The Old Brick House

Yes, I know it’s taking me ages to finally post some entry/images for this project. Anyways, here is what I got to share so far. I lost count of the hours spent on it as I only have limited time every night to work with it and one more hold back is this addictive internet surfing, although I must admit that it’s really enjoyable for most times and it’s not all that bad I think, in fact, it helps me personally when I’m having a long bad day in the office.

Back to the diorama.

Here’s a brief background of the concept. The climate is subtropical, a small village somewhere in Italy, a few hundreds of feet above the sea level and sitting on the mountains facing the vast blue Mediterranean Sea. Perhaps, this house is about, let’s say, more or less hundred years old, maybe? Would you agree? This is not military modelling anyways, so we have a little bit of freedom here:) with regards to historical accuracy and facts, of course. The current season is spring with an average temperature of 27-32 degrees, cool wind in the afternoons and dry-cool wind in the mornings, I guess. These are some of the factors that will affect my way of weathering the whole diorama, I mean the type of weathering effect this diorama will receive bearing in mind the geographical location, age, materials and climate.

My list of diorama projects and ideas is long but I prioritized this one because I’d like to enhance my basic knowledge in sculpting.  These would also be a great opportunity in using modelling clay (air drying) and to explore new techniques and approach in modelling, weathering and sculpting surfaces like bricked wall, cobblestones, limestone, concrete plaster, and cracks on wall, heavy texturing.... and so on, something that is a little over the top as some might say but that’s exactly the whole point of this. I also had the chance to mix and experiment different types of colors, hues, shades....to imitate real life elements. And I’m having a good experience with this build.

All the details you see in this picture are built from scratch, I painstakingly sculpted a 40x50 cm. base and in which the sculpted areas like streets, landscape and building walls are 85 percent of the total area, enjoying the first few weeks but as I draw nearer to completion it’s becoming a burden ...and I asked myself, what the hell am I doing? But then again, watching these images and staring at the  diorama itself makes the hard day’s night worthwhile, really worth it. This is my first time sculpting almost an entire diorama, I started building the core of the house with the use of cardboard and then plastered it with air drying clay, while the clay is still soft and wet, that’s the time I’d start sculpting the surface real quick  other wise you'll be carving the surface cause it's already rock hard lol! I guess I need to make a separate post dedicated to tips, tutorials and techniques I use, i'll do that in the future.

 I fabricated some diorama accessories to add realism to the scene. I made some vegetable crates, pallets, wooden boxes, stand, chair and some bags, also added are the fruits and vegetables in different kinds. From this picture I can see some cucumbers, potatoes, apples....and I guess some avocados too.

All the wooden accessories are made of cardboard which i cut to size ( 1mm strips) and stick them together with glue, pretty straight forward, though it really eats up a lot of my time in the assembling process, literally it's ''hard to handle''. I used small seeds I found in the kitchen to make the fruits and tissue paper soaked in paint for the leafy vegetables.

Featured car model here is a 2006 Pontiac Solstice.

Nice castings but ugly rims. Just wondering why this company could not make a more realistic wheels, it's not that difficult Maisto guys! I could even make one mold master for you to use...free of charge! LOL!







 I love this chair, looks simple and cute. Almost took 1 hour to build and paint this thing.

Some more shots to enjoy.