The following pics are of a diamrama I’m doing with my 11 year old son. Trying to get him interested in the hobby that’s fasinated me for so long.
First one is the first stage. I glued down a thin peice of wood down to elevate the track a bit. Then added some drywall mud to bevel the elevation. Once that dried i sanded it somewhat and glued the code 83 flex track down using bath and kitchen latex caulking. I then glued small peices of corrugated cardboard down to raise the land elevation up to almost meet the track bed. More closer to about 1/2 way up. Once I place the hardshell, it’ll raise it a bit more. I plan on using rags soaked in white glue for the hardshell. This gives the shell a rock hard surface without the chance of cracking like plaster does.
The dark patch you see to the right of the diarama is a small pond I carved out. Drops down about 1/4 inch. I might add a bit more carboard to raise the land a bit on this side of the pond. I’m not too fond of perfectly flat land, I like contours. You can also see the rough outline of the mouintain and I placed a couple peices of crumpled newspaper so my son can see the basic idea.
Just a different angle of the same scene. I think it shows better the land contours.
This shows a better veiw of the pond and how deep it is. I’ll be painting this to show more depth. Picture it with reeds and bits of fallen debris.
This is how the tunnel portal will be sitting. I posted this portal in a different thread for some painting tips (with fantastic results, ty). I primed it a couple hours prior to dryfitting it on the diarama. Looking forward to painting this and securing it.
My 10 year old grandson had a couple of school projects, which no one knew about until the weekend they were due. Gramp was called on to bail somebody out.
He had an idea what he needed. The first one was a dragon cave, showed him how to use a couple of tools, mix Sculptamold and use some natural materials in his diarama. The second he needed a tsunami wave, Sculptamold and a piece of wax paper around a tube did the trick.
Gave him pointers on both projects and showed him how to use the tools safely. It was his school project that he was suppose to do and did. If you want him to enjoy this project, have him give you some input and do some of the work. You can either have him work with you or make his own diarama, even if it doesn’t fit your ideas. Make sure he sees that the more times you do something the better you get (making trees, rock formations, painting, etc.).
That’s where it gets tricky Richard. He tends to do what dad does, but sometime it takes awhile to get him into gear, so to speak. He’s made a couple signs out of popcycle sticks so far. One of which will see a spot on this diarama. I’m going to try and get him to put some of the hardshell on, but he doesn’t like getting his hands dirty (might get that from his mother, sure not from me). I have a feeling he’ll really enjoy painting the rocks and adding the ground cover. The hardest thing is prying his butt away from the video games. Reducing his game time will hopefully get him into other things more. Having him make trees is a good idea too. I think he’d like that.
Anyways, here’s an update on the diarama progress. I did this while my son was running from the cops in Need for Speed. [au]
I rusted the crap out of the old track. Mixed my own rust with burnt sienna and a touch of red. Also put a base coat on the portal. May have also noticed I added more land contours up by the pond. The super flat land was picking at me.
Gee, sounds like we may be working with the same kid. Hard work to them is wiggling their thumbs enough to make all the moves on their (whatever). Also, does not like to get dirty. (His sister will go find worms to feed to Grams chickens.) Grandchildren only here only on weekends and summers. Not much time to get them “working” on the layout. She may have more potential than he does. At the moment the track is close to the edges and the safety wall is not in place. (Gramp needs to get busy) They both tend to run the train considerably faster than they should be, it’s a hard floor. Both are also somewhat clumsy is physical aspects of life.
Sounds like Gramp gets nervous watching the kids run the trains, lol. I would too. Sometimes I wonder if all this computer technology is really beneficial. Kids get lazier and lazier with every generation it seems. With my kids it’s all I can do to get them out there mowing the lawn (in the summer). At their age I was already mowing the lawn, cleaning the house top to bottom, and managing a massive paper route. (walking 6 miles to school up hill both ways. Part of that is actually true). Where did those days go? And that was only city life. Those living on a farm had it a lot harder. I remember my dad telling me how it was when he was a kid and I can’t imagine a lifestyle like that, as I’m sure he was thinking of his father. Times are always changing. Getting less physical and more mental. Kids are learning things in grades 2 and 3 that I didn’t take until closer to 5 or 6. But they can’t tie their shoes. Velcro is so much easier aparently. My kids all have bikes, but after 3 years, they all look new still. Rarely ride them. I remember one very specific sound when I was growing up, besides the sound of trains coupling up. It was the sound of kids playing outside. I loved that sound. In my neighbourhood, that sound is long extinct. There’s not a kid in sight on a saturday and it’s dead quiet outside. If I tell my kids to go outside to play they act like sunshine would kill them.
Ever wonder what the kids these days will tell their kids about the “old days”?
“You know, back in my day we had these things called playstations that hooked up to these things call televisions that hung on walls. We had to walk 2 blocks to school in 1 foot of snow with a slight grade…both ways”
I agree. I’m not too impressed with how the track turned out. This was also my first time airbrushing. Since this pic was posted, I dry brushed a bit of gloss black to simulate creosote. Looks a bit better. I’ll try to add another pic tomorrow.
That portal has no stain. It’s all paint. At the stage shown above, all I’ve done was primed it, then added one coat of dark brown. After that I dry brushed a gloss black like I did the track ties, and followed that up with a very light drybrushing of light brown and light grey. Also did a wash of matt black…extremely diluted. Tomorrow I’ll be sealing it with dullcote.
I had some left over drywall mud from a past job and thought if I diluted it, it might work. From the top of the portal to the left was done with plaster cloth, but I didn’t have enough to do all of it, so the rest was done with my new concoction and cut up rags. Once it’s dried, I might use the undeluted mud to form some rock faces in the mountain.
