Hi Everyone,

Sorry I can't contribute much to the Armor section but I thought maybe I can start a post for others to continue on locally available materials for diorama/vignette construction. I hope others will contribute as well as that's how we can improve our knowledge. I don't claim to be an authority on the subject but this is so far some of the things I've found useful.

1. Plaster
One of the main groundwork materials. Get the loosely sold ones rather than Polyfilla or branded ones. My local hardware storekeeper told me these are harder. Little does he know what I use it for.

2. Wood varnish paintbrush
Used to apply wood varnish this brush is excellent for grass. Made of camel hair it takes acrylic paint well. Just use a normal brush to lightly brush the color but don't overload the color as the hair will stick together.

3. Small coconut Broom brush (from TESCO)
Good for making attap roof and also a bit of elephant grass

4. Coconut husks
By far my most favorite material. The fine hairs make excellent grasses and the stiff ones can be trimmed for really short grasses or left long for tall ones with flowers-like tips (ekor kucing grass)

5. Wood gloss varnish
Good for making water especially still water as in ponds and lakes.

6. Baking soda
Good for snow making

7. Oregano/Parsely spices
Don't get the ones sold in bottles at the supermarkets. They're too expensive unless you 'kebas' it from your wife or mum. Otherwise go to your local bakery shop and buy the ones packed in plastic bags.

8. Kiddie toys
I'm always on the look out for possible parts I can scavenge from cheapo kiddie toys. Some of the parts of my boat in the Fox Trot Five vignette came off kiddie toys.

9. Plywood
Plywood left in the sun and rain can be peeled off to provide excellent aged wood for ship planking to making wooden buildings.

10. Cardboard boxes
The corrugated material used for most cardboard boxes can be used for making corrugated sheeting material used for roofs. Make sure you peel a bit off the edges for the side used as the underside and paint it with wood varnish so it won't warp when you apply water based paints.

11. Chains
Go to your local jewellery accessory shop for women. Preferably with your wife or girlfriend as otherwise the salesgirl will give you a funny look. Get the right sized one and cheapest one for chains for your tank or softskin.

I've probably a few more materials but I can't recall them off hand. Please feel free to add on to this list or comment. I will add more when they come to mind.

Finally I print this topic out for my future reference. Thanks "Tai Koh" you are my source of Making Diorama.

Thanks!!!!!!

Hope to se more tips and guideline like this

to add on to CK's list:

cables: obtain fron Jusco stores under accessories. They sell them by the metre and complete with the necessary texture. Fine wires too. For those looking for hexagonal nut bolt head, look under the bead section. Comes in metal, gold, black.....Alternatively, guitar strings are stiff enough for antennas.

sawdust. CNy is over. those who bought the POP POP for the kids will find lots of leftover saw dust. Collect them ina bottle and shake. The finer grain will sink to the bottom.

Any other tips?? If yes I will wait for your info then reprint this statement again. :P ;)

Thanks for Loo CK & beachbum

Now that dioramas finally have a home I hope that everyone can help out to contribute to this database of locally available diorama materials that Loo and myself has initiated. The more we share the more we learn.

To continue my earlier list I would like to share with all of you diorama kaki additional materials that hold promise for dio material:

11a. (From Loo) Cables: obtain fron Jusco stores under accessories. They sell them by the metre and complete with the necessary texture. Fine wires too. For those looking for hexagonal nut bolt head, look under the bead section. Comes in metal, gold, black.....Alternatively, guitar strings are stiff enough for antennas.

12. (From Loo) Sawdust. CNy is over. those who bought the POP POP for the kids will find lots of leftover saw dust. Collect them ina bottle and shake. The finer grain will sink to the bottom.

13. Beach sand

The next time you take the family to the beach try and collect some beach sand. One area where I've come across fine and even grained beach sand is Cherating beach. Beach sand besides its obvious use for groundwork for 1/35 can also be added to plaster to give it strength (from cracking) as well as texture (for walls, bricks, etc).

