Diddl Diorama
In this article, I will describe making a diorama for probably the silliest figure I’ve done in recent years - a Diddl mouse driving a car. I will use HD styrofoam, plaster, sand (two granulations), PVA glue, pins and palm trees. As for the tools, there will be drills (pin vice and mini electric Proxxon), scalpel, pliers, candle. So let's go…
I made the base on two levels from HD styrofoam. I carefully cut it with a scalpel and carved the texture of the rock.
The miniature of Diddl in the car is actually a pencil extension and between the wheels it had some bump with a pencil hole. I didn’t like that part and it actually prevented the placement of the car on the base so I decided to remove it. I decided that the fastest way would be to use Proxxon drill with a mill. Unfortunately, I didn’t find an adequate mill bit so I used a regular 3mm drill bit. It served its purpose.
To give the HD styrofoam strength, I decided to cover the entire volume of the base with plaster. I mixed a little into the cup and coated the base with a brush. To keep from flowing and potentially sticking the base to the table, I pinned the base to a makeshift skewer stand and the rest of the styrofoam.
The texture is added next. Here I decided to leave the stone parts / rocks without texture, that is, to leave the plaster texture. In addition, there are two other areas - road and "terrain". I covered the road with the finest sand (chinchilla sand), and I covered the "terrain" with GW textured sand. I glued both sands with PVA glue.
Now it was time to plant palm trees. In order for the joint to be as strong and strong as possible, it is necessary to pin the trees. The simplest way to pin plastic trees is to heat the pin. As it enters the plastic, so it cools and when it cools, the connection it makes with the plastic tree is hard and durable. Then use a drill (in this case, a pin vice) to drill holes in the base for the pin. Then immerse the pin protruding from the tree into the PVA glue and push it into the designed hole.
I placed all the bits in their place. I was satisfied and I proceeded to paint the diorama and add vegetation.
I painted the base with Pebeo Deco paints: Black, Brown, Ocher and White. I painted the road with Pebeo Deco Black and a dark gray mixture of Black and White. The line is drawn in Pebeo Deco White. I painted the water with Scalecolor paints: Arctic Blue and White as well as a Citadel one - Sotek Green.
I decided to paint the car with a mixture of metallic and matte paints from Scalecolor. I mixed in a mix of Dwarven Gold and Fuchsia and Speedd Metal and Sunset Purple. I painted the chrome parts with GSW Chrome, and I first painted the breaking lights in Chrome and then covered it with Tamiya Clear Red. When the paint dried, I made a calotte from Ammo Acrylic Crystal.
I painted the palm tree brown, covered it with black washem and made highlights. I painted the leaves with Scalecolor paints.
For the very end of making the diorama, I left adding the resin. Given the round base and a slightly more specific geometry at the points where the terrain merges with the base, I opted for a UV resin that allows me to work without making a dam around the base. GSW UV resin is very easy to use. Since it is gel-like, not liquid, it can be easily placed on the base and when you are satisfied with the look, it is just "baked" using a UV lamp. Its only drawback is that it cannot be tinted with acrylic paints.
In the end I placed Diddl 1 onto the base
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Science behind Acrylic Paints
- Binders (eng. resin) – form a film – in our case probably pure acrylates, I suspect they are styrene acrylates.
- Fillers – in addition to adding volume to the paint, they also affect the viscosity, coverage and appearance of the dry film
- Pigments – the main division is into organic pigments and inorganic pigments. Inorganic ones are more covering but have less vivid shades, while organic ones are often quite poorly covering (yellow for example) but their shades are vivid and bright
Additives:
- Anti-foam
- Rheological modifiers – affect the behavior of wet paint on the substrate (e.g. spillage) and the behavior of the paint when a force is applied to it (brush, roller, spray, airbrush). Rheological modifiers also include thickeners that affect the viscosity of the paint.
- Dispersants – envelop pigment and filler particles and prevent their agglomeration during standing. Good dispersion of pigment and filler affects the coverage and uniform appearance of the dry film. There are a bunch more but I won't go into too much detail
- Solvent – in this case water.
