New Moonscape Diorama / Display Board - Pt 3 The Crater Rim Roughed In

Sometimes I call this the crater rim, other times mountains, still at other times referring to them as hills. Whatever - you know what I mean. This is the really messy part of working with Styrofoam, cutting off a few pieces of foam and roughing out the shapes. Then gluing them down on the board. Then vacuuming. Then doing it all over again. Not having room for a wonderfully large crater, I opted for a semi-circular design which will still give me a wide latitude of photo creativity (I hope!)

Ed

New Moonscape Diorama / Display Board - Pt 2 Materials and Dimensions

The dimensions of the new diorama board were determined entirely by the materials already available. I already had a scrap piece of Masonite that measured 48" (121,92cm) x 38.5" (97,79cm) for the top and some odd-sized panels of 1" Styrofoam. All that was needed was something to frame the whole thing with. For that I went to the hardware store and bought a couple of lengths of that fake lumber stuff that's precut to resemble dimensional lumber. The 1"x2" material was just fine and after cutting to the desired length, was glued and nailed to the 1x2's. With the frame in place, I glued the Styrofoam panels to the top with Elmer's Wood Glue (also something I already had on hand). Sorry - there's no photos of that step.

Ed

4' x 38.5"

Airfix #A06380 Strongpoint Kit 1/32 scale

Going through my unposted photos I found this series of shots from a temporary set-up I did four years ago. Specifically, this is my photo essay of the Airfix Strongpoint Kit in 1/32 scale (kit #A06380). I know that a bunch of photos from this setup had already been posted but some were totally left out. The kit itself is comprised of very thin wall and roof castings, but when assembled is a nice enough terrain piece for use with 54mm figures. Admittedly, this could use some painting up and proper detailing - and maybe one of these decades I'll even attempt it - but for now it remains plain jane gray right from the box. While most of us will probably place this into a battle scene or diorama, it could also be used as an abandoned and dilapidated farmhouse in a different type of diorama. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

For some reason I only have a photo of the box top, not the entire box as I normally do.

The kit comes with a flag pole and several flags (which I didn't use), two stretchers, and a sandbag emplacement

Light gray walls against a white background caused the photos to be a tad washed out

Those walls are paper-thin!

Even with the thin walls it's a nice, serviceable terrain piece

For this setup the farmhouse was placed in the upper right

In use as a...

...casualty collection point or triage center

'THE STAMPEDE': Fun With Job Lot Finds and Playing With My Western Toys - Pt 1

Wellll, maybe 'playing' isn't entirely accurate but it's the kind of play adult hobbyists morph into. I'm not on the living room floor setting up my figures and yelling, "Pow, pow, you're dead" and knocking over little Cowboys like when I was a kid, but putting them into settings like this and taking pictures is still fun. It started after my first round of sorting through the job lots I blogged about the other day and came across this bunch of horses by REL (along with a lone REL wagon driver)

So I'm thinking "What the heck am I gonna do with all these horses with no wagons for them to pull?" Then a bit of my family's past history came to mind when I remembered a story my dad used to tell about the days when he rode the rails as a hobo w-a-y back in 1918-21(ish). He used to tell us a story about how he "saved a town from a stampede" (his words) somewhere in South Dakota I believe. He could never remember the name of the town and he never elaborated on just how he went about 'saving a town' - but it was a fun story from my dad's past to listen to. The bottom line is, my next photo op was answered - STAMPEDE! I could use all of these horses to mimic a stampede.

While I do have an Amazon photo studio - it's really only suitable for small toys - I just don't have enough free space out in The Cave for elaborate set-ups...

...but I do have a washing machine and dryer whose tops can be used to set up some minimal displays. Time to get out all the stuff for a photo shoot:

-a scenicked display base which I've used for numerous other photo shoots

32" (81.3cm) x 25" (63.5cm)

-a backdrop that was part of a diorama (the diorama board was disposed of years ago)

 -a sheet of foamcore

-a hill that was saved from an old train layout and used from time to time in my shoots

-MPC buildings and ringhand figures

-Marx fence pieces

-last but not least, nearly all of the REL horses and the wagon driver

Enjoy! Opa Fritz

Aircraft Runway Shelf Display

I like being able to display or photograph toys in a cool way but it's been quite a while since I've done any kind of display or diorama. An airfield type setting has always been high on my 'really wanna do' list but...