14. Colored soil

Soil at least topsoil (the first 5 cm. of the soil layer) comes in a variety of colors and grain size. For Vietnam dio makers, the reddish/dark brown volcanic soil seen on roadside cuttings along the Karak-Kuantan highway are actually ideal for Central Highlands Nam dios.

Soils come in a variety of colors and if you can sift it even better as you can give your groundwork a variety of texture and color while saving on paint.

With soil just make sure its thoroughly dried. 3-4 days in the hot sun should do it. You could also microwave it but its generally not advisable unless for small amounts and there is no reflective minerals in the soil. Remember it may not make your Home Ministry or Mum very happy if they find out your 'baking' soil.

15. Fuse wire

You can hardly find them nowadays but they are great for making barbed wire, even antennas, telephone lines, etc. I've used them on several occasions to make walkie talkie/telephone wires as they can be wound.

16. Sate sticks or bamboo skewers

Useful for making the trunks of coconut trees as well as the leaf stalks of bananas (when shaved to splinters). It can also be used to represent small trunks of a log cabin provided some texture is added.

cool option there cktang... thanks a lot...!!

boss, can add in the photo for each item?
so for newbie like me can know what the hell is that!!! ; p

RX-78-2 as I mentioned in the other post I'm still admiring your avatar. Its hard getting use to talking to you here, looking at your avatar and all the time I have an image of how you look in my mind. :lol:

That's a good idea RX. I have some pics lying around. Its just I'll have to upload them. Give me some time. For a guy with an avatar like yours you only have to ask and I will obey. :rolleyes:

If RX looks like the Avatar....I must AirAsia To KL And have a Date With HIM/HER :blink: :lol: Nice Avatar!!! Anyone here built Adult Figure if yes please add some here.....Hahaha

to add on to the material list:

Epoxy resin: can now be bought in ACE hardware at around RM52. See under paint section. Its used for lacquer of wood furniture.

Pipe lead adhesive tape: Also just discovered this in Ikano ACE harware. Good to make tarps and folded blanket as the fall of the tape simulated cloth very well and further more it sticks to the kit.

Tissue with PVA glue: good for making fabrics and tarps too.

candle wax: for top layer of frozen lake.

hemp rope: cut into lenghts for elephant grass

cocktail and skewer bamboo sticks : good for all types of fence, earth trench barricades


more to come after this.

kakaka....
then u will be damn disappointed to see a big fat guy playing gundam!!! :P

i would say RX-78-2 looks like his avatar girl punya BODYGUARD....

Chan after reviewing the list I noticed most of the stuff mentioned here were normal everyday household or hardware materials. Bamboo skewers or sate stick is just that, the stick that holds Sate and sand and soil are just what is stated. Perhaps you meant what to do with them. Anyway its probably good to show a few pics as they say a picture tells a thousand words.

Plaster
Plaster is the stuff use to patch cracks on walls. A common brand is Polyfilla but I prefer the cheapo plaster they sell loose in 500g.-1kg. bags which have been repacked from a industrial sized bag. Plaster as mentioned can be tinted with cheapo watercolor as seen here where you can just barely see the white color of plaster on the spatula.


Mix with water to get this consistency of just about to melt ice-cream. Yummy, Haagen Daas.


Mix it with fine or coarse sand to give it texture. Here I used coarse sand as I'm doing groundwork.


Sand/Colored soil
I mentioned earlier about the various grades of sand and that the top layer of soil comes in many colors and textures. Here is only a small portion of the wide variety available and its Free.


Grass
Here are pics of the 2 cheapest source of locally available dio grass material. The wood varnish brush I mentioned:


The next one is from coconut husks or hemp as mentioned by Loo. Cutting the fibres from different locations in the husks can give you a wide variation of grass types from long to short to even those with flowers. Can you guess which one is really grass?


That's all for now. Hope it helps. As a sidenote and completely off topic I miss your avatar Chan.

Thanks, it really helps a lot! ;)

You're welcome Ahhow. Just let us know if we can help you on your dio or planned dio.

For me I just try to use locally available materials because I'm a cheapo and second dio materials from overseas can be very expensive. Keep an eye out around you as a lot of easily available materials can be used for dios with a bit of experimenting.

