diorama

I’ve already made a Blake and Mortimer diorama, the reproduction of the Yellow M cover. It seems to have been popular because in no time at all, a private collector ordered me a copy. And he asked me too to make this second diorama of the third volume cover of the Secret of the Swordfish. This sentence won the international contest of the “of the” sentences last year.

The structure of the Secret of the Swordfish diorama

The models

The swordfish

The leading role is played by a Sworfish edtied years ago by Hachette (in France). It come from a range of models called “Blake and Mortimer cars and vehicules”. The model is quite good-looking -except for the inner cockpit, as is often the case.

The “yellows destroyers

The destroyers drawn by E. P. Jacobs in 1947 looked very much like the WW2 battleships. In particular the japanese ones. I started my work from a 1:350 Yamato and her escort ship.

The water

The ground texture

In order to create a convincing sea, I started by gluing a cardboard-foam plaque onj the bottom of the diorama. Then I worked directly with acetone. The acetone, a very strong solvent, dissolves the foam at the surface inhomogeneously : then you get hollows and bumps. Waves in a word.

However, the texture is not yet convincing. I wanted something smooth enough to figure the water at this scale. I covered the cardoard-foam with thin paper. It was hard to find the right thickness : too thick and the relief details are concealed, too thin and the flaws of the surface are too visible.

Painting the sea

I painted the sea with an airbrush in green shading (like in the comic book), lighter of the top of the waves.

The surface texture

The foam is made with very light grey painting. In order to thicken the foam, I melted it with some water gel.

Explosions

The book cover shows many explosions. I couldn’t fail in making them. It took a long time to come up with the process. Here is what work best :

• Transparent sanded rods to diffuse the light
• The volume is made with make-up remover (cotton)
• White glue for the blinder
• Red LEDs for the light, glued at the base of the rods.

Here is the secret of the SwordFish : it blows evrything with nukes missiles !

The result :

Avouez que ça en jette. Si, avouez, je sais que vous le pensez, n’essayez pas de le nier.

You have to admit, it’s quite somthing. Yes, admit it, I know you think that, no need to deny.

The secret of the SwordFish : a multiscaled diorama.

I’ve already made a multi-scale diorama, the Star Wars rebel fleet over Sullust. The idea consists in making small scaled models on the background and large ones on the front. In thsi diorama, there are 3 approximatives scales :

• The background : sky et secret-base-rock
• The ships (almost 1:350)
• The swordfish (almost 1:72)

Therefore, there is an interesting depth effect allowing to show simultaneousely capital vehicules (ships, huge spaceships) and smaller ones (fighters, monoplace spaceships).

An interesting and unusual project for me, as I am a usually a Star Wars man. Unfortunately, I couldn’t expose this diorama since it was delivered to its owner immediately after it was achieved, in Spain.

I will keep it in short on this assembly which is not very complicated. The four kits I used here are all from Bandai. These are figurines designed like models. Two models in this diorama : Darth Vader and 3 stormtroopers.

The concept is very interesting : the figurines’ assembly is very like a model kit one. Many parts to assemble together, a large scale allowing a model kit paintjob. I’m not really a good fig-artist like philigore. Therefore I really liked this idea consisting of assembling a figurine like a model kit. Finally, I can insert quality figurines in my dioramas.

Here are the two boxarts of those models :

• 

• 

Stormtroopers assembly

The building is quite long, there are really a lots of parts for a model of this size. Bandai arrange this very well, the fig is fully articulated : elbow, wrist, knees, neck… Everything can be oriented where you want.

Here ares the parts :

The challenge is to choose a pose for the figurine and then I immobilise it. Why immobilising, you’d say ? First, know that I don’t really like people asking tactless questions like that. Who do you think you are, mmmhh ?

Well, where was I before I got interrupted so roughly by myself ? Ah, yes, why immobilising the figurine. Note that it is not unavoidable but if you don’t do it, the joints will remain noticeable and unrealistic. Therefore, I had to drown the joints into a sculpt putty, the Magic Scult. It is a 2 components putty, a resin and a catalyst. You may find it at the excellent adress : Green Stuff World.

The stromtroopers have 3 different poses :

• A dead, deceased, lifeless, liquidated, perished, defunct one
• A stormtrooper in firing position to bring cover to the dark lord of the Sith. No danger at all for anybody.
• The third is walking to reach his firing position behind Vader

Assembly of Darth Vader, the dark lord of the Sith

If this is a consular ship, where is the ambassador ?

Darth Vader

Well 30 years after seeing the movie for the forst time, I still don’t know what “consular” means. But I could assemble this Vader model anyway. The most difficult part was to thread the electrical wires to enlight the two small green LEDs in the belt :

Surprisingly, the wires don’t go threw the legs as you could think at first but in the thickness of the cape.

