Two pieces of foam attached together, corkboard use to fill the flat surface.
Fake lawn. Best I can get for low prices. More landscaping took place, then the lawn was laid down and wrapped around the edge to solidify the impression of a natural hill top.
Smudged that clay into the grass. The thickness of what will become the dirt gives the impression of a beaten man-made path. Wet clay that dried up on the surface of my fingers were crinkled, crumbled and eventually sprinkled onto the wet road to help give texture.
Break time.
Rolled a scrap car over the surface to get light tire ruts to start a layer of texture. So far so good. It's time to let the clay air dry.
While it was unfortunate the basement flooded recently, it was neat I was able to dry the clay within hours letting it sit in front of the dehumidifier blowing hot-air from the bottom compartment. Having forgotten how clay contracts after being dried, its warped shape consequentially warped the lawn as well exposing the black sheet of rubber that holds the grass intact. This was a great opportunity to create hard textures in the road and cracks were the immediate idea I went to. I hammered the surface with a pick ever so gently... except it kept forming cracks perpendicular to the road.
While some of the openings were perfectly arranged - especially around the fringes, the coarser cracks earlier mentioned were a tad too much so I pulled out the filler to cover parts. By doing a rough job, it also adds to the road texture. Chips broken off from the road were glued onto the surface at random to resemble large rock debris.
Those openings left in the grass were then covered up with pieces of the ball tree. It's the same one used on the very first diorama made. The one edge of the display has been filled with these mini leaves to add some vertical elements which will aid in helping the display look less flat.
I've put some at the very edge and while it looks strange, it'll look like the hill has a shallow slope from an inland perspective.
The grass itself was much too flat so I trimmed those leaves into smaller twigs and glued those in random places. It helps reduce the flatness as well.
Painting was not much more different than the cliff. More colours were used this time.
First layer of dull tan. Several layers later:
Looks a shade or two too yellowish. Maybe that's just the photos. How does it look when in use?
Porsche Boxster Spyder. Scrubbed that surface with sandpaper way more than the last two. The surface is smooth all over with about 4 layers of clear nail polish and two clear sprays. There's also the trouble of handling the body afterwards without leaving fingerprints and smudges. I've let the body sit for 48 hours before handling too. Other than that, I've detailed the lamps (even the detailing in the lamp socket by hand), silver trim such as the handles and seat head rest, coloured in the corner lamps, ducts and doorlines.
Convincing?
I definitely need to make improvements to the diffuser. There has been a struggle to find a comfortable colour balance prior to capturing the photos - between the light's colour tone and the backdrop colour tones. Other than that, I can see myself using this diorama display for the custom offroad series.
As always, thanks for reading!
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