How I build dioramas Part 2
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JohnReid
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JohnReid
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The last pic is an eye level view of the hangar through the dispatch office door.I like the reflection of the airplanes wing in the glass windows and the sense of perspective of the flooring.Unfortunately a lot of these viewing angles will be lost once the diorama is put back together, but at least I will have the pics.
JohnReid
A Fixture
Museum Quality,what is it anyway?
I first heard of the term when Model Expo advertised their 1/16th aircraft as museum quality.I thought even back then wouldn't it be nice to build something and have it displayed at a library ,city hall or maybe even the local museum.
I had been into decorative bird art for some time and even taught it to adults for a long time.
People liked my stuff so I began to get illusions (delusions) of grandeur in my head and decide to compete at the World Championships at Ocean City Maryland.I worked a whole year on one piece and thought it was pretty good,so I drove down and entered it in competition.My friends and even some of the guys I was competing against thought it was a winner.
Well the day the prizes were given out came and to my surprise it got zero,not even an honorable mention.Competitors were encouraged to ask the judges were they went wrong so that they could improve for next year.I appraoach the head judge,a world champ carver himself for some advise.The first thing he said was were did you get the color for the flicker,which was thr prey bird in a preditor/prey composition.I asked him what he meant and he said the flickers from where he was from out west where not yellow.I explained that this was an Eastern Flicker and they are yellow.Well he looked a little embarrassed and walked away.There and then I decided to never put myself in that position again,competeing was not for me.
However, I still had this desire to excel at something connected with art.I sat myself down at almost 60 years old and said well what do you know best? The answer was obvious ,aviation and especially the era before the jets.Hadn't I already built a full scale 1929 biplane with my dad in the sixties?
I didn't want to compete again so I only displayed my models at a few shows and they liked them.
It was around this time that the museum quality bug hit me.
to be cont.....
I first heard of the term when Model Expo advertised their 1/16th aircraft as museum quality.I thought even back then wouldn't it be nice to build something and have it displayed at a library ,city hall or maybe even the local museum.
I had been into decorative bird art for some time and even taught it to adults for a long time.
People liked my stuff so I began to get illusions (delusions) of grandeur in my head and decide to compete at the World Championships at Ocean City Maryland.I worked a whole year on one piece and thought it was pretty good,so I drove down and entered it in competition.My friends and even some of the guys I was competing against thought it was a winner.
Well the day the prizes were given out came and to my surprise it got zero,not even an honorable mention.Competitors were encouraged to ask the judges were they went wrong so that they could improve for next year.I appraoach the head judge,a world champ carver himself for some advise.The first thing he said was were did you get the color for the flicker,which was thr prey bird in a preditor/prey composition.I asked him what he meant and he said the flickers from where he was from out west where not yellow.I explained that this was an Eastern Flicker and they are yellow.Well he looked a little embarrassed and walked away.There and then I decided to never put myself in that position again,competeing was not for me.
However, I still had this desire to excel at something connected with art.I sat myself down at almost 60 years old and said well what do you know best? The answer was obvious ,aviation and especially the era before the jets.Hadn't I already built a full scale 1929 biplane with my dad in the sixties?
I didn't want to compete again so I only displayed my models at a few shows and they liked them.
It was around this time that the museum quality bug hit me.
to be cont.....
JohnReid
A Fixture
I got it in my head that I would give it a shot but I wanted to do something new and different.My hobby shop stocked both the model expo kits and doll house stuff.I thought why not marry the two up in 1/16th scale,which I thought was museum scale.The Smithsonian had already set the precedent of accepting plastic model kits in dioramas way back in 1984 ,so why not wooden kits?So I pressed on with my dream.
I considered scratch building everything but soon realized that at my age that could be the first and only one I ever did, and besides I had more than one story to tell,so I compromised.My motto became buy what you can ,build what you must and most importantly tell your stories of the way things used to be in early aviation.
My audience was to be the kids and the young at heart, so my stories were based upon what could have happened rather than on some highly documented incident or scenario.
I let it be known that my stuff was available for donation,and low and behold didn't I hear from the CAM educational department and the rest just happened.Now they want them on the museum floor.I look back now and think thank God I changed directions when I did.It is never too late even for old geezers like me.
So what is museum quality? Who knows!
I considered scratch building everything but soon realized that at my age that could be the first and only one I ever did, and besides I had more than one story to tell,so I compromised.My motto became buy what you can ,build what you must and most importantly tell your stories of the way things used to be in early aviation.
My audience was to be the kids and the young at heart, so my stories were based upon what could have happened rather than on some highly documented incident or scenario.
I let it be known that my stuff was available for donation,and low and behold didn't I hear from the CAM educational department and the rest just happened.Now they want them on the museum floor.I look back now and think thank God I changed directions when I did.It is never too late even for old geezers like me.
