Classic Car Dioramas

Always a pleasure to look at your work, John!
It's been a great inspiration to me of late.

(more photos would be nice though;) )

Hi AF! I will be posting some here but the majority of my pics can be seen on my photobucket sub-album "Classic Cars" Cheers! John.:)

See my photobucket sub-album "Classic Cars" for many more pics!:)

Truly amazing work sir! Your detail work is fantastic from your aircraft engines to the nail spacing on your buildings. May I ask what scale you are working in?

Thank you for sharing!

Truly amazing work sir! Your detail work is fantastic from your aircraft engines to the nail spacing on your buildings. May I ask what scale you are working in?

Thank you for sharing!
Hi Dan! Thank you I am glad you like it.The scale is 1/16th.Cheers! John.:smile:

Big Al Capone making an offer he can't refuse!:grinyes:

Truly inspiring stuff, lotsa great work in there, especially like the figure mods.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/Figure%20modification/IMG_2370.jpg

Lovely, John :thumbsup:

I would like to ask your advice on something - painting some cobblestones.
Would you be willing to share some advice with me on how you would go about painting cardboard to look like cobblestones?

You can find the "raw material" here: http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=5791542&postcount=47

Wow! I like it just as it is.I would just spray it with clear matte lacquer.The grey tones and patterns are just great as they are.
If you were going to weather the car ,then paint and a little weathering of the cobblestones would be in order.Otherwise I would leave it as is.
Lacquer also makes a great sealer for wood and cardboard prior to painting.Dries in 30 mins and doesn't change the color.
If the surface is a little rough I would also consider using pastels for weathering.

Thanks John. Unfortunately it does need painting. It's not quite so clear in the photos I think, but in 1/1 it looks like cardboard and the grey/white contrast is quite harsh.

I am hoping to get a more natural stone finish but am not sure what kind of colr washes to use.

Wish me luck! :D

You really can't go wrong using the earth tones like the umbers and siennas.If you use a gesso primer and flat acrylic colors you can then use chaulk pastels for shading and weathering etc...but you must use flat paint otherwise the pastels won't stick.Cheers! John.

Thanks :thumbsup:

That's pretty much what I had in mind but it's very reassuring to hear it from an expert! :)

Looking forward to seeing more updates on your dioramas.

This is the next project ,a WW1 truck conversion that I decided to build to balance out the composition of the Albatros diorama.I plan to do it as a multi-media thing using plastic,metal,wood etc....
The basic chassis is from a 1/16th Rolls Royce kit ,the design is a Mercedes car that will become a custom built truck for use on the airfield.Most trucks of this era were built on car chassis .Should be fun!

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/AlbatrosDv%20dio1/Albatros134.jpg
Nice idea :thumbsup:

I'm looking forward to seeing how this Rolls out ;) :)

The following was written by a good modeling bud of mine over on another site.


John, I really love this diorama. The wrecked plane is beautiful. The whole thing is magnificent.!!!

I would advise you to not put a vehicle in front of the hanger and wrecked plane.
Unless you rearrange the hanger and the wrecked plane, the vehicle will overpower the wrecked plane and the hanger. By "overpower" I mean the vehicle becomes the main attraction. The vehicle becomes the story. It will steal the story away from the planes.

Viewers will ask, in their mind; so what about this vehicle? Who just arrived? Who was driving the vehicle? What is it doing there?

I think the story is the wrecked plane and the plane they are working on in the hanger. The vehicle should only support that story.

John, I love your work. I hope you don't take this the wrong way. It's only my opinion.

My response;

Hi Jim! thank you for taking the time to express your opinion on this. I also have been quite reluctant to do this and for the same reasons, but all that open space in the left hand front of the diorama somehow bothers me.I can't quite put my finger on what it is,would you have any other suggestions or do you think it is OK as is?
Don't worry about the truck as I originally thought of putting it out back of the hangar anyway.
If anyone else would care to weight in on this subject please feel free to do so.Knowing when enough is enough has always been a problem for me.

