Death dioramas from Nicolas Cabaret

Yamamoto the real end | lun, 02/07/2011 - 22:03

Ah well, the last issue .. i got some (small) Flak because the diorama was too flat, of course it is!

The diorama only works WHEN VIEWED ON TOP!!

Same thing with my previous one Rolling Thunder..

have a look below (okay I could have cleaned the boxes before taking the pics)

Looks like I have solved the place problem of doing dioramas in the middle of a big town.

Yamamoto and Rolling Thunder

Yamamoto

Yamamoto the end | lun, 02/07/2011 - 22:02

Slowly reaching to an end, hey I just found back the missing pictures!

So here are more Fredericus Rex jungle plants. Really I don't know where they found some of their species so I didn't improvised much and set for sort of palm plants as I know some grew near the wreck.

The small ones were once again shaped using a modelling knife pressed fern by fern against a packet cardboard (very soft).

Another Frederics rex set, this time a green one (you have the choice between tan and green for colours but I made the mistake of not specifying the "right" one for my order)

Yamamoto

So well, those bigger palm ferns, I put them into shape using the palms of my haand like shown here, and pressing my modelling knife against it. it's smooth enough to avoid any tearing up the fragile paper

The central nerve is done by overloading a brush with acrylic gel and then let it run at the right place! This is very important to figure that one.. And that's pretty hard to achieve the right result

Anyway, after all this work, i call that 6 bllllooooodddddy months work (please read with teeth clenched) finished, fed up with it really, groundwork is hell!!

Ah, what was my goal at groundwork? like I think i told, in that book I mentioned there was something about downed pilots spending 1 week of walk to do 3kms, and how to be downed over the jungle meant sure death.

HOW ON EARTH IS IT POSSIBLE? You can imagine something thick but well, you can walk through nature can't you?

I think that's by watching something on that Japanese Suicide forest near the Fujiyama that I might have an answer (but maybe you guys may have another one),

THERE IS NO FLOOR.

You walk on something that is just not solid at all, just roots, leaves stuff like that so you fall constantly. this is what i wanted to overload the place with nature, even though the groundwork is not very high (and you will see why down that page) I wanted it to produce this overcrowded effect..

Anyway a few pics of the finished work -and don't forget to scroll down because the real surprise is below ;)

Note that the black base is sticked on some bit of wood

Some special kind of framing | dim, 02/06/2011 - 22:34

Now the reason for my late, I had to buy a "router" not sure it's the right word, but that's a machine to carve wood.
Anyway, here are some sheet of wood cut in angle and painted in black.

They are fixed using that corner machine

And I end up getting that case with a glass cover

Yamamoto

More leaves on the top! | dim, 02/06/2011 - 22:30

On the first picture I absolutely realized at which point I only built some undergrowth, it really needed some extra bigger leaves at the top

like what's shown on the 2 other pics!

more leaves

A Samouraï sword instead of a cavalry saber | dim, 02/06/2011 - 22:28

Thanks to my friend Kaiserine for giving me his Masterbox sword -like he told "I am building Japanese soldiers, not samouraïs", all the best for my diorama.

Back to yamamoto! | ven, 01/28/2011 - 22:37

Well, here I am a few months late, trying to resculpt that Yamamoto fig. first i adjusted all clothes better to the body, wiped out the paint and sanded thoroughly. He now looks a bit more realistic.

aah forget the lightsaber, I am going to put in his hand the sword from the masterBox japanese marines set. (what on earth am I going to do with the rest of the set?!!

back to yamamoto!

Yamamoto -back again

Yamamoto | sam, 11/13/2010 - 18:22

Well i know I ought to have make another post before posting the completed pictures, but well really nothing much new could be told at that time.

i added a few flowers taken from a Model Scene box, those were glued on a small etched sprue sheet.

And then painting, painting again..

One interesting note is about how Yamamoto himself was painted.

"-If you see a white horse under a tree on a full summer day, what will be its colour?

-well white I suppose

-nonono, it will be green, only your eyes are trained to refuse the fact a horse can be green so you see it as being white, while he is in fact green"

So all the shadows on Yamamoto are a blend between green and brown..

If I had a final word about groundwork or "vegetation in modeling" it's "never again, it took me 2 months for THIS, sheesh.."

Very big pictures in the gallery here

How?.. | ven, 11/12/2010 - 22:04

This summer I read that thing: It's some sort of insane 700 pages+ work on the air war in the South Pacific.Lots of erudition, reasonably entertaining, reasonably flagwaving. Anyway, page 218 he cites one Matome Ugaki, one of thoseguys that wasn't so interetsed in living through a post-war japan. "[Yamamoto] was found on the seat outside of the plane,still gripping his sword. It hadn't decomposed yet and was said to be in astate of great dignity. He must really have been superhuman" That's what got me, superhuman admiral griping his sword, ina state of great dignity... Saintlike Okay I am in..

A new diorama called Yamamoto | ven, 11/12/2010 - 21:31

Illustration by Alex Kaiserine