Do you think he'll notice? - III

It's been a couple of weeks since I posted progress on my Diorama of Doom entry. You might think looking at these pictures that very little has changed, but dont be fooled, an awful lot of planning and intellectual consideration has gone into this stage (or in the words of my wife "are you giving that another coat of looking at?").


I've had to put it on a slightly larger base (100mm rather than the 80mm initially planned). I was reluctant to do this as I wanted a very tight composition but I simply can't fit everything onto the smaller size.

I've built a slightly raised raised area on which the copter sits, and this will finally represent a road edge complete with kerb drain and slight road camber.


As before the headless Grymn figure behind the 'copter is a proxy for a Hasslefree Grymn Pilot which I am waiting (almost patiently) for them to release. There is also some space at the front of the diorama for a mystery item which I wont reveal until the final competition pictures are released.


I have begun the process of sculpting the undercarriage and skids - neither of which are glued in place yet. I have also slung a weapon under the nose of the copter. I was going to add some small stub wings to the nose of the machine, but they will interfere with something I have planned for the painting so reluctantly I have discarded the idea.



Next steps:

Cover the base in putty and sculpt the kerb edge, drain and road surface.
Fiddle about with the position of the copter skids.
Complete the sculpting of the undercarriage

Maps

These are a couple of maps that I developed for an aborted PBeM game a couple of years ago set in A place called "Kolvyr and the Pentra Isles".

I have a love of old maps and have dabbled in map-making using Pro-fantasy Campaign Cartographer for a couple of years.


These are BIG files with lots of detail so to see them at their best click to enlarge and it may take a minute or two to download properly.

Drop Ship XXV

Well I'm about to disappear on a surprise trip for a week but I took a little time to pour a couple of the molds.

Firstly the one piece molds of the engine mounts. This is a second cast from them and I used a cotton bud to 'paint' resin around the inside of the mold before I poured. This seems to have done the trick and has removed 90% of the problem I had with air bubbles. Yay Result!


Next comes the tail plane.


This looks quite promising - not a single bubble in sight, and a very smooth cast. Some flash to remove, and of course the problem with the RTV that flowed under the master, But I'm confident that with a new mold this part will be an easy cast!

Next the Engine, and the biggest surprise of the lot. The mold for this piece looked pretty disastrous with a lot of tiny undercuts caused by RTV seeping between panels. But the cast (again painted before i poured) is actually pretty good. Only a couple of air bubbles, and those seem to be where I was too slow pouring the resin and it's begun to set before complete.


I think this mold might actually be usable when I have got a bit faster and smoother at the casting process. And the gear locating mechanism to pose the engines works a treat!

Finally the piece I've always been worried about - The Landing Gear. Well, the good news is... it's not a complete disaster!


The mold didn't fill completely and there are some large air bubbles in the corner of the feet, and the smaller 'leg' of the landing gear didn't fill properly with resin, but I think that's because I was slow (poured this after the tailplane from the same resin batch).

I will need to adjust the master to fill in a couple of undercuts But i think this piece will then be fine with a new mold. The good news is that even with the problems on this test cast, the landing gear will be up to the job of supporting the main body!

All in all a pretty good result I think. I'm a bit more optimistic than yesterday.