My Model Painting & Dioramas

[Lone Crusader]

Well as it's looking I'm getting bored with everything and I'm not working now due to certain medical conditions and needed something to occupy my time otherwise I'd go stir crazy. I've decided to get back into painting miniatures, not so much for gaming though, more or less just for the painting aspect of it. Although the miniatures I used to paint way back in my 20's were pewter and very small and so far the ones I've been painting lately have been quite large. As I progress through each figure that I'm painting I'll show you all my progress, sort of a glimpse of what's to come. So without further ado let's get crackin'.

Here's some examples of what I'll be painting.

Spoiler: icon

 

[Lone Crusader]

WIP: I'm about at my midway point or a little further. It pains me to build a perfectly good Tie Fighter and to then do some destruction on it... The diorama is coming along nicely though, next will be lots of vegetation and water, either a river or small stream I haven't decided yet. I love building dioramas, it's so invigorating. I like it even more than building the models themselves, I guess creating something from nothing is the joy of it all. Anyhow here's the progress so far...

 

[Lone Crusader]

Some more progress made. Lot's more vegetation to go, hell I haven't even put the trees up yet. Water (epoxy resin) is in but I need to do some stuff first before I take a picture of it. Oh and I'll be adding a Imperial Probe Droid looking for the wreckage as well.

 

[Lone Crusader]

Calling this project completed. All in all this was a pretty fun project, loved every bit of it of course it did pain me to demolish a perfectly good Tie Fighter...

I had a slight accident with the resin because I overfilled it and it leaked out around the barricades that I had put up on either side so I had a crazy mess to clean up after it cured but it all cleaned up after a little work.

This was a very expensive project, I spent way more than I wanted to but all that paid off in the end plus I have lots of extras for future projects. All the vegetation aside from the grass came from Dioramaprecepe off of Etsy, best looking trees, weeds and plants I've ever seen for dioramas, they look super realistic.

The Tie Fighter is by Bandai and the Imperial Droid is off of Etsy as well from some guy in Spain.

Sorry for the quality of the video but it was due to low light conditions and I didn't want to turn on the flash as it takes away the effects of the fire.

Hope you all like it.

 

[Lone Crusader]

More photos...

 

[Lone Crusader]

And even more photos...

 

[Noodles]

Holy crap! That looks incredible dude

 

[Lone Crusader]

Holy crap! That looks incredible dude

Thank you it was a fun project. All that vegetation some of it is the real deal but just preserved and some of it is artificial but all of it looks super realistic and made for dioramas. If your interested in some of it for some of your models you can find the guys' store on Etsy here. Now I'm working on Anakin's Podracer by AMT.

 

[Noodles]

Thank you it was a fun project. All that vegetation some of it is the real deal but just preserved and some of it is artificial but all of it looks super realistic and made for dioramas. If your interested in some of it for some of your models you can find the guys' store on Etsy here. Now I'm working on Anakin's Podracer by AMT.

Thanks man, i'll be sure to take a look

 

[Lone Crusader]

Well I've been working on Star Wars Anakin's Podracer and so far these are some WIP build shots. I've been busy yesterday and today on the electronics for the Podracer, so far the underside is done. I used an Arduino Uno because I had it already for a previous project and I didn't wind up using it. Next project that uses electronics I'll be using a Seeeduino XIAO and it's very small about the size of my thumbnail and way more powerful than the Uno. Turbines will be powered up by one switch and the engines, energy binders and the pod will be powered up by another switch. It looks a little messy but the wires will be secured before it's all over with. I used 32 gauge enamel coated magnet wire so I'm able to run eight wires through a 3mm aluminum tube that will be attached to the turbines. The pod will have two wires through a 2mm brass tube. Now I can start work on the base itself. So far I'm pretty happy with the results.

Here's some progress shots:


Also here I've added little micro motors to the back of the turbines.

 

[Lone Crusader]

WIP: Some more updates on Anakin's Podracer: The top of the base is almost complete.

 

[Lone Crusader]

Well I bit the bullet and bought myself a 3D Resin Printer, an Elegoo Saturn S. I kept putting it off over and over until the other day Amazon had a lightning deal on it and it also had a $110 coupon attached to it and so it was in my budget at that point and bought it. I keep coming across more and more 3D files with no printer to print them and the cost to have someone else print them is crazy expensive. I also bought two 3D prints from a couple of people on Etsy, a 2ft long 1/48 scale AT-AT and a 4ft long 256 piece Executor Class Super Star Destroyer (the one Vader was on in the ESB). Just working on the files now getting them ready for printing and I'm also waiting on a couple of things for the printer.

