Quayside

[Jakko]

Recently, I bought this Italeri set because I felt like building another diorama-without-models, as a base for putting them on and photographing them:

As the box says, it’s 30 cm wide, as well as about 20 cm deep and you can connect multiple elements — Italeri also makes it without the steps, both with a single element and as a set of two. In the box is this:

There’s also a bit of string, which I didn’t include in the photos. The last sprue, of course, