You may wish to give this one a new paint job. Military vehicles passing into use by civilian agencies (including Law Enforcement) often gain distinctive new liveries. This tread shows some, but I seem to recall a more extensive discussion elsewhere:
Regards,
M
Iād forgotten it was Bouncey, she always looked more like a ā90ās Jolie to me. Given your Tay-tay comment Iāve now become confused about whether the sceneās a kinda-Now as seen from the 80ās, or a near-future as seen from Now. Whatever, given itās a not-quite-Now wouldnāt an unrecognisable starlet (yet-to-be-discovered) fit the bill(board) better? On the other hand I like the billboard just the way it is.
Those two Evolution guys ā my occasionally elephantine memory noted when you first showed āem on the original Armorama blog 6 years ago. I saw, I bought, I paint ā like right now, today. (In Latin thatās approximately Vidi, Emit, Pingo) I was hoping youād ditch āem haha but I know why you havenāt, they really are too good. At least youāve chosen different colours & amusingly both of us have altered their original manufacturer identities ā and one of their heads, I noticed.
So many little bits and scenes within scenes I had forgotten about ā¦ great to see them again
Thatās only the half of it. Live in a house with 2 Tay-tay zombies. Itās all the time, 24/7 who she might be dating, what the special songs might be played, what was played and what should have been played, the Illuminati discussions on whatever she does and what signals she is sending. 
This is why god inventing scale modelling ā¦ to get you away from all that ā¦ 
I have 4 daughters, all Swifties! Theyāre all married off now but I have no idea how I made it through alive.
The Bladerunner movie was unique in that it had an ethereal atmosphere throughout the whole film that other films have failed to capture. Nick your diorama enraptures the viewer because it has some of that atmosphere swirling around itā¦
Someone should give you a metal for that. I was the Uber to the Philly (Eagles stadium) show/weekend or as I think of it the Gamma Goat build. 
And @Johnnych01 it was the last heard as my eyes closed on the pillow and on the few times I slept in when they opened or not long after.
Keep up the good work Nick. 
Medal ā¦
Nice job no matter how long it takes. 
Hi model builders,
well, I guess as long as this sat untouched for a few years, it will take a while to get up and running again - or at least, up and moving again - small steps are fine!
@SSGToms and @Dioramartin , Matt yes, the ethereal atmosphere, I appreciate your word choice - that is a challenge in and of itself as it seems to be both dark and light at the same time - the dark grungy buildings, and brilliance of the dramatically lit up sign board, street front uses and shops, and random lighting :
Above, only half of the main street, and the degree of lighting, with only select use of focused light - Iām still pondering how to best photo this when itās done! 
The lights in the building on the left are not turned on.
In the meantime, as noted, Iām rethinking how some of this goes together, or comes apart, then goes together again!
First up, the bar - where there is a lot going on, but a lot like the interior of a tank, itās hard to see. So, the idea I had was to remove all the figures:
On the left above, you can see, the full bar, except, most of the figures are well within the bar, which as you would expect, are hard/impossible to see from the street. In this case, there is action on the street, so I am going to reorient the figures out to, and even on the street. On the right, you can see there is a fair amount of detail in the bar - including our two bar tenders!
In addition to my cardboard cut out people, there were a lot of resin figs in there! Not only, not that visible, they did a pretty good job of blocking views of that fancy pants bar - no more!
As you can see in the street views above, you canāt even see into the bar on two streets! so, to address this, Iām pulling people out to the sidewalk. The view from the third street provides a pretty good view into the bar, so I will try and leave a discrete view corridor in.
There is a lot going on along the streets, so expecting bar action to spill out seems reasonable to me - especially as there will be an āincidentā occurring! This also emphasizes the importance of deciding what goes where on the streets, which is why I rethought the vehicles and their placement.
These images also illustrate the more unusual question of what the āoutside/other sideā of this build looks like - which was not very good:
ā¦yeahā¦these walls clearly suggest that there is something interesting withinā¦ 
no, they donāt so, I went about changing them, intentionally abstract representations, rather than more laborious details that have nothing to do with the āactualā dio. So, changes were made:
This was not a pretty process - I tore off facades, added framing, rerouted wiring and so onā¦good times. While not done, we are making some headway:
As the āfrontā / dio sides of these are unique, so are the backs/exterior walls. More is being added to each of these - and the third building:
The goal here is to make these interesting, and generally representative of the same āfamilyā of buildings and styles. You would not believe how slowly this went.
The relatively good/bad news is that real work is slow right now, so, I have time to fool around with this.
Lots of sports radio - hours and hours of thoughts on whatās going on with the Niners, the drama of the MLB playoffs, and predictions for what will come of the Warriors this year - essentially white noise 
Iāll keep adding details and then paint. This thing is getting really heavy!