Contrast paints and speed paints – high pigment content, but not so much that it causes high coverage. They are formulated to spread, not to stay where you put them. The result of spreading is that the paint collects in the recesses, where a thicker film of paint remains than on the protruding parts of the miniature. Where the film of paint is thicker (the recesses), the shade of the contrast paint is more pronounced, unlike on the protruding parts where the film is thinner, which is why the shade is then influenced by the color of the substrate.
Composition:
- Binders
- Pigments
- Additives – all listed above + surfactants that reduce the surface tension of the wet paint film, which is why it flows
- solvent
- I would say they do not contain fillers, or contain very, very little of them
Washes – similar in formulation and behavior to contrast agents, only they have a much lower proportion of pigments, certainly no fillers, a higher proportion of surfactants, lower viscosity, and probably less binders.
If we want to greatly dilute acrylic paint or contrast, it is better to use a product intended for this purpose from the manufacturer of that paint rather than water, because it contains all the necessary amount of binders and additives for that paint to retain its properties.
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U ovom članku, naša Dunja nam otkriva znanost iza akrilnih boja.
Akrilne boje – visoki udio pigmenta i dobra pokrivnost. Ako su dobro formulirane ostaju tamo gdje ih naneseš, ne ostavljaju „brush marks“ i suše se dovoljno sporo da stigneš napravit što želiš na minijaturi a opet dovoljno brzo.
Sastav:
- Veziva (eng. resin) – formiraju film – u našem slučaju vjerojatno čisti akrilati, sumnjam da su stiren akrilati.
- Punila – osim što dodaju volumen boji utječu i na viskoznost, pokrivnost i izgled suhog filma
- Pigmenti – glavna podjela je na organske pigmente i anorganske pigmente. Anorganski su više pokrivni ali manje živih nijansi, dok su organski često dosta loše pokrivni (žuti npr) ali zato su im nijanse žive i jarke
Aditivi:
- Protiv pjene
- Reološki modifikatori – utječu na ponašanje mokre boje na podlozi (npr razlijevanje) i na ponašanje boje dok na nju djeluje sila (kist, valjak, sprej, airbrush). Pod reološke modifikatore spadaju i ugušćivači koji utječu na viskozitet boje.
- Dispergatori – obavijaju čestice pigmenata i punila i sprječavaju aglomeraciju istih stajanjem. Dobra dispergiranost pigmenta i punila utječe na pokrivnost i ujednačen izgled suhog filma.
- Ima ih još hrpa ali neću toliko u detalje
- Otapalo – u ovom slučaju voda.
Kontrastice i speed paints – visoki udio pigmenta, ali ne toliki da uzrokuje visoku pokrivnost. Formulirane su da se razlijevaju, a ne da ostaju tamo gdje ih staviš. Posljedica razlijevanja je skupljanje boje u udubine gdje onda ostane deblji film boje nego na isturenim dijelovima minijature. Tamo gdje je film boje deblji (udubine) nijansa kontrastice izraženija, za razliku od isturenih dijelova na kojima je film tanji zbog čega na nijansu onda utječe boja podloge.
Sastav:
- Veziva
- Pigmenti
- Aditivi – svi nabrojani gore +
- surfakanti koji smanjuju površinsku napetost mokrog filma boje zbog čega i dolazi do razlijevanja
- otapalo
- rekla bih da ne sadrže punila, ili ih sadrže vrlo vrlo malo
Washevi – po principu formuliranja i ponašanju slični kontrasticama, samo imaju puno manji udio pigmenata, sigurno ne sadrže punila, veći udio surfakanata, manji viskozitet i vjerojatno manje veziva.
Ako želimo jako razrijediti akrilnu boju ili kontrasticu bolje je koristiti za to predviđen proizvod od proizvođača te boje nego vodu, jer sadrži svu potrebnu količinu veziva i aditiva kako bi ta boja zadržala svoja svojstva.
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