots and added some splashes on some of the puttees So the photos This was the image that inspired the whole production. Hopefully I got the general impression This is a bit self indulgent but it looks good to me I think that concludes this build apart from building the usual case. A lot of new ideas, techniques and experiments here but I think it came out OK. At some point I would like to try a Mark V tank on a base depicting it crossing a trench so lessons learnt will be useful. Having already broken two resolutions before the New Year reaches double figures (no more new books, no more new kits) I'm trying to hang onto the third and complete the part built projects and bits before starting anything else. Many Thanks for all the support, helpful information, likes and views Alan

Simply beautiful Mike Alan

Thanks EG, I will have a browse - and visit Sprue Brothers again Alan

Thank You very much Gary. Your shadow boxes are in a master class of their own so I value your praise highly. You create superb pieces of art. Alan

Thanks Jack It looks like I need to get some more while I can Alan

The micro balloons are great but I also like the paraffin with white spray as a piece of floating ice with snow or frost on it Alan

Thank you very much Edward. I remember the Airfix Highlanders. I remember my attempts at the tartan were not very convincing. I did a dry run with the figures on the base nd I think its working out so I'll fix them tomorrow. Alan