WIP 'Ulla' - The War of The Worlds

[smudger1960]

I've finally decided to do something that i have put off for long time,it was back in 1978 as a young 18 year old that i had a big interest in music and i first came across the album by Jeff Wayne titled war of the worlds,although i have never read the book once i had heard the album i was hooked and 33 years later i am still playing it 2 or 3 times a week.
Having been modeling since i was a kid it has only been these last 25 years that i have taken the hobby seriously,in that time i have built many dioramas and figures but had never thought of doing anything related to WOTW until a couple of years ago,now i have finally decided i want to do something and what i had in mind would be a diorama depicting the defeated martians.
The idea i had would be to create a ruined house scene mostly interior with some exterior detailing as well with perhaps some figures overseeing the fallen fighting machines.
I plan to divide the diorama into two projects,this first phase will be about the construction of the ruined building and all the detailing and the second phase will be about the construction of the fighting machines,at this stage i plan to have 2 of these within the setting.
I have some idea of the type of figures i want in the scene but this is something i will address later in the project.
To begin the construction i used sheets of 10mm balsa which was cut to shape and pinned together and finally glued using 5 min epoxy resin.
Using a 54mm figure as a height guide i marked out the locations of the first and second floor which would be where the floor / ceiling joists will be positioned.
Windows wer'e then marked and cut out roughly,these would be touched up later.
I then applied a thin coat of polyfilla to the interior walls,i left this to dry for 20 mins and then smoothed over with a wet brush.

 

[1969]

WOTW !!! now that brings back some memories, first heard that Album in school around the late 70`s, really moving stuff when you are in junior school, spooked me a bit and made me think one day we would get invaded.

Looking forward to seeing the three legged machine, are you scratch building it ?

Steve

 

[smudger1960]

Steve
Unfortunately my scratch building skills are very limited,the body shape will be similar to the album drawings but not exact,the legs i will have a go at with brass and plastic rod,thanks for looking,i hope you enjoyed the album when you heard it.

 

[kansas kid]

Aw Brian, super kewl, amigo.

Like Steve Readdie, I'm really excited about this project. I looked closely
at your arrangement of the interior wall pieces and how you decided to pose
them together, the height of certain pieces, the cut a ways for the damage,
et cetera. It looks like you're having a lot of fun. And of course, OBVIOUSLY
that is the important part.

I really like the idea, and think it will be very interesting. Will follow this
with much interest. Good luck and have fun,

The Miami Jayhawk

 

[smudger1960]

As i said in my first post i would also be completing some work to the exterior of the building,for this i purchased some embosed brick which comes in A4 size sheets form my local model shop,this was cut to size with the window sections cut away and secured to all the exterior walls with epoxy resin.
I added some building damage to the cornrs of the building and these will be better detailed once the painting process has started.
Having built dioramas many years ago i kept almost all the accessories i used to use and was able to incorporate some of these in the process of detailing the building,(i'm what they call a hoarder,i never throw anything away),i love ruined building's you can really use your imagination when detailing them,and i will definately be using as much detail as i can incorporate into the scene.
I managed to use some of these accessories to detail the outer windows with plasticard and paving panels which wer'e used as the window sills.
5mm balsa was cut and fixed accodingly adjacent to the building which will depict the paving area,onto this i used pices of plastic sheet pavement placed in odd areas where the pavement would be visible once the ruin debris is placed.
I also used the same plastic sheet material which this time represented cobblestones and when cut to shape wer'e place adjacent to the pavement area to depict the road area.

 

[Chevalier de Malte]

Great book, great music and great idea, still love to here Forever Autumn and Thunderchild! Do you now there is a musical going around wish to see it one day ...

What are you planning a tripod?

Ivan

 

[megroot]

I was at war of the worlds last november in Lotto Arena in Antwerp.
It was better and bigger then the Night of the Proms.
The ten mans formation Black Smoke Band and the Philamonic Orchestre and off course Jason Donovan made it to something really special and to remember the rest of my days.
Now, you gonna make some diorama of it....Well, i gonna follow this closely but so far your on the way to something really big.
Here you see some images of the house and of course a little bit of the show.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9DhO7A5nh8&feature=related
Marc

 

[smudger1960]

Ivan - thanks for your coments,i am hoping to see the live show in july.

Marc - thanks for your coments also and the web link,my wife brought me the DVD of the show and i love it,i bet it was great being there,hope you enjoyed it,as i just said to ivan,i'm going to see the show in july for a birthday present. Ullaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa,

 

[housecarl]

One of my favourite albums Brian, will you be having some red weed? Is there a manufacturer for the embossed plastic, I take it that's it's 1/35th?
Waiting for an update, on the build that is,
Carl.