The Junk Truck....... This ground support vehicle will be picking up junk out back of the hangar.I haven't yet quite decided whether it will be military or civilian.In keeping with it's duties the truck will be pretty junky itself.Even if it were military I figure that a truck involved in this task would not be the shiniest in the fleet nor would it bear all the usual proud military insignia.
Like the running board, I decided to make my own style front fenders out of wood ,which was not all that uncommon a thing to do in the early days.

I love doing these early trucks because of the room for your own creativity that is involved.It would take a keen and very knowledgeable eye to spot this as being once a Rolls Royce chassis, especially after I weather the whole thing..http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/images/smilies/wink.gif
__________________
"Once upon a time......." Storyboard dioramas by JohnReid.
My photobucket:
http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

OK ,this is as far as I plan to go with the junk truck.Anything more would just look overdone.When I add the junk to the truck's bed there will be plenty of interesting stuff to look at.Now it's on the the part I love most the weathering.

I have a little update as to when the museum will be ready for my stuff.Looks now that not before August ,which is fine by me as I really prefer finishing off the landscaping surrounding the hangars outside on my porch during the warm weather.Maybe I will add a few things too..........

This build will be found in my photobucket in album "Fuel Wagon Albatros"

I have a few left over wheels,tires and springs from another build ,the rest will be scratch.
When I saw the pic of the RFC fuel wagon I just couldn't resist building something similar.I am assuming here that based on the technology of the day wagons like this would be pretty much the same from country to country.This could be a converted farm wagon or something that was built "in the field" by the ground personnel themselves.Anyway that's my story and I am sticking to it!
Well here goes,should be fun.

I changed my mind! The white chassis looked a little flimsy so I decided to use another instead.The last pic I took is shown here.If you look on my photobucket under the fuel wagon album you will see in pic 004 the basic chassis glued together,pic 005 the cut down chassis where I shortened the whole thing and then glued it back together again.Pic 006 is a top view of the shortened version.

I don't post every time you make an update but I just want you to know that I am following this religiously :)

I love what you are doing with these vehicles and wonder to myself....will you ever stop? (I hope NOT!)

I took some styrene sheet and fitted some end plates to the tank.The pill bottle was sanded down and burnt umber gesso applied .The visible line around one end will be covered with a strap.The tires were worn down with a belt sander and just now need to be weathered sometime in the future.
This could be a horse drawn wagon by adding seats over the front wheels but I think that I will leave it as a trailer-type wagon as shown in the pics.
Does anyone know what that is at the front of the tank that looks like a bunch of wheel cranks welded together?
I added the straps,filler neck,drain pipe and water drain spigot under the tank.

Fuel ,water or oil ? Until I can find more research material on this as a fuel wagon,I think that I shall just call it a tanker wagon of some sort ,as it could have been used also for oil ,water or other liquid.
The problem I have with it as a fuel wagon is that I don't know how or where a pump and hose would be connected.If used for water gravity feed would be enough provided by the tap at the rear of the tank but if used for fuel a hand operated wobble pump of some kind would have to be installed but where?Then there is the hose to consider, where and how would it be properly stowed?
http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/images/smilies/unsure.gif

This same wagon could be built in any scale,horse drawn or whatever.Just find a nice set of wheels,chassis and springs and use your imagination from there.A lot of this ground equipment was actually built this way.A car maker would supply the chassis or a beefed up version thereof, and the rest would be constructed as need be.Even on military fields I have seen a wide variety of stuff that was adapted for "in the field" use.For a semi-scratchbuilder like me that suits me just fine and is one of the big reasons that I do WW1 dioramas, as it gives me lots of room for artistic license.