Here are pics of just a few things that can be done with plaster. Besides groundwork it can be used to make a wall or even rubble. This simple wall was made with some left over plaster I had. I have not finished painting the bricks yet:


The bricks and plaster below is also made from plaster with fine beach sand added for texture:


Even old plywood lying around outside in the sun and rain for a while can be used for many things including flooring as seen in the pic below. The grain is a bit large for 1/35 but it should be good for 1/16 scale.


Like I said just train your eyes to look around you for diorama materials.

way to go my fellow moderator.... Anybody else dabbling into dios?

Great!!! I will know where to look for information when i try to make some dios.

Kel

Construction Material
first.. sorry if this already been discribe here before..

well.. this just hit me when i saw my daughter playing with the old newspaper soak into water last night...

do you guys remember when we was in standard 1 or 2.. our art teacher will always asked us to bring "Gam Kanji" and newspaper soaked in water overnight and crushed to pulp..

and in the class we would use the glue to mix with the "pulp" and make variety of item like bowl.. plate even masked....

now i wonder.. if the same item can be use as well to make the layer of ground to our dio... and it will harden due to the glue drying...

item needed:
1. Hot water (to make the glue)
2. 1/2 cup of tepung ubi
3. newspaper soak in water over nite and pulp it later


any thought all the sifu's?

:D

kuman

What your describing is paper mache Kuman. Celluclay is the nearest equivalent and instead of kanji as the glue it actually utilizes regular glue.

Paper mache has the advantage in that it is light and it can be shaped. Its disadvantage is the kanji. A favorite of cockroaches and other creepy crawlies. The other is that unless the paper is very thoroughly mashed you may still see the individual pieces unless you cover the whole lot with soil or sand. Also it doesn't hold heavier AFV well as you will need to secure AFV by either a pin or superglue and paper mache being paper mache is not particularly strong.

Finally if your thinking of making tyre or metal thread marks you can't do it with paper mache. Soil will have to be added again. Last last its messy. I not saying paper mache can't be used but why not use more easily manageable materials that are available. Just my opinion.

Nevertheless its great Kuman that your eyes are becoming diorama tuned. Keep it up and you'll be an expert in no time.

:D...

i didnt know that Kanji attract such crawlies... last thing we need is a roach infested dio.. :unsure:

ahhhh again the real solution here being the use of

1. a styrofoam as the base of the terrain
2. use "real" soil to mimic dio soil (any other alternative?)

hmm.. i stil didnt get the part on how we're going to make sure that our soil /sand will not be flying all over the place when we put it on out dio base.. use that white glue? :unsure:

and then come the painting part?? can the real soil be painted?

sorry for the "berantai" question...

kuman

add to the discussion..
to make tracks impression, i tried several methods.. sorry i never finishd a good diorama but have tested on several possiblity...

the easiest way is to use regular Plaster of paris (PoP)...when the plaster is about the dry, place a thin plastic, just like the food wrapper plastic on top of the plastic...then press your AFvs tracks on it....leave it there...
sometimes i got spare indi tracks, so i assemble a few section to form a jig...just like the press tracks link...then i made handle from extra sprue, and then press the tracks....this way u wont destroy for AFVS (by putting so much pressure....)

other method which i try (but dont like it much) is to use paper tissue..the soft facial tissue...
soak it in water+white glue mixture and then press the wet tisue onto the tracks...leave it dry..when dry peel carefully and then trim the unwanted tissue and then glue it on the base....you can painted it next.... sometimes u can use petroluem jelly as the release agent put on the tracks.....

my 2 sen aje!!

Speaking of crawlies, I remembered this tip in an old issue of FSM where the writer suggested using 'chiclets' chewing gum to make sandbags. You soak it in water until the outer sugar layer dissolves. You can then use your X-acto to simulate sewn seams along the sides and you have your sandbags!

Except that the next time I saw the sandbags, they were mostly half eaten! :lol:

anyone where can i get material to make water or seaside for my diorama ?

Okay I better try and have a go at Alexysh_2005 questions first. For a start a warm welcome to SMM board and to the Diorama section Alexysh.

