24 March update — It’s a win for the Model Geeks Podcast!
This year’s Moosearoo Cup was the ICM 1/72 Kriegsmarine K-Verbände Midget subs. One or both subs could be made. An added challenge was placing the sub in a vignette or diorama. It had to tell a story.
I’ve never tried making a diorama or vignette. Placing a waterline ship on a plank with some quick choppy water effect is not really a vignette. That’s just a base to my eye. But, as soon as I was handed the bag and opened to find the kit and rules, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. My inspiration was a watercolor I’d seen when I was much much younger, similar to Peter Hill’s Supermarine Walrus: Rescue at sea, which depicted a flying boat in the distance approaching a downed airman. Of course, my vision was to bring the sub to the forefront and have a Coastal Command or US Navy patrol bomber coming if for an attack.
I decided quickly the best means of showing this was via a forced perspective. For a diorama/vignette to use both aircraft and sub in similar scales would have been a huge display. I wanted it to fit on my display shelves. I had a PBY, B-24, and Halifax in my stash of 1/700 aircraft, and decided this should have the Halifax because the competition is sponsored by IPMS Hamilton, Ontario.
I quickly finished the Type XXVIIB Seehund sub kit. It only took an hour to assemble and clean up seams, and about another hour to paint (if you include the drying time). I then got a sheet of styrofoam and started mocking up the display. I very quickly realized it was going to look odd unless I could find a way to force the viewer to look from the front, not from above/sides.
I regularly listen to the Small Subjects podcast by Barry Biediger & Jim DeRogatis and in many episodes they discuss their box dioramas. After looking at some of their art, I decided that would solve my dilemma — the viewer could ONLY look into the box from one direction.
At this stage I simply had to size the base and box. I have a simple plaque just for things like this and after confirming the entire vignette would fit on it I cut the foam and designed the box — I wanted to 3D print it via my FDM printer so that adjustments/modifications would be easy.
Since I knew it would be dark inside, and to help with forcing the perspective, I decided on a night scene. I put a hole in the back and then boxed it in from the outside with an LED and coin battery. To soften the appearance I put a piece of paper towel in front of the LED and to brighten it a piece of aluminum foil behind.
The “water” is a combination of modeling clay that cures at room temperature in about 24-48 hours depending on thickness, artist’s gel, and Future floor wax. The clay was the basis for my waves, largest in front and quickly getting smaller with distance. Being clay it was easy to work with using wet fingers and pushing the shapes to look more wave-like. The gel was a perfect filler that would stick to my pallet knife and look like splashes of water — plus it cured to a clear appearance when applied thin.
Once I had a good base down, I then painted it a very dark blue (blue craft paint with black added). The sides of the waves towards the viewer got some black and on the sides towards the moon received blue. The sub was then inserted into the groove and more gel added to fill in around it and build the gaps up to the levels of the water. As I got closer to water levels I added some white and light blue paint to begin giving the water around the sub the appearance of turmoil, simply caused by the sub cutting the waves on the surface. All paint was below at least one layer of gel. With such rolling waves I also gave the sub a heel to better expose the hull for the viewer.
A coat of gloss over everything sealed it all in, and got the sub looking more wet than dry.
Once all the gel had cured I then brushed some Future to begin giving the “water” a shine to make it look wet. I applied it thickly and let it fill some voids and depressions. About 3 coats were sufficient, and as with the gel I waited about 24 hours between layers/coats for them to fully cure.
After assembly I then had to take pictures. This was actually harder than the vignette. I set up my picture box and by the time I had the 10 photos I wanted I’d taken about 200. Thank goodness for digital photography. I initially tried my iPhone but quickly realized I needed my DSLR. Which I hadn’t used in 8 years. Once I found it, and charged the battery, I started experimenting with aperture and ISO settings until I got pictures that had the look I wanted. Unfortunately I was using my white background. I switched to black and then the photos just popped. I then focused on the final 10.
All in all, I had fun with this. It was new, it was different, it was challenging.
Thanks for looking…
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