Topic: Darth More's Dioramas: Felucia - Display Diorama (Test)

[Dag Marus]

These picture frame dios are absolutely brilliant.

[Darth More]

@hemble: Ron, it's always great to rceive your feedback! There's so much amazing work focused on Tatooine in the internet. It's just so much fun to build these dioramas depicting Mos Eisley...this is how it all began in 2009 - good memories...

@Tamer: Thank you, Shawn! It really bothers me to not being able to continue and finish this project since I moved. I hope to do so after Christmas, though.

@FialaFernbrugg: Thank you, Christoph! That honors me to hear! Obviously I am not the first person coming up with this idea, but my white shelf with exact six floors just inspired me to make them. I give my best to include as much detail as possible. I've collected enough material and references. I just need more time - that's all keeping me from my progress. I am happy to share every single step with you including as much detail as possible. And working on the door frames is just fun!


@Dag Marus: Thank you very much for your comment! I am glad you like them and look forward to making more of them! Do you have a favourite diorama or theme? Do you have any suggestions which planet to pick next for a picture frame diorama? You can find some of my future plans on page 1


Thank you so much for your comments guys! I can't wait to finish the latest project around Christmas! The walls and doors will be weathered, too - that's for sure!
May the Pre-Xmas-Craziness be with you!

- Philipp

[Darth More]

Update:


I'm back home at the moment and removed the dust from my project, I started in summer of 2017.


Progress:





I still need to cover the three other door frames. To do that I need to make some more profiles with resin, paint and weather them. That'll hopefully happen tomorrow. Once done that, I can weather the walls to make them look more accurate. I'm quite happy with the development compared to the walls I made back in 2009, but still don't look quite exact. My dream would be if I could make them look like the walls from hemble or the Cantina from Vincent Agatha.





I did paint the bars for the awning and applied some weathering and shades to the fabric.




And since I neither have a Desert Skiff nor even the Sail Barge, Jabba's gansters have to utilize something else here...




Once the walls are done, they'll be glued onto the base plate and sand will be applied. For some strange reason, the tape, I fixed the blue cardboard with, caused black stains over time. I'll use a sponge with some thin white paint to cover these stains and make the background sky look a little faded/dusty.


I plan on building at least five more of these shelf dioramas - one for each Episode - but before I even think about it, I need to finish this one here, first. Can't wait to populate it with denizens of Mos Eisley!

- Philipp

[Tamer]

Looks great to me. Glad you are back to working on it.

Off to share. Sure hope you get a chance at a Barge or at least the new Skiff.

[Starchaser]

Your diorama is developing nicely. That awning looks really excellent. I also think that a Hummer is a most appropriate vehicle for the Tatooine environment, I think Weequay like it better than skiffs

[FialaFernbrugg]

Sory for my very later reply.
As you know I'm a big fan of your shelf dioramas. It is great to see you working again on the Mos Eisley dio.
I'm really looking forward to see it weathered.

[hemble]

Looking excellent and the setup in the shelf is perfect and bugger Jabba's goons make them walk LOL.

Ron

[Don]

Thanks for the detailed process description and images! I am really loving your resin door profiles. Very nice work. Inspiring!

[RC-1136]

That's an impressive looking piece you've got there. I like the weathering technique you used on the cloth bits on the awning. That moisture vaporator looks spot on!

[Darth More]

Tamer: Thanks Tamer! I'll cover everything in full detail shortly. Remember a year ago...

Starchaser: Haha, thank you Starchaser! And sorry for my very late reply. I might weather it up, too. Was going to sell it when I took the pictures a years ago. But FialaFernbrugg gave some excellent pigments to me which I'm going to use on this one. I also like how the awning turned out. More pictures to come.

FialaFernbrugg: Same here. Almost a year has passed again! Hope I find the right way to weather the walls properly. It's try and error I guess, but I got my sponges Ready to rumble...it's gonna be a dabbing party!

hemble: LOL! Thanks heaps mate and sorry for the late reply. You're probably right. Jabba would make then walk...unless they fly now! 

Chuckles: Thank you very much Chuckles! Still Need to add pigments here and there and weather everything up. I might dry-brush the doors again to make the brown a little lighter. More detailed pictures to come soon!

RC-1136: Thanks a lot RC! The Vaporator is a Hasbro piece that came with TAC Luke Skywalker. I'll share better pics of the awning as soon as the diorama is finished. I really want to get it done now.

[Darth More]

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[Tamer]

Thats a lot of under construction.

[Darth More]

Sorry Tamer, I use them as placeholder until i finish my shelf dio "Streets of Mos Eisley". I also tried to get to a new page that way.