If you could explain a bit about the size of your dio and a bit of the layout perhaps we can see how best to approach it. One of the best mediums I've seen for making beach/sea dios is a material called artist gel. Unfortunately I don't have the link to with me to a very good article on how to use it. Even more unfortunate is in my search here of several art supply shops I've yet to see it.

Water making products from overseas are many. Envirotex, Woodland Scenics Realistic water to name a few but they are expensive.

I have experimented with several local materials and again depending on how your dio is going to be and how big I may be able to help you. Some locally available materials are clear wood varnish or shellac, PVA glue tinted with blue or brown depending on the type of water, CA glue and a recent discovery is an acrylic based glue that dries clear and can be tinted with acrylic paint that I'm experimenting with. I'm currently carrying out some experiments to simulate sea waves.

As for your query, Kuman. Soil can be painted but more often than not you won't need to. Just check Page 1 of this thread to see a pic of how different soil color can be. Secondly for groundwork why not just use plaster over styrofoam and then just add soil if needed. I have pics on how to tint the plaster and give it texture on Page 1 of this thread as well.

Soil can be stuck easily by applying a layer of PVA:water mix at 30:70 and then just sprinkle soil on top of the plaster or styrofoam.

Okay Kuman. I think you may still be experiencing some problems visualizing the setup of a dio. I should really start a new thread but anyway this is how I approach doing a simple dio. As I said earlier there are many ways to do a dio's groundwork and this is just one of it.

Build up the terrain with styrofoam. Here the center is a raised road and a hill at the top right corner. Just barely visible is a small stream in the center running across the road.


Next is to make "ice-cream". Remember the plaster I mentioned on page 1 of this thread. Here it is tinted with watercolor to save on paint and sand is added to give it texture.


Just before it dries depending on how much water was added to the plaster, here is about 45 minutes, I add in the road tracks and additional soil to give it color.


Its really easy and not to difficult as long as you start small.

beachbum

thank you for a much detail explanation...

ahh now understand a bit...i got the styrofoam part as the base... and the part using plaster makes it clearer.. :)

so basically the the plaster is what gives the groundwork its surface.. :) this is what i meaning to ask but dont know how to ask.. (kinda weird ehh :unsure: )

and this plaster is easily available in hardware store in powder form.. and is white in color...correct?
so does this "Plaster of Paris" the same thing?

although i havent actually start anything on my proposed dio other then the sketch... but this will help later on... and small is what i intende to do/start with.. :D

QUestions
- So to build a desert will be the same thing as well? but later use a layer of fine sand on top with a clear glue?
- So the picture really just show the first layer of the groundwork??

thanks again beachbum...

kuman

p/s: I'm monitoring my OFF-TOPIC alert... :D

Tang,
i dont normally made base out of styrofoam...how long is the drying time?? since the foam is not porous, the water didnt adsorb well into the foam. This will make longer drying time...

thanks for the pictorial tutorial....

Sil...

can share your material used to make the base?

kuman

normally i used foam board....it was a foam sanwitched with paper.... paper will absorb the water and dry a bit cepat compare to foam alone... try with ply wood but it will warp in time....
and i tried experiment with a small base, using wooden chop board coated with woon varnish...this is OK so far..

but probably CK will come out with better ideas including chopping the jambu tree down......

I was going to give you a base from my jambu tree but now that you've insulted me Hang Jebat I keeping it all for myself. :D

2 things I've forgotten to mention Kuman. One the foam board has to be stuck to something solid. Plywood will do as long as it has been shellac to minimize warping. The other is the layers of styrofoam have been glued together with undiluted PVA, left for 24 hours before adding the plaster.

I not entirely sure of plaster of paris grade but like I mentioned earlier I just get the cheapo plaster for filling up cracks on walls. Otherwise the Polyfilla brand will do.

Sil it doesn't matter if the foam doesn't absorb water. Its not supposed to. I normally leave the plaster for 24 hours or more depending on how thick it was to dry naturally. Otherwise to quick drying sometimes causes cracks.

