Back to the Big

[Barney]

Fantastic - just keep it coming
Barney

[Design-HSB]

I mounted the sign this weekend. After numerous tries, I gave up on the neon tubing.  There is a small piece left, but that's all. I can always go back later if some new idea comes up, and I need to finish the gas pump while my interest is still around.

Hi Chuck, I just showed my this.
Her words that do not exist, that's an original.
Therefore my request can not you please show an overview of your Grand diorama.

It just does not get better as you do it.

[Chuck Doan]

Thanks Barney, Thanks Helmut!

[Chuck Doan]

For a while now I had been intending to buy some commercial leaves for my diorama; something that would have more shape than the crumbled leaves I had been using. As usual procrastination triumphed, that is until I received a package from my sister. Enclosed were numerous samples of New Mexico flora she collected while living there. One of the samples was a fern-like something. I will leave it to a plantacologist to let us know what these are as I would like to get more!



The leaves were dried out and would disintegrate when I tried to work with them. So I used the old trick of soaking them in a water/glycerin mix for a few days. I learned this back in the days when lichen was the state of the art in model railroading. When dried, they were soft and supple again.

I separated them and did some shaping with a sharp xacto-mainly adding a stem to some by cutting the material away from the primary vein. Then I rolled the leaf with a toothpick to squish it thinner and I painted some with gouache to add fall colors (some I left in their natural light greenish color). I curled some and then installed them in a leafy arrangement on the steps. I only need a few "hero" leaves to place over the crumbled ones to help the illusion.

These are probably best suited for larger scales, but the nifty detailing of each leaf is hard to beat!  

[Ray Dunakin]

Holy cow, those are are so perfect it's like they were made for modelers!

[finescalerr]

I can find nothing to suggest the scale of the model, foliage, or debris. Nothing to nitpick. No chink in the realism to give away that it isn't 1:1. Satisfactory. -- Russ

[Hydrostat]

Chuck, your modeling is absolutely stunning. Your pictures have this nice late autumn bright sunshine feeling (we have sometimes here in Gemany at least). I especially like the faucet's shadow in this picture:

Would really be intersting to know the kind of plant, although it may be too big for 1-22.5 scale. The shape is something in between oak and maple, isn't it? I once made some blackberry leaves out of cigarette paper. To avoid this lot of work of cutting each single leaf I printed some intricate leaves of diferent sizes and used this as cutting jig for some ten or so layers of paper which worked pretty well. Maybe this could work with the real leaves, too?

Volker

[Sami]

Very impressive job !

[Mr Potato Head]

Hero leaf
that's what I want to be when I grow up
MPH

[TRAINS1941]

Wow!!!  That is so impressive.  God it really looks like the real thing.

You always amaze with new things.

Jerry

[Chuck Doan]

Thanks very much!

I agree Ray, they are excellent for miniature use. Volker, my timing was perfect for a Fall scene. The Sun angle is much lower and the timing for good pictures is much shorter.

It looks close to Rattlesnake or Japanese climbing fern, but not exactly those.

[Juke Joint]

Not sure but it's perfect as scale pin oak or oak.

Sapling?

Philip

[Chuck Doan]

    

     Cloudy day shot

[finescalerr]

Good thing you signed it so people will realize you built it. -- Russ

[Hydrostat]

Try again. It didn't get worse that way. I like the black bug under the leaves left side down.

Volker