Category: Dioramas
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The Corner Of Frugal Boulevard and Tight Arse Lane
The cheap end of town. I got there after consulting the internet and looking at eBay sales items. The prices were high and the shipping costs higher. But I did benefit from the product illustrations – which I could screen save and use for reference. Free information. My project involved making some more buildings for…
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Academy SPAD XIII – Part Four – Buongiorno!
Issa nice-a day for-a the flying! And a nice SPAD serving the Italian air force in WW1. I strayed from the box markings deliberately. The Lafayette Escadrille Indian head will have to wait until another time, as will the native American swastika. I did some research for SPADs with that combination and only found one…
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Iron And Steel In The Soul
And let us have more of it. The recent big local scale model exhibition had a surprise near our stand – a model steel furnace. It may have been intended as part of a model railway layout, but could equally be a stand-alone display. It was good to look at from all four sides. Built…
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The Colour Of Your Model Is Wrong
But it’s not the fault of the paint – or of you. It’s the result of history. Cast your mind back to when you were a kid during the Boer war. When you could still get that crispy bacon. Remember what the photographs taken at the Battle of Bloemfontein looked like? The videos taken by…
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Soviet ZIS-5 Part Six – Igor’s Flying Inn
This truck and the accompanying accessories are to be known as Igor’s Flying Inn – named after GK Chesterton’s novel and my friend in Ukraine. It was not hard to find 12 crates of vodka to load onto the truck. Or the table and chairs. Or the wooden box full of cheese and sausages. The…
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The Scale Sketch
Versus the final model painting. Which is better? Which is more authentic? Which is likely to get you a medallion on a ribbon at the Big Local Scale Model Exhibition? I think we all know the answer to that one… But not every model is destined to be under the eye of the Judgemental Committee.…
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Let Us Now Praise Famous Buildings
Particularly if they are made by obscure companies. I needed a building for a desert museum layout. I have many small structures but they all look vaguely North American or British. It was with dubious enthusiasm I rolled into my local hobby shop. As I suspected – the Superquick and Meltcalf offerings were mostly railway…
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The Year-Round Scale Model Show – Part Two
So the annual weekend in the hall is to be kaput. Now we think up the new show. You’re soaking in it; the internet. The always-there screen that steals your images and time. The ever-present menace to your credit card. But this time it will be fun. If there is a reasonable pot of money…and…
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It’s All About The Show
At the show, that is. This fatuous philosophy may make my model displays better in the future. I’ve just seen a wake-up that tells me the viewers need more than what many modellers give them. My library dioramas – 300mm x 820 mm – are kept to that size by the display cabinet that protects…
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Imagination Vs Reality
How much of either powers your scale modelling? In my own case, less of the former in individual models but a great deal of it in major dioramas. I invent air forces and their air fields as settings for soi disant accurate models. Self deception at its finest. What of the model car makers? I…
The Little World 