 

[Dan Morton]

Too cool! I must have read War of the Worlds 10 times and recently listened to an audio tape of it.

Very interested to see what you do with one of the Martian machines. Are you going to stick to the descriptions given by Wells or take off on a flight of imagination? I hope you don't follow the 1960s movie version (first image). Strangely, I think that movie version got the look of the Martian about right (for me at least). The third image is always what I see in my mind's eye when I think of the machine.

There are really a lot of images of the Martians, machines and quite a lot of model kits on this subject. Google image search "martian+machine" and see what you get.

All the best,
Dan

 

[smudger1960]

Continuing on from my previous post i have added some more detail to the building interior,i've created patches of brickwork with my hobby drill set at low speed,first i sketched the bricks onto the wall at different points and then created them with the drill.

The next phase was to create the 3x damaged floor levels,i made up some small templates to assemble the individual levels and then added them to the walls accordingly,floor boards wer'e installed at different lengths with some gaps left to represent broken or missing boards,these wer'e created by using balsa strip,ceiling joists and beams wer'e also created by using balsa sections and the ceiling areas wer'e also made with balsa.
After 2x days i am quite happy with the way the building is shaping up,i will next concentrate on the window frames and the damaged roof section.

 

[smudger1960]

Carl - to awnser your question about the red weed,i am hoping to icorporate a few things from the storey even the parson 'nathaniel',i might find it a bit of a struggle but i'm working on it mate

Dan - i have the DVD of the first film,i like the story line but not the fighting machine,i also have the new tom cruise version but agian i did'nt like the machine,i am not going to scratch build the machine,i am going to find something of similar shape and customize it myself,it wont be an exact replica of the one on the album but it may be similar.

The Earth Belongs To The Martians.

 

[gordy]

Really nice work Brian, thanks for sharing the progress!

 

[tonydawe]

Brian,

Superb work mate. Love WOTW the musical. I actually have it in my car CD stacker at the moment and listen to it regularly. Can't beat Richard Burton's opening monologue for sheer dramatic poetry.

 

[rheath]

Cool stuff here Smudger !! Your really good at your dio building work I like it allot, keep us up to speed here !!

 

[theBaron]

Excellent project, Smudger! Looking forward to seeing your process and progress!

@the others--I'm a fan of the 1953 movie, too, but I like the version of the war machine they developed. It took me a couple of viewings as a kid before I realized that they did make them as tripods, but the "legs" were power beams. I've since learned that the original effect was to have used a sparking mechanism, but it was feared to be a fire hazard, so it was only used in scenes filmed early in the production. But as a kid growing in the 70s, watching classic sci-fi and horror films Saturday afternoons on UHF (anyone remember Dr. Shock in Philly?), this was one that I always enjoyed. Even with some features that would become cliches later in the genre (eg, the first people to contact approaching the Martians with a white flag, the minister who turns the other cheek, and every weapon we can throw at them fails)

And actually, I think their depiction of the Martians strays farther from Wells' description in the novel, but still, very effective.

Later remakes--meh.

Prost!
Brad

 

[mil-mart]

Brian, brilliant work on the building so far and really looking forward to following how this turns out.

Cheers Ken

 

[smudger1960]

Thank you all for your latest coments,i've just finished another sitting tonight working on the roof section and the first stages of the rubble.

Brad - i am 50 years old and i thought i'd seen most sci-fi programmes and films growing up but i have never heard of Dr Shock and philly,what was this about ?,

Yet again i have used balsa strip and section to assemble the main roof beams and slats,i will be adding roof tiles in my next sitting,i need to cut these individually from plasticard but i've used it all,journey to the model shop tommorow to pick some up.

As you can see from the photo's i have added diferent shape pieces of polystyrene to the groundwork area's,this is because due to the amount of debris in a ruined building i will need to build up the debris areas so they look quite high in the rubble areas.
Once the polystyrene has been glued (DO NOT USE SUPER GLUE ON POLYSTYRENE AS IT WILL MELT THE PRODUCT),i use 5 minute epoxy resin.
After this has dried i applied a coat of polyfilla over the polystyrene and then brushed diluted PVA glue over the whole area's,then i applied fine dust and some masonry parts to the affected areas,this will be the first stage of building of the fallen debris,this will then be left to dry for 24 hours.
I also did the same on the different floor levels on the building but nowhere near as much as on the ground.

Happy Modeling - Brian,

 

[gordy]

Very nice Brad Thank you for the explanation!

 

[khorgor]

looking forward to this one. I almost thought you were going to go with the scene of the journalist and the priest under the smashed house.
Also a big fan of the musical.

In regards to the machine, you can always go on the design that was given in the CD booklet of the musical on CD (the tripod with human capturing devices)

Good luck with this one. Will be following.