WIP U Boat Conning Tower plus 1/35 Wolfe Figure Diorama

[rduvall]

This thread is for the build of the 1/35 Wolfe figure diorama.

This was the start! Excided for this one as I had seen this awhile ago but never got around to building it. This was what came in the box today from Scale75. Scale75 is located in Spain and of course I had to get the reference book.

 

[rduvall]

Finally got around to mocking up the base and cutting down the foam.

 

[rduvall]

This was the time I started hand carving the waves from the foam.

 

[rduvall]

On goes the Liquitex! This is my first attempt at hand sculpting water. The first coat is shown and up next is getting the sides on the base this week and adding another coat.

 

[rduvall]

If you can get your hands on this book, it is oh so valuable. The amount of references and never before published information especially on the clothes and just how the figures had been made is priceless.

 

[sd0324]

This is pretty cool, I'm following. Thanks for posting.


Steve

 

[Briggsy]

Yep I'm on board to watch this, I like the waves, never been brave enough to try depicting water.

Cheers Simon

 

[SUPER ANTO]

Very nice starting, I await more updates...

 

[rduvall]

Yep I'm on board to watch this, I like the waves, never been brave enough to try depicting water.

Cheers Simon

I have always said the same thing until that one model came along, lol. Plus it helps expand my skill set in diorama building.

 

[rduvall]

Very nice starting, I await more updates...

More! lol Yes I usually post two times a week and today is update day.

 

[rduvall]

This is my first time using Lifecolor paints. Last week I had done a swatch test to see how it paints, dries, sheen, mixes, quality of the bottles. This color set will be the colors of the sub.

I would recommend Lifecolor as one interesting things is for an acrylic, it was thing right out of the jar like I can spray it without thinning from the bottle. The one item I would give Lifecolor a recommendation was a little bit bigger size of jar. The quality of the packaging & box art was very nice and the jar holders in the box kept everything sturdy.

Now the results of the swatch test. This turned out well and was flat & matte. I was wondering just how matte but felt great once dried. I feel like this stuff would work well in my airbrush.

 

[rduvall]

One item I should of posted was in the Wolfe book, it shows how the scanning on the figures in the set had been made. There Digis!

The book has a ton of detail about actual clothes they wore, so you see real time the colors especially the leather grey pants.

 

[rduvall]

Talking about figures, this is a preview shot of the figures still in the bag. For the cost of the diorama and getting this many figures, this model set is a good value.

After reading in the Wolfe book how they scanned real people wearing the actually clothes from collectors, checking the detail of the figures was really cool!

I didn't think you could scan a real life person that well and also have is scale down to 1/35 for the amount of detail. I will do a full photo set of each figure when the time comes.

 

[rduvall]

The hull of the sub has been assembled and time to break out the epoxy sculpt because the amount of gaps is not good.

 

[rduvall]

Yeah about those gaps..lol. Not cool and the fit of these two pieces is going to take some sculpting to get the gap gone.

Also, this diorama will had sound so I've got the circuit completed in hand plus engineered the sound, just need to 3D print a housing for it next.

 

[Briggsy]

What a lot to digest there, shame about the gaps though. Interesting that all the figures are human scans, will add true randomness regarding height, build and body shape to the figures unless the same person models all the uniforms. The sound aspect is intriguing I never even progressed to lights so this will be very interesting.

Cheers Simon

 

[Rocco82]

Such a cool piece. Very interesting regards the scanning!
But yeah those horrible gaps :/

You say it's going to have sound!? Could you elaborate a little?

Following with intrest!

 

[rduvall]

What a lot to digest there, shame about the gaps though. Interesting that all the figures are human scans, will add true randomness regarding height, build and body shape to the figures unless the same person models all the uniforms. The sound aspect is intriguing I never even progressed to lights so this will be very interesting.

Cheers Simon

This weekend the sound module housing is getting finished as the design prototype housing is done and now as we speak printing the housing. One unknown is the housing is starting off as a standalone unit with a badge I'm going to design from the Wolfe book info. I wasn't sure if it really needed to be attached to the diorama but want to start with a stand along unit. It just something about sound/dramatic music with you look at this diorama that it adds a great complement to help the viewer understand the rough sea and bonding of the men as a crew.

 

[rduvall]

Such a cool piece. Very interesting regards the scanning!
But yeah those horrible gaps :/

You say it's going to have sound!? Could you elaborate a little?

Following with intrest!

Yes, the sound aspect! This is a concept I've never seen in person in a diorama that has an effect of basically transporting the viewer mentally into the diorama. When I first had seen the diorama it was a great piece and I was listening to some music when looking at the diorama and it clicked that it needed sound. Not like war sound but dramatic sound like a sea movie rough sea style tone. One of the biggest challenges was how to figure out a sound circuit that was only powered off watch batteries. Plus you had to be able to record music. This is where amazon came in with a sound chip. Only ran me about $16 I think but it does the job well.

 

[rduvall]

This week I finally get to put more time in on this project as its cold out.

My upcoming task list is finish all of the side construction on the diorama base, finish filling all of the gaps on the sub hull, I need to take a photo set of each figure showing details of the figures, and start the machine gun sub assembly.

Plus I've designed a bunch of items I've printed for our local club that I'll show that are just for this project. All of the STL files have been dontated.