[Darth More]

Utapau









"The Battle of Utapau was one of the final battles of the Clone Wars between the Galactic Republic and Confederacy of Independent Systems, and was one of the last battles of the Outer Rim Sieges. It would prove pivotal due to the death of General Grievous at the hands of Obi-Wan Kenobi. This was the last major battle before the destruction of the Jedi Order and the fall of the Republic."
Source: Wookieepedia; Full article about The Battle of Utapau:
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Battle_of_Utapau/Legends


Read on on Wookieepedia about:

The 7th Sky Corps: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/7th_Sky_Corps

The 212th Attack Battalion: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/212th_Attack_Battalion

The 2nd Airborne Company: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/2nd_Airborne_Company











Ever since I started building dioramas back in 2009 I wanted to build one of Utapau. You might know that Revenge of the Sith is my favorite Episode of George's movies. And the Battle of Utapau is illustrated in an epic way in ROTS.
So here's my first attempt on making a piece of Grievous' last place to hide...















A big shoutout goes to Ron for helping me on this one! He gave me great advice on how to paint styrofoam to make it look as natural as possible. Check out his Incredible sceneries & landscaping here:
http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?topic=1865.msg210614#msg210614




Details:



Water always finds its way...


To give the styrofoam a bit of texture, I randomly cut out pieces with a scalpel. The idea was that water had run down in the Bottom left Corner years ago. As shown in the movie, Utapau's Surface is quite dry, but water reservoirs are found in deeper layers. First I wasn't that happy with the shape if the rock. Now that it's painted, I am! Next time I will also try to cut styrofoam with a Branding pen.









Behind the scenes:


As mentioned in the little teaser from last week, the LEGO 75036 Utapau Troopers Battle Pack inspired me to to dedicate this diorama to those Five figures and make a" Hasbro Version" of it. By the way LEGO fans had to wait for Troopers of the 212th Attack Battalion for 8 years! Aitborne Troopers were ALL NEW in this Battle Pack back in 2013. So also a thumbs up for Hasbro for having made them "only" 2 years after Revenge of the Sith came to theatres!





http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?topic=10416.msg216110#msg216110


Making of:



I've Always been amazed by the original models and Dioramas of Industrial Light & Magic for the real movies. Apparently their diorama is a Major Inspiration for me and I tried to get as close as possibe!









Human's imagination vs. Nature's perfection 


So I got the real rock at a pet shop and wanted to turn styrofoam into rocks, that look just like the real one. Wasn't that easy  as expected. So I tried different things like cutting random bits off the styrofoam plate, trying texture paint, mixing all suitable shades of acrylic paint, painting from dark to light - I had no idea what I was doing. It was a try-and-error this time.

So I contacted Ron on here and his answer surprised me:

"I have used real stones in dios before and instead of trying to get the foam to match which is almost impossible I just paint the stone and foam so they match as this is a lot easier and helps keep everything look real.

I use Vallejo Paints for my stone work and use Iraqui Sand for the base coat and then give it a wash of Vallejo's Flat Brown and then I use Games Workshops AGRAX Earthshade as a wash and then let dry. Once it has dried give the stone areas a light drybrush of the Vallejo's Iraqui Sand as this will highlight the edges and give the stone depth."

Ron


This sounds much easier than all the different stuff I tried on my rock. Sometimes It's easier than we expect to achieve a great result!
I'm still glad I used darker shades of beige, too.


This pic was taken right after I applied the first wash (vallejo's 73110 Burnt Umber):






After the last wash (light sand) had dried, I removed the masking tape - done!







Let me know your opinion and suggestions in the comments down below!




As Lions - The Fall on YouTube

Experience:


Ron's tips really helped me on this one! I'm very impressed by vallejo's pigments already and I've only tried 3 of 11 so far! I certainly did not waist a single lump of it.
I knew it was going to be hard to recreate the real stone. I thought I got quite close before the first wash was applied. BUT I think the result looks even more like Utapau than the stone does and that makes me quite happy!
So I'll use the same techniques on my next Utapau Diorama, which will be bigger. No more real stones - let's see how this looks!

Editorial comment: Some text I wrote yesterday got lost somehow. I had already written it a second time, but it won't appear in the saved/updated post. Maybe the maximum of data on this page is reached, now. So I needed a break last night. This morning I deleted some "text" above and hope it works now.

- Philipp


More cliparts here: https://www.pngguru.com/free-transparent-background-png-clipart-fsvgr

P.S.: Here's another w.i.p (spoiler) pic of upcoming projects:

[Tamer]

Looks like rock to me. Just great effect work here. Off to the front pages.