Another wheelbarrow. I would like to build another wheelbarrow that I will casually prop up against one of the hangars doors ,holding it in the open position.The first one shown here is in the Jenny diorama.
This is a nice little project for those not used to working with wood and would be a nice warm up piece if you would like to do something more complicated like the tanker.
All you require is a few lengths of basswood obtainable from any hobby store especially those that carry RR stuff and a few coffee stir sticks.Most modelers would probably have an old wheel or two laying around from some past project or you could simply use a round piece of wood cut from a dowel.A piece or rod or tube for the axle and that it about it.
As far as tools are concerned I use a Xacto knife with a #18 blade and a small hobby saw and miter for most of my work.Although I do have power saws etc..I find that none are really necessary for this type of model work.(I also have a fancy airbrush that I hardly ever use)My advice to beginners would be to learn to do all this by hand and then if you want to you can buy the fancy stuff later.For sanding just take some various size sticks and dowels and glue some cloth backed, belt sander type sandpaper to them.Buy several grits mostly the finer stuff.
The wood sizes required will depend upon the scale you are building in.In this case you could measure your own wheelbarrow and reduce it to the scale you require.Have someone hold the wheelbarrow and take a pic or use
a scale figure as a guide.Anyway wheelbarrows come in lots of sizes so no need to be too accurate here.Where you have to be careful is with the grip on the handle,don't make it too big.I have sets of scale hands for this.
Water based flat acrylics are recommended for painting and caulk pastels for shading.That is about it.

Major change in plans! Diorama #1 the Albatros and diorama #3 the Jenny are now almost finished.Diorama #2 the Nieuport, is a little different than the other two, in that it is more of a traditional type shadowbox.It is mostly finished on the interior but the exterior requires some work.I had originally planned to put this dio in an old TV cabinet and display it in my home but when the CAM expressed an interest in acquiring my dioramas,I just put it aside in storage until I could figure out a good way to display it.Well I think that time has arrived!
It could be built into a wall as a traditional shadowbox or put in a box of some sort and displayed that way or some other way that I haven't thought of yet.
That is where I would welcome some suggestions from you guys.
I am sure that the museum has staff for this kind of thing but I would still like to have some input as to how it will be displayed.Mostly this will involve the lighting.
I envisioned an old barn type setting with the light of dawn or sunset coming through the cracks in the boards.Not the kind of place where you would want to spend a Canadian winter but maybe a place in France behind the lines where an aircraft could be rebuilt during the summer months or even a school type setting where mechanics could be given an engine conversion or aircraft rigging course.Anyway I so like the idea of the light shining through the boards the story will be adapted to fit.(artistic license comes to the rescue again)
The interior lighting is really simple with the whole thing lit by a single Xmas type bulb hidden in the ceiling.
Some of the rear and side panels are removable for picture taking purposes but of course this access will be lost once it is on display.
Please bear with me if I seem to jump from diorama to diorama but on a long project such as this (almost ten years)a change is as good as a rest.

I have decided to add more depth to this diorama .

I think that this is what I am going to do.Where you now see blue sky I will put the split garage doors on either side of the opening.Behind where you now see the tanker I will build another wooden wall or fence set at the same angle as the tanker.The garage doors can be set at an angle to block any unwanted views.I should be able to accomplish all this without adding more than a few inches to the rear of the diorama.I opened the garage doors and put the tanker out there as a test.I think that I like the idea.I was going to do this originally but at the time I was limited by the TV cabinet that it was supposed to go into.Now that I don't have that worry about that anymore,well here goes!
(Note:Those figures were originally flat but now they are a little too shiny, which was caused by too much handling,I will have to tone them down a bit with a wash or using pastels.)

Well the first order of business for this new addition will be to do a mock-up in foam board, to work out the angles and how much of an extension to add to the back.
The idea will be to have it look like a lane way between the existing hangar and another structure or tall fence.This structure will be set at a slight angle and the boards placed horizontally to help emphasize the idea of depth. The opening is just too small to get into any kind of forced perspective. It should have the effect of just like looking into another room.The shadow created by the R/H garage door should be interesting.Until I actually get to play with the lighting a bit nothing is carved in stone.Even a slight shift in the lights intensity or angle can effect the whole thing.The sun is setting(or rising) on the R/H side of the hangar.The left and backside would therefore be of a lower intensity.
Light bulbs do not work, so some type of reflected light or diffuse type lighting will have to be used.The exterior boards have been painted black as the tongue depressors I used for barn siding was just too thin.