Sixties Sam Posted November 11, 2009 Share Posted November 11, 2009 (edited) Hi, guys! I recently scratch built a teardrop camping trailer to be a companion to my 1/12 scale 57 Chevy model. I decided that the best way to display the pair might be in a diorama showing the camper in its natural habitat - a space in a campground. It will be built on a piece of 1" thick blue foam insulation about 32" x 20". I plan to make a gravel camping area in the center, with some trees, grass and shrubs on the sides. Here is a mockup of the layout. I've made a few accessories for it. Here is a picnic table made from pressure treated wood that I ripped down to make scale lumber. The carriage bolt heads are cut down common pins. The fire ring is aluminum flashing, and the grill on it is sticks of balsa. It's painted with flat black and red oxide primer with some real rust from a rusted Brillo pad sprinkled on it to give it a well used look. The firewood is short pieces of twigs from my back yard. The "fire" ia a tiny flickering battery powered LED candle Christmas light, recessed into the foam so just the flame sticks out. It looks real in the dark! The lawn chair is copper wire painted silver with paper for the seat & back. I drew the pattern in AutoCAD, then printed it out to scale and wrapped it around the wire frame and glued it. There's a quarter for size comparison. The figure is a 1/12 scale resin man from ebay in the dolls section. He came painted, and is pretty realistic - not too doll-like looking. The trees are cut from branches of a shrub. I don't know what it is, but it makes nice scale trees. I've got lots of work to do on it yet! I'll post more as I work on it. Hope ya like it! Edited November 11, 2009 by Sixties Sam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eshaver Posted November 11, 2009 Share Posted November 11, 2009 Sam , I don't generaly do Large scale unless a meuseuem needs it but that diorama is an outstanding piece , especially the fire pit ! It really came off very realistic . Nicely done . Ed Shaver Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesW Posted November 11, 2009 Share Posted November 11, 2009 That is really cool. Great job. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lyn Posted November 11, 2009 Share Posted November 11, 2009 how cool is that! it is so lifelike that table and chair WOW Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foxer Posted November 11, 2009 Share Posted November 11, 2009 Excellent looking pieces! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronr Posted November 11, 2009 Share Posted November 11, 2009 Good looking start Sam! Chair is 1 nice piece of work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
82k5 Posted November 12, 2009 Share Posted November 12, 2009 (edited) I agree with Ron ! Did you solder the copper wire ? Edited November 12, 2009 by 82k5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sixties Sam Posted November 12, 2009 Author Share Posted November 12, 2009 Thanks for all the nice words, guys. The lawn chair was a bit of work. It is not soldered. My soldering skills suck! It's held together with thin CA glue. The ends of the wires that form the seat & back were pounded flat and small holes drilled for the wire that goes through them. The arms are wooden with holes drilled to receive the legs. A thin piece of aluminum is glued over each arm. It was a little tedious to build but not nearly as tough as the ones I made in 1/25 scale! Here's one with a dime for size comparison. The 1/12 one came out better. I hope to have the whole diorama done in a week or so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sixties Sam Posted November 22, 2009 Author Share Posted November 22, 2009 (edited) IT'S DONE! I took it outside today and shot some pics with it positioned in front of some shrubbery for a woodsy looking background. Here's Bubba's 57 Chevy and his teardrop camper backed into the camp site. Here's Bubba sitting in the doorway of the tear, on his cell phone, calling home to say he arrived at the campground safely. He moved to the lawn chair to be more comfy. He took a cold Coke out of his cooler. The cooler is balsa wood with a thin aluminum handle. He's got his box of firewood for a campfire tonight. Here's a shot of the tear and '57 from the other side. The trees on the diorama are branches from a real shrub (Juniper, I think), sprayed with clear urethane varnish so they don't fall apart as they dry out. I trimmed some of the lower branches with a Dremel tool to look like they were cut with a chain saw.They're epoxied into holes in the foam base. The gravel is cat litter sifted through a piece of window screen, poured onto wet brown latex paint. The grass is a model train product. The ashes in & around the fire ring are real ashes from the pipe I smoke occasionally. I had fun with this build! It's definitely something different! I hope you all like it. Edited November 27, 2009 by Sixties Sam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Custom Hearse Posted November 28, 2009 Share Posted November 28, 2009 WOW!!! That is cool! It looks very realistic. Nice job!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
disabled modeler Posted November 28, 2009 Share Posted November 28, 2009 Sam , that is just awesome work.........WOW !!!................mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foxer Posted November 28, 2009 Share Posted November 28, 2009 Very well done! This looks so natural.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeeBee Posted November 28, 2009 Share Posted November 28, 2009 brilliant work, looks so realistic, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eshaver Posted November 28, 2009 Share Posted November 28, 2009 Sam , your photographic skills are astounding ! I think you and Jerry , ( Luke 57 ) should do a tutorial on the subject here . I belive some model builders would benifit from this too. Ed Shaver Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sixties Sam Posted December 6, 2009 Author Share Posted December 6, 2009 Thanks for all the great compliments, guys! I'm really glad you like the diorama. Ed, my photo skills aren't really that great, but thanks for the compliment. I think the best thing you can do for realistic photos is to shoot them outside. The sunlight and shadows make the realism take a quantum jump upward! After all, real cars live in the outside world, so photographing them there seems very natural. I sat this diorama on a small folding table in front of a bush just off the deck on my house. Look close and you can see some of the railing in the pics. I rotated the dio to get the sunlight where I wanted it, and to keep my own shadow out of the photos. Notice the shadows go in different directions on different pics. It's not really that hard to get good photos. I shot about 30 photos, then deleted most of them after viewing them on the computer. I cropped out some background on a few of the others. Digital photo technology is great! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
belair55 Posted December 23, 2009 Share Posted December 23, 2009 as a chevrolet bel air fan makes me happy to see this Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazyjim Posted December 23, 2009 Share Posted December 23, 2009 That's really cool! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hemi Posted January 2, 2010 Share Posted January 2, 2010 Wow this thing really looks great,your attention to detail is second to none.It really gives you the feeling you are looking at a frozen spot in time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KarDude.com Posted April 13, 2010 Share Posted April 13, 2010 AWESOME! AWESOME! AWESOME! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mudpit602 Posted April 15, 2010 Share Posted April 15, 2010 Where did you get that soda can that really cool/ I want some of thous. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sixties Sam Posted April 15, 2010 Author Share Posted April 15, 2010 Where did you get that soda can that really cool/ I want some of thous. I found a picture of a Coke can label online and printed it out to scale (took some experimenting), then glued it to a piece of dowel rod painted silver. I was going to make a six pack, but got lazy and made just one! Sam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MRCIVICWITHSTYLE Posted April 20, 2010 Share Posted April 20, 2010 WOW this is hott i love this Thanks for sharing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trailer park boy Posted July 31, 2010 Share Posted July 31, 2010 Holey f^#*&!@ c$*( that looks really realistic at first i thought it was reference pictures. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vaughn Posted August 9, 2010 Share Posted August 9, 2010 Sam...Sam...Sam. You did an amazing job on this. The Belair, the camper, table, chair..on on and lets not forget Buba ! A lot of thinking went into this. The results speak for themselves. I just hope what I am working on comes out half as good. Great job. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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