 

[Lone Crusader]

Well my first few prints on my new Elegoo Saturn S 3D resin printer. Here's two large parts with a joiner peg between them (not glued together yet) and two grills. The large part on the right took a little over 8 hours to print and the large part on the left took almost 10 hours to print but wow, the detail is astonishing. These two parts are for the AT-AT, man this thing is gonna be massive! I love this printer, now I understand why so many people buy a bunch of them.

 

[Wintores]

What you are working on is incredible! So much attention to detail, so much fine work, just WOW.

 

[Wintores]

What you are working on is incredible! So much attention to detail, so much fine work, just WOW.

I'm a photographer, and sometimes I forget that art doesn't end with a result that can be put in a beautiful wooden frame, haha. Volumetric art has always fascinated me. It's cooler than Lego, but such a work level is much higher than constructors. I also admire how aesthetically you design your work. I looked at the first posts where you show the tool case. I wish someday I could expect this kind of attitude towards my tools.

 

[Lone Crusader]

I'm a photographer, and sometimes I forget that art doesn't end with a result that can be put in a beautiful wooden frame, haha. Volumetric art has always fascinated me. It's cooler than Lego, but such a work level is much higher than constructors. I also admire how aesthetically you design your work. I looked at the first posts where you show the tool case. I wish someday I could expect this kind of attitude towards my tools.

Thank you, it's taken a long time to get where I'm at but the hard work has paid off in the end. I used to build models as a kid but in the last few years I've jumped back into it and so much has changed, it's completely different now including the tools that you use. I feel with the proper tools and upkeep it will better help me in my pursuit of becoming a master model builder and painter.

 

[Lone Crusader]

I've gotten a lot of printing done on my AT-AT, many hours of printing. I think the longest was a 17 hour print. Anyways here some progress of what I've done so far. As I was picking up that container it broke as you can see from the photo because of the sheer weight of all that resin prints with all the legs and leg turbines. The other photo is only part of the main body, there's a front, middle and rear sections just to the main body itself not including the neck or the head and this is only the front and the bottom section of the middle and it alone is 10 inches long and almost 3lbs. Yes folks this thing is massive. The reason some parts are different colors than others is from different resins that I've used. Anyways I'm having fun, it's a blast printing all of these.

 

[Lone Crusader]

An update to my WIP on the AT-AT, I finally finished printing it....YAYYY!

Here's a picture of just the main body section of course not glued together yet or primed. You can use the ruler in front of it to get a size reference of it. It's 1/48 scale.


I've joined a Patreon and get lot's of different models every month, here's what I'm printing now.
Colossus vs Juggernaut diorama.


Progress so far, just the base. It's 1/6 scale and this is 20" x 15" in size so that should give you a good idea at how large this thing is.

 

[Lone Crusader]

I put all projects down for a long while because I was burning out on them but I'm back at it now. Here the base for Colossus vs Juggernaut, I'm working on it right now. I got the ground painted and now I'm working on the grass, sand and dirt for it. Once I finish that I'll start working on all the bricks, as you can see some of the bricks I already did but I jumped the gun on those as I needed to finish the ground first. It's coming along quite nicely imho. The last picture I posted was the base unfinished once I had all the pieces printed I had to get all of them glued together with epoxy and that was not easy. I used these huge clamps as you can see in the second picture and those are not even the largest ones, the largest ones are 24" long and I only had 4 and I used every one of them. Any small gaps were filled with UV Resin and then painted over and any larger gaps I used a paper towel and stuffed pieces of it down in the gaps and the ran UV Resin over the tops of it and then painted over it. Now it looks like one solid piece, it's quite nice.

 

[Lone Crusader]

After working diligently on the base I'm just about done with it, all that's left is painting the project board at the bottom but I'm probably gonna wait until the very end to paint it because that's where I'm always holding it and I don't want to mess it up. Also the top of the light pole is just laying there because it hangs out a bit and I don't want it to get bumped and break off but as you can see the light that I put in it works great. It flickers like it's about to go out. Now, I'm waiting on the parts for a new spray booth (spray booth is a structure that I use for my airbrush and it has a blower on it that extracts the over spray from the airbrush) because I had to buy a larger one due to the fact that Juggernaut is so massive that he doesn't fit in my old spray booth. Without further ado...

 

[Billy Talent]

Do you make them as a hobby or do you sell them as customs, these are some insanely impressive stuff, the detail on the grass alone, fire hydrant, newspaper etc
Have you ever worked for a statue collectible company?