So what is museum quality? Who knows!
JohnReid
A Fixture
JohnReid
A Fixture
This is where I got the idea of using kit models in dioramas and still having them accepted as so-called museum quality.
JohnReid
A Fixture
JohnReid
A Fixture
JohnReid
A Fixture
Except for a few final touchups the Jenny dio is finished.That's two down and two to go.
The Albatros requires just the final gluing and pinning down of the exterior parts and pieces ,which will leave me most of the short- lived summer here in the GWN to work on the backyard flyer.(it snowed here yesterday)
The Albatros composition is still evolving in some minor ways.I have decided to bring the wrecked Mercedes engine out of the shadows and into a more prominent position.
The Albatros requires just the final gluing and pinning down of the exterior parts and pieces ,which will leave me most of the short- lived summer here in the GWN to work on the backyard flyer.(it snowed here yesterday)
The Albatros composition is still evolving in some minor ways.I have decided to bring the wrecked Mercedes engine out of the shadows and into a more prominent position.
JohnReid
A Fixture
JohnReid
A Fixture
JohnReid
A Fixture
JohnReid
A Fixture
Coffee creamers make great garbage pails,sand pails and in this case ash buckets.
JohnReid
A Fixture
The great thing about dioramas is the freedom involved to do your own thing.I especially like the ongoing creativity that you can enjoy right up until the very end.I like to operate in such a way as to keep it interesting for me too.I like to start with a basic idea for a storyline and see what develops from there.
I work mostly with images and stories from my imagination, as I dread the thought of a lot of drawings and plans and things written in stone .
When doing dioramas at a rate of ,on average, one every three and a half years, the less written in stone the better.All of my aviation dioramas started with the basic 1/16th airplane model kit itself .The model therefore will dictate the minimum size required ,the maximum size is up to you.
With a little creative thinking those who would like to build in the larger scales can still do so by reducing the minimum size.Example: an under construction or maintenance scene where one wing has been removed and placed up against a wall,or how about a barnstormer fuselage used for advertising, being towed through main street or just the fuselage alone being used in a school of aeronautics.The possibilities are endless .You can build what you want and alter things as you like.Bad ,out of scale wing fittings ?cover them with a rag.Controversy about did this airplane have this or that on that series? just leave it off ,its under construction after all.Wings not the proper dihedral a couple of saw horses and some tools will fix that....Etc...etc...etc...I am sure you get the idea.It is all a matter of thinking creatively.
What got me thinking of all this is the wrecked Mercedes engine that I am working on now.When I started this diorama I didn't even have the second engine,in fact everything you see outside the hangar walls was not originally planned for.(including even a lot inside) I build the engine with no specific plan in mind other than it must be wrecked to fit better into my flying school storyline.Yesterday it went from obscurity in the junk pile to a stand alone model and by evening it had its own steel lifting frame with chains etc...
Now this morning I am excited to get back to it and see how it turns out!
I work mostly with images and stories from my imagination, as I dread the thought of a lot of drawings and plans and things written in stone .
When doing dioramas at a rate of ,on average, one every three and a half years, the less written in stone the better.All of my aviation dioramas started with the basic 1/16th airplane model kit itself .The model therefore will dictate the minimum size required ,the maximum size is up to you.
With a little creative thinking those who would like to build in the larger scales can still do so by reducing the minimum size.Example: an under construction or maintenance scene where one wing has been removed and placed up against a wall,or how about a barnstormer fuselage used for advertising, being towed through main street or just the fuselage alone being used in a school of aeronautics.The possibilities are endless .You can build what you want and alter things as you like.Bad ,out of scale wing fittings ?cover them with a rag.Controversy about did this airplane have this or that on that series? just leave it off ,its under construction after all.Wings not the proper dihedral a couple of saw horses and some tools will fix that....Etc...etc...etc...I am sure you get the idea.It is all a matter of thinking creatively.
What got me thinking of all this is the wrecked Mercedes engine that I am working on now.When I started this diorama I didn't even have the second engine,in fact everything you see outside the hangar walls was not originally planned for.(including even a lot inside) I build the engine with no specific plan in mind other than it must be wrecked to fit better into my flying school storyline.Yesterday it went from obscurity in the junk pile to a stand alone model and by evening it had its own steel lifting frame with chains etc...
Now this morning I am excited to get back to it and see how it turns out!
JohnReid
A Fixture
JohnReid
A Fixture
The engine assembly turned out pretty good ,now I have to wire it down to the dioramas landscaping panel.The chain will be resting on the top of the engine.
That's a full sized engine.
Great details,
Carl.
Great details,
Carl.
JohnReid
A Fixture
JohnReid
A Fixture
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