Hi everyone. Here’s an quick update on this project.
I’ve done the first pass over the east end (right hand side) of the diorama and added as much as I thought I needed in order to create a realistic scene. I’m happy with it so far. There are still more items to put into place but I’m going to take a two week break from the diorama to get back to the tracklaying on The Town. The last week has been an solid learning experience and I feel I’ve advanced as a modeler.
It took me a couple of attempts to get the grass looking the way I want. One of the issues I’ve been fighting is the grass color. As much as I like Silflor static grass (and it was used to perfect effect on The Depot) I really find the colors to be a little flat. I would have much preferred to used a brighter vivid green and after searching around I eventually found some wonderful static grass made by Noch. I only added the new Noch grass in a few small areas for the moment. However I’m really going to use the Noch grass around the river bed where water would make the grass brighter and colorful.
Sadly this photo doesn’t do the colors justice – the Noch colors are much more vivid and rich in real life. The difference in color will be much more noticeable when I use the Noch grass for larger areas around the rest of the diorama. I’ll still have to dampen the Noch colors down a little but over a larger area they should make the diorama a richer viewing experience.
Here’s a clearer view of the east side:
- I wanted to leave some of the rocky/stony base visible and expose the rocks and stones that were used to build the embankment that leads up to the bridge. The grass is also dryer on top from the effects of not much rain and exposure to the elements.
- I’m not going to add too many plants. This one was created from Super Trees. They scale really well and have a lot of detail at this very small size. I might add more leaves but otherwise I think that’s it for the trees on this side.
- This is a flower and I’m going to add many more flowers and have them loosely dotted around the place. The tiny elements of color really help bring the scene to life. I just need to be careful to not over do it.
- I don’t know what these plants are called but I’m surrounded by them where I live. Brambles? I made them from a textured matt
- This is a Gordon Gravett tip: break up flat continuous areas wherever possible. I decided to add a small repair job to the retaining wall.
- This area needs more vegetation but I want to leave the stones and rock exposed as much as possible to show off the colors, textures and variety of sizes. The stones have scaled really well and I don’t want to hide them.
Here are some steps for making the ‘brambles’.
Start with Creative Accents Textured Matt
Here is the result:
And so for the time being here are a couple of images. Plenty more to do but I’ll come back to this side at a later date and add more plants and generally tidy things up.
Thanks all. More in a few weeks time. Back to tracklaying on The Town