3 months since the last update and I have finally made some progress on this build thanks to being off work sick and two ultra-great modelling buddies - Peter and Dan
Firstly Peter in Australia.
I spent a lot of money, time and experimentation on different kinds of possible materials to reproduce a water effect with no success. Peter remembered something he had used before, went to his "not so local" LHS, bought some and sent it to me all the way from the other side of the world! Thanks Peter!
What he suggested is a 2-part epoxy used for glazing decoupage craft pieces. It's completely non-aggressive and dries crystal clear in 24 hours.
First of all, I used my hot glue gun to build a styrene dam around the water part of the diorama. I then glued the diorama base to my workbench with white glue to keep it flat and steady, mixed the resin and gently poured it in.
The next day I removed the dam without any drama (although next time I would probably put some release agent on the styrene just in case)
This is a wonderful lake to swim in because, as you can see, the water is crystal clear! :
Some of you may be thinking "it's
too clear". I would tend to agree but I just could not find a way to lightly color it to my satisfaction so I played safe and went with the Nordic fjord look LOL
However, to kill the very static and somewhat unnatural look of this glass-like lake, I intend adding some ripples using thick artist's acrylic gel. I have done some tests with this already and the effect is quite good IMO
Next up is the field.
From the very beginning of this diorama project I have been doing tons of research on railroad modeling sites on how to get realistic looking grass as opposed to something that looks like the carpeted interior of a Maybach
))
Apparently there are 2 secrets to doing grass. The first is to mix colors, textures and lengths randomly. The second is to get the flocking (aka static grass) to stand up straight in the glue like soldiers on parade and not just lie there like drunks in the gutter.
The first is relatively easy but the second not. For that I needed my good buddy Daniel and a secret weapon (you'll see at the end
)
Here is SOME of the static grass I used
First I put down some darker, shorter grass for the ground beneath the trees. IMO this area would be more like a forest floor than a pasture and would covered with pine needles etc
I then started filling up the rest of the pasture with different colored, longer grasses in randomly mixed and placed splodges. Once the were down, I used a Popsicle stick to flatten some areas and generally increase the randomness of direction and height.
Some close ups
In this shot you can see how the blades of grass really are all standing up straight in the glue!
This was possible due to my secret weapon - the Grassinator!!! ROFL
Flocking is also known as static grass because it accepts a charge of static electricity which makes it stand up when applied with an appropriate applicator (this is how they make the flocked patterns on t-shirts etc).
You can buy hobby grade static flock applicators for about 150$ (I'll take 2 please
) but I found a schematic for a DIY version on Google but I comprehend less than nothing about electronics.
Dan flew to the rescue like Superman, found and bought all the component parts and made me one himself!
Believe me, I am sure that the one you can see in the photo made by Dan is twice as good as the one made and retailed by Noch.
THANKS DAN AND PETER FOR YOUR KIND HELP IN BRINGING THIS PROJECT BACK TO LIFE~!!