Okay, so this year I said to myself, "Self!" I said, "Get off your behind and get sumthin' done!" Well, that was a lot easier said than done, with what little time I have being devoted to either getting stuff ready to list on eBay (seller: marxtoynut) or just takin' pics for the blog, but with a little creative schedule re-arranging I managed to get a heckuva good start on a display shelf.

Most shelving systems which use standards (the vertical pieces which mount to the wall) and brackets (the arms upon which the shelves rest) only accommodate 12" (30.48cm) deep shelves - not good enough. The solution lie with closet shelving utilizing brackets which accommodate at least 20" (50.8cm) deep shelves. Starting in January the old shelves were pulled down, the holes filled with spackling, and white touch-up paint applied to the wall and new standards and brackets installed. Next, a 20" (30.48cm) x  96" (2.44m) wooden shelf was painted with custom mixed paints from Lowe's. I opted for a dark gray runway with a concrete colored tarmac. The 'concrete' closely resembles Woodland Scenics concrete scenery paint which is more of a tan than it is a gray. To be sure these are not realistic scale colors for a runway diorama. A scale runway diorama would feature a series of light--to-medium gray tones with weathering done in a variety of white/gray/black tones. The reasoning behind this color choice is simple: I'll be displaying and photographing toy planes in a variety of bright, cheerful colors, and the dark gray/tan scheme serves as a nice contrast to the toys.

I knew there wouldn't be much room for a full-blown runway so it is only minimally represented with the tarmac taking up most of the shelf depth. That also allows for hangars to be positioned with airplanes posed in front of them. The runway is 6" (15.24cm) deep with a black border drawn in using a Sharpie felt-tipped marker. The expansion lines are in a 4" (10.16cm) square pattern drawn in using a very fine tipped Sharpie marker.

The new standards and brackets in place and the 20" x 96" shelf painted and installed

The 4" square grid is evident in this photo

The backdrop consists of four pieces of sky blue foamcore cut to fit under the shelf above. The board rests behind the shelf and sits atop the brackets. It is also notched to allow it to clear the brackets above. The segments are joined using foamcore splice plates glued behind

The backdrop in place behind the shelf

Some initial photos of hangars and planes already featured here on Toys and Stuff

Detailing the backdrop is going to take a lot of work. Simply gluing on hangars and other buildings and/or details won't allow for flexibility. What if I want to do a civilian airport theme and I have military hangars permanently glued to the back? or vice versa

Right now I'm leaning towards using a modular concept for the details. The next few photos show a 'proof' of concept' attempt. The photo of the hangar was taken during one of the Aviation Nation Air Show events at Nellis AFB. 

I did some Photoshopping to remove most unwanted details but I need to do more. The pic was printed out on  Legal size cardstock (8.5" x 14"), glued to a piece of matching blue foamcore, and a scrap piece of cardstock glued to the backside to serve as means to hold the picture up while it rests behind the shelf. 

A quick treatment in Photoshop will take away the lines visible on the foamcore

The following photos have all been Photoshopped to remove the lines in the foamcore

Well, that's it for now. I hope you liked this little project and I'm anxious to get more done. Airfields can be busy places and there's a lot more details that can potentially be added all of which I am 

s-l-o-w-l-y  working on. Again - Enjoy!

New American Civil War Diorama / Display Base Pt 12 - Conclusion

I've been working on this display base off-and-on (mostly off) since March 22 and is primarily meant to pose and photograph my Civil War toys but I s'pose can be used for other things as well. I kind of put the push on finishing it so that it can be used for the 151st anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg which is 1-3 July.I use the term 'finished' kind of loosely because there may be some odds-and-ends to do later on. For example, the ground is rather flat and barren, except for 'grass' there's little other vegetation like bushes and trees. This was done on purpose so that there'd be more flat space to place figures on. Also, by not permanently 'planting' trees and bushes it gives me more flexibility in changing the landscaping. Anywho, here's the photos of the final steps: Enjoy! Bettina & Fritz Berg :)

A 2' (61cm) x 4' (121.9cm) piece of hardboard was shortened to fit the rear of the display

 Right now it's simply held on by three screws

 The same light blue paint I used on the backdrop for my train layout was used here. It is a real light blue and maybe one day I'll re-paint it a slightly darker shade to provide more contrast.

I think my inner Rembrandt went AWOL LOL. Oh well, only two shades of green were used here

Some shots of the 'finished' display