I had to rework the cape itself with wet glued paper to get a fabric effect. Unfortunaltely I couldn’t make it look slimmer. I’ll do better next time.

The decor

Nothing complicated here, just a wooden structure and a plastic casing. The main tint is a white lightly colored in purple.

Conclusion

A nice little diorama I exposed 2 or 3 times in Migennes and Cusset. It made me want to try others figurines in this serie since they are a very interesting concept.

I got the holly Graal in 2019. Two kits from the former company Screamin specialized in vinyl kits : horror, fantastic and SF characters. But I had a real problem : I had no time to make any new diorama for years, where could I find the time to ?

As if by chance, a new phenomenon occured and allowed me to spend two months between March and May 2020. Things aren’t going well ? Let’s g for a Mars attacks diorama.

Presentation of the kit

Vinyl kits : the modelist’s nightmare

Diorama Mars Attacks : assemblage du décor

After cleaning the kit with hot water and soap, the different parts are glued together on big wooden board. The diorama is 60cm width.

The vinyl can be softened using hot water or an hair dryer. Then you can give it the wanted shape. The ground of the diorama is strongly attached on the board so the small parts can keep their shape. With bigger parts (the Star Wars Rancor for example), you’ll have to use a metallic structure and a polyurethan foam. It is a great deal to use thie foam because it’s light and hard at the same time so the model can keep its shape easily.

Martian pieces

We come in peace

No arms, no chocolate (another french expression…)

Paintbrushes will be hot…

• 

• 

• 

Finitions et détails du diorama Mars Attacks

• 

• 

• 

For conclusion, I’d say I spent a huge amont of time on this diorama. Good thing, I had plenty of time. Despite the few flaws of these kits, their nostalgic look and their oringinality are no longer seen nowdays. It’s a shame that a brand like Screamin non longer exists. It was the perfect mix between the garage kit and the licenced one.

Tnaks to internet and the abundant e-commerce websites, we can easily get those collector kits. The only cloud in the horizon is the price wich became unfortunately totally crazy for some of those kits.

The first movie in chronoligical order, “The Phantom Menace” is certainly the less appreciated in the all saga. Well, “The Last Jedi” is also on the podium but for completely different reasons. However, even if the film directing and the acting performence of the main actors isn’t flawless (well, I guess that’s a lot for one single movie), I think the universe works well. The costumes, the decors and the vehicules are just perfect, especially during the final scene : the battle of Naboo. For this reason, I wanted to pay tribute to this movie despite its flaws.

During the battle of Naboo, the action is divided in four parts :

• The ground assault between the gungans and the tanks droids
• The royal guards and queen Amidal’s commando action inside the main palace
• The “threesome” Gui-Gon Jinn – Obi Wan Kenobi – Darth Maul
• The space battle

This splitting may be damagable to the dynamic of the film end : too less screen time for each. And it’s a shame for the space one because it shows very interesting models.

The main protagonist of the battle of Naboo : the Naboo N-1 fighter

The making of this model was pretty harsh. The choice of the kit was obvious. Only two AMT kits existed by this time : one plastic made, the other metal made. I chose the plastic one for practical reasons :

This is a very simplistic model as they were made at this time : no glue, no painting, less than a dozen parts to snap together. Of course I strongly improved it. Lets’ see how I did.

The assembly

Then, the “rats tails” so distinctive were glued directly on the tracing paper. And here is the result :

I will not dwell on the paintjob and the cockpit detailing, very classical. Just one originality, the painting finish is gloss contrary to the usual Star Wars models.

The paintjob

Oddly, the gloss paintings must not be used. Too thick, they swamp details, stopper airbrushes and it is very hard to make a good weathering on them. Moreover, the tiniest sanding mistake is seen like a democrat militant in a NRA convention. So, mat painting covered with a lot of gloss varnish “klir“.

The chromed part is made with an Alclad slilver-chrom painting sprayed in several layers, more or less intense, depending on the area :

Now, this is podracing !

Anakin Skywalker

The pursuers : droid fighters

• 

• 

• 

The decor of the battle of Naboo

I chose for decor a section of the Lucrehulk cruiser of the Trade Federation. They are the huge ring-shaped ships used by the trade federation to lead the blocus of Naboo :

Not easy to identify a huge ship only by seeing a small section. So i chose two distincive elements : a parabolic antenna and a quadlaser battery.

And the final result, after paintjob :

Conclusion

Finally, a comprehensie diorama, not really dealt with on the web. It allowed me to approach the prelogy which is still interesting to represent in modelism despite its cinematrographic flaws.

By the way, I got a third price in a Starship Modelers contest with this diorama. If I don’t congratulate myself, who will ?