XI FU !!! Very Happy to see your Post here...do you planning to Publish any Books for Modelling? If yes please let me know I must buy 1 for my collections.

Thanks for your sharing.

Sorry Kuman I missed this question in my last reply to you last night.

Styrofoam is basically to build up your terrain be it hill, swamp, river, desert, etc. Irrespective of whether you use soil, plaster, celluclay or any material styrofoam minimizes the material as well as making the whole dio lighter.

The choice of whether you wish to use soil or plaster or anything else is basically upto personal preference. Main thing about groundwork is:

1. It should be to the scale of your model.
2. It has to have contrast. Pure sand at 1/35 and worse still at 1/72 has no contrast thus it doesn't stand out. That's why color is sometimes added.
3. Its stable in that it doesn't fade, rot or be eaten by creepy crawlies.

Thus you can go with either sand over plaster over styro or sand over styro of just plaster mixed with sand over styro. Here is part of an uncompleted article I wrote on Groundwork. This section is on deserts:

" Desert dios challenge the modeler especially at 1/35 and even more so at 1/72 to reproduce a relatively featureless groundwork with limited contrast. While for most of us the image of a desert is one of endless sand dunes, the fact is that deserts can be rocky as those found in Libya and Iran as well as muddy as recent photos of Iraq and Kuwait show. However, care should be given to ensure that any wash applied to give the groundwork contrast is not over done. The needs of bringing out the contrast of the groundwork must be balanced against the relatively lower contrasts of desert ground as opposed to temperate ground conditions.
.....Character can be given to your groundwork by including erosion channels, slight mounds and the addition of stones/rocks and low, desert scrub....
.....In summary:
• Go easy on the dark washes
• Try to add stones, erosion channels or desert vegetation whenever possible
• Ensure that the material used to represent fine desert sand is compatible in scale"

Thanks Wuichong but there are already many excellent books out there like Shep Paine's "How To Make Dioramas" so I'm too late already. Thanks for the support.

how much is the future floor ? My budget not enough is there anyone place where i can buy cheap material for diorama ? mmh... planning to do a diorama with z'gok and zaku I. maybe some scene from the The Battle of Odessa

future cost armound rm43 at Ace HArdware....

rm43...well..is there any equivalent product ? local made ?

not sure there is a local equaivalent...but i think our friend kuman found some cosway products that can do it...ask him

:D ;)

i saw it... but havent personally tried it since i still have my FUTURE with me

its much cheaper then Future... and by looking at the description it suppose to work on the same (if not equal) to Future....

do you have an Cosway store near you place? its in a green platics bottle...

let see if i can find the original thread for this matter...

kuman

EDIT:

this is taken directly from the thread..

from this thread pn page 4 post #2 from top...

Future Floor Wax Discussion

Alexysh may I know why you're trying to get Future? If you're thinking of using it for water I don't think its the best material to use. As for your question on cheap diorama materials you should be able to get some ideas from my first post as well as post by others on locally available materials at the start of this thread.

As I mentioned in your query to a beach dio, we would be glad to help you if you could describe in more detail what you have in mind for your z'gok and zaku. Rough sketches of what you have in mind will be even better. Perhaps from there we can come up with the materials in more detail?

thanks guys.. really fast reply. i looking for future because everyone say you will use it frequently in modeling.especially when you want to do some sort of line...or whatever ..is it to shield the painting ?(i am a newbie in modeling world since i falling love with it). i actually already done a very lousy diorama with a 1/144 zaku warrior and a strike. is just experiement.i do learn some technique like the zaku monoeye can light up. well, i have to read all the thread first.

Your very welcome Alexysh. Actually there is no such thing as a lousy diorama, just a diorama that is work in progress coz with every dio we improve. Our first dio isn't the worst its just the first. No worries.

Just ask away and we will try to help if we can. Future is used largely by the airplane as well as to some extent the armor modelers. You are right in that it is a "mask" to protect the paint on the parts you do not wish to be affected by a wash.

Just post a pic of your dio and maybe we can see how to improve it. No worries on how it looks as everyone starts somewhere.