I never published anything about my first attempt at a Suigun Line diorama. That’s because it…it, uh. Well. Utter failure before it really got anywhere. But that’s why I did it: To learn. Here’s what I learned: You can’t use foamcore as a diorama base if you’re going to paint or glue things to it, because it will warp, and badly.
I should say a little about what I’m doing and why. Like many people, I live in a small apartment, shared with my wife, dog, and soon a baby girl, too. I don’t have room for a layout, but I do occasionally get clearance from the wife to lay an oval of sectional track on the floor, which is really all I want anyway. I thought, wouldn’t it be cool to have some of the sections decorated? So I set out to create a series of one-section-long dioramas that I could splice into my temporary floor ovals. I picked the Suigun Line as my target.
So, here’s take two. It’s based on a sheet of Hardbord that I picked up at my university’s books store. I took an 11″x14″x0.25″ sheet, and used a modeling saw to cut it into two 11″x7″ pieces. 11″ is really close to 280mm, which is the length of the commonest straight section of Tomix Finetrack. Very handy.
The diorama is of a section of the line that runs on a rise between rice paddies and hills. So, I used two sheets of foamcore, about half the width of the hardbord, and put the track on top, towards the back. I then used small strips of foamcore to model the rises between paddies, and that separate the paddies from a drainage ditch. I also modeled a little viaduct out of some scrap styrene—it’s not exactly square, as I didn’t really measure anything as I cut it. Oh well. After gluing down the track, I then slathered the whole thing in spackle, my filler of choice.
Once dry, I carefully sanded down the spackle, and painted the whole thing with burnt sienna acrylic paint, mostly to protect the spackling. Granted, it looks…well, like crap at this stage, but trust me, it gets better.
Finally, for now, I dry-brushed the whole thing with lighter shades of brown, and then a forest green color, again using acrylic paints. (Games Workshop paint, for those who care—the names are funny, it’ll gum up your airbrush faster than anything, but few paints are smoother off the brush.) Then I painted the paddies a muddy-khaki color, and gave them several coats of gloss varnish. The gloss doesn’t show too well in these photos, but believe me, it shines!
I’ve started ballasting, but I haven’t photographed the results yet. I now understand why some are so averse to the chore! Woodland Scenics stuff is prone to build up a static charge as you push it around with a brush…does anyone have suggestions for overcoming this problem? Next steps include: finishing the ballasting, planting rice, generally greening up the place, and building up a hill of brush behind the tracks.
Using a different brush material may help reduce the static problem, but I suspect it will always be there in one form or another. The problem is worse if you’re trying to ballast Unitrack, which has very little room to play with.
As for paints, for most of my scenery I’ve switched to using cheaptastic craft paints like Americana. They cover better than GW paints, they’re cheaper and the lids don’t get sealed shut. They’re unsuitable for fine detail work, but for landscape they’re great.
On the rare occasions that I must airbrush, I like to use Polly-S or Pollyscale paints. They’re easily thinned and available in more colours than GW paint.
For fine brushwork, I’ve found that Vallejo paints work well, as do Reaper paints.
Thanks for the comment, Kashirigi!
I do like Vallejo, and I love the dropper bottles—in fact, I use Vallejo matte varnish as ballast glue for exactly this reason. I’ve got tons of “Americana” cheapo acrylic paint that I sometimes use, but the opacity is awful, which makes covering large areas hard. I’ve been using “Liquitex” economy acrylic paints for some things—they come in a big jar as a really thick gel, and while more expensive than the cheapo, it’s cheaper than GW, but still has good opacity. The downside is the gel requires a lot of work to thin down to something usable, and isn’t really smooth off the brush.
I’ve got a couple of sable brushes I’m going to try next, I think.
The newer GW paint pots are better about not sticking: I’ve got some of the older twist-style lids that are frozen shut after only a few days of sitting. Often, all the paint inside has dried out anyway, if it’s been sitting for more than a month or so. But I’ve got some really old (like decades old) Citadel paint pots—the kinds with the white flip-top lid—that have kept the paint inside at exactly the right consistency, despite sitting for years unused. I’ll never understand why they changed pots.
You write “I do occasionally get clearance from the wife to lay an oval of sectional track on the floor.”
Now when have I ever told you no?
Not once! But I only ask on occasion ;D