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Styxs River Diorama


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Hi you all, it's only little ol me. I just wanted to share this diorama that was built about a decade ago. It's base off the big jump that was 300 feet across the Shanta Clarita River in CA that the cousin's Bo and Luke did on the Dukes of Hazzard in the last episode of Season 1 with the General Lee. The diorama is 18 inches wide by 4 feet long. The dirt is made from real dirt. Any comments about the project at hand is always welcome.

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Wow Jamie !!! - That is one helluva diorama and I am blown away by the leaping car. How did you make that smoke and then suspend the scale model car in mid air?

Really good size to the whole setting, which looks so real outdoors. I never saw the Dukes of Hazzard episode on the TV but now I've seen your fantastic diorama that says it all. Just brilliant !

David

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10 hours ago, Anglia105E said:

Wow Jamie !!! - That is one helluva diorama and I am blown away by the leaping car. How did you make that smoke and then suspend the scale model car in mid air?

Really good size to the whole setting, which looks so real outdoors. I never saw the Dukes of Hazzard episode on the TV but now I've seen your fantastic diorama that says it all. Just brilliant !

David

Hi David, Thanks!, I remember when that was built. It was this time a decade ago. The car leaping out into the air was the big piece of it all and to make it look very realistic as well. There was a system design for the car to work on for this diorama. The system was worked into the base of the embankment. It was a two part system. One part was for the model to work on and the other Part was for the dust effect to work with and hook to. The model was designed to be movable on and off the track system. The dust cloud/smoke was made by using brown and tan spray paints with cotton balls pulled apart some what and sprayed and then easy applied here and there to give the effect of the car was high tailing it at high speed for the jump. They was glued together with the paint and spray adhesive too. Screen caps of the Dukes episode of the jump was used to make the diorama to what the real scene looked like back in 1979. If you ever want to see the scene it's used in three episodes of the Dukes. One episode is the last episode of Season 1. The other Episode is The Dukes Meet Cale Yarborough which is a Season 2 episode 7 in. The other episode the scene is used in is Season 7 Episode 1 Happy Birthday General Lee where yet again the jump scene was used at.

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3 hours ago, M0par Jim said:

Hi David, Thanks!, I remember when that was built. It was this time a decade ago. The car leaping out into the air was the big piece of it all and to make it look very realistic as well. There was a system design for the car to work on for this diorama. The system was worked into the base of the embankment. It was a two part system. One part was for the model to work on and the other Part was for the dust effect to work with and hook to. The model was designed to be movable on and off the track system. The dust cloud/smoke was made by using brown and tan spray paints with cotton balls pulled apart some what and sprayed and then easy applied here and there to give the effect of the car was high tailing it at high speed for the jump. They was glued together with the paint and spray adhesive too. Screen caps of the Dukes episode of the jump was used to make the diorama to what the real scene looked like back in 1979. If you ever want to see the scene it's used in three episodes of the Dukes. One episode is the last episode of Season 1. The other Episode is The Dukes Meet Cale Yarborough which is a Season 2 episode 7 in. The other episode the scene is used in is Season 7 Episode 1 Happy Birthday General Lee where yet again the jump scene was used at.

Thanks a lot Jamie.... and I shall look up those episodes of the Dukes as I would like to see the real jump matched against your technically brilliant diorama jump. Your two part track system sounds ingenious. Maybe I could have one of my Rolls-Royce motor cars jumping over the London city road..... !!!  ( only joking, sorry ).

David

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19 hours ago, Anglia105E said:

Thanks a lot Jamie.... and I shall look up those episodes of the Dukes as I would like to see the real jump matched against your technically brilliant diorama jump. Your two part track system sounds ingenious. Maybe I could have one of my Rolls-Royce motor cars jumping over the London city road..... !!!  ( only joking, sorry ).

David

Your welcome David for the info. Don't be sorry, that made me laugh to be honest.

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19 hours ago, shoopdog said:

Very cool! My two sons and I loved watching the Duke boys ( and Daisy).

I love the show myself,  just looking at the diorama brings back a lot of memories even for me. I have a few kids myself and they all love the Duke boys and daisy and the General Lee and when they seen the model they went crazy talking about the show.

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15 hours ago, Mercuryman54 said:

Looks FANTASTIC!! Whole lot of work went on here!!:D

Dennis

Thanks Dennis! It was a lot of fun to see this diorama be built and it was a little work LOL here and there on some of it. But in the end it all payed out though and it was fun to see the and kids all enjoy looking at the diorama and hearing folks talk about the show and what they remembered of it and hear there memories.

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2 hours ago, 426 pack said:

That is amazing. 

What is the thing strapped to the passenger side of the car?

 

I believe this is a picture of the real jump.

 

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That there is yes in fact the very jump in real life in 1979 out in CA of the real General Lee stunt car doing the 300 feet a cross jump photo just as the General left the embankment. A lot of clips shows this very photo backwards and not the correct way it was shot (like you posted is the correct one). The item on the pass side of the General is in fact the camera that also shows the 01 and front wheel spinning in the next shot on film they showed. That tire spinning was from that camera view. This car took a hard hit on the pass side front end as it hit the ground on the landing.

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28 minutes ago, GlueTube said:

A big job well done Sir!

 

Regards

Brian Kroon

To be honest it's mam LOL. That's okay.

This diorama was a big job back then and I won't for get it either. It was fun though. Not sure what was more tricky,  the water effect with different stuff being used or the embankment effect with real dirt and  real sticks being used with paint. But your right though it was all well done.

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I love the added detail of the camera.  Even in its first run I always noticed the camera because they used this jump in some of the seasons opening.  All I can add, is this dio (sort of) I made. I title "the moment of impact" which is depicting the frame AFTER they usually cut to the interior shot of Bo/Luke jumping around in the seat pretending to land.  Not as involved as yours though.

Full pictures here.

https://www.thejunkmanadv.com/the-junk-mans-blog/dukes-of-hazzard-behind-the-scenes

 

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