Happy model building,
Cheers
Nick
Loving the (literally) behind-the-scenes, I always wondered what they looked like & like the best stripper youāve finally revealed all. Oops I know you didnāt want me to mention your evening job, sorry about that. Hafta say your um rears look so much better than mine.
Pondering ethereality, for photography my first thought was a smoke machine, but then I wondered if a steam supply would be better? I guess if you dawdled too long with the shots everything would get wetā¦but then wouldnāt that be even cooler? It would likely wreck some elements of the scenery though, so it depends what your intentions might be post-photography.
Strange synchronicity Iām finishing my own years-old project too right now ā I took final photos yesterday and today destroyed one of the buildings. Pointless storing it, but it shredded me.
As always . stellar work , ā¦ or rework .
Like your thinking on the bar patrons spilling out into the streets , canāt count the times while I was imbibing in my local Gin Mill , a commotion outside in the parking lot drew all the looky loos out for a gander . I never went out though , Iāve seen my share of dog or cat fights in bar parking lots , besides if anything serious happened I didnāt want to have to go to court to be a witness .
Disclaimer ā¦ long boring story ā¦ as to why you donāt get involved in crap like that .
Way back when , I was going into the hospital for an operation and some friends of mine took me out for a few beers at the Crows Nest . Rt 17 , South Hackensack the night before my surgery .
Upon leaving the bar a guy was slapping his girlfriend around in the parking lot , well me being Batman I was about to intervene when one of my buddies grabbed my arm and told me to let it go , it was none of my business .
I wake up after surgery in the hospital and thereās a guy in the bed next to me with his head , face and chest all bandaged up .
One of my buddies came to see me and said " See that guy in the bed next to you , thatās why you donāt get involved with a guy and a gal having a fight in the parking lot "
Turns out , another guy leaving the bar right after us did do the Batman thing and grabbed the guy off his girl and started slapping him around .
The guys girlfriend pulled out a 25cal pistol and shot Batman in the head and chest five times ā¦
Lesson learned ā¦
Any way Nick , thatās some beautiful work man !!!
@Dioramartin, Maybe we both got sick of looking at our big and unwieldy dust collectors at the same time?
As for the ambient photos, Iām thinking about dragging this thing outside in the evening, a good and foggy evening - why not? Many of the streetlights here have amber bulbs, or LEDs? anyway - they tend to bring an equally amber glow to the fog. Not quite really foggy here yet, but it will eventually happen, and at the rate Iām going, the timing might be perfect!
As for your destroyed building, sorry to hear - and I can empathizeā¦Iāve accidentally destroyed a few! Sometimes they get fixed, others, well, now they collect dust as demolished buildings
@Cheyenne - wow! you seem to have dodged the proverbial, or in this case, the real bullet. Seems 99% of the time, the local bar is good fun - then itās not. Glad your friend called you off.
Thanks - the less perilous world of model building! although, I can clearly note that drinking and model building is not a good idea at least for me!
Cheers 
Nick
Sounds like a very good idea. Those are some tight spaces to get pics from. Ruck On, bby!
You could also use a fog machine or blow cigarette smoke into the scene when photographing it.
Ken
Hi model builders,
A short update today, sharing the completed back sides of the project. Youād be surprised how long all of this took, I was anyway. After the build, each side received base color coats, two layers (different colors) of decrepitude, and a final wash of dust. Iām glad its done! 
Hopefully what I described before makes sense now, in that the back sides have some detail and paint, but are not done to the same level as the internal focus area.
In addition to now having a more complete looking project, this now allows me to take some longer distance photos:
Not having finished sides meant I had to crop images to only include the detailed dio area, but now, I can back off and make less compressed/cropped photos.
While this took a lot longer than I expected, I do like the results and the process was fairly interesting.
Before I get into relocating figures and such, Iāll work on other clean up items, like my pothole repairs above, so those will need some paint. I donāt mind if they donāt blend exactly, but also donāt want them to stand out as they do now, wiring and some paint/materials touch upsā¦
Ok, thanks for having a look -
Cheers
Nick
I was at first skeptical about doing anything to the backside of the diorama other than slapping a cover on it and painting it black, but I now see the wisdom of your approach. It is rendered perfectly to avoid distracting from the action on the inside. Very much the way the right frame for a painting draws focus onto the subject without stealing any of the attention for itself. Very well done.
I concur with my learned friend Mark, remarkably effective particularly if you go for low light/fog ā it pretty-much doubles/trebles the potential frame-area for some longer-range views. Just one or two LEDs showing round the edges of a couple of those rear windows/panels (i.e. lights on, someone home) would completely convince me anyway.
Looking better and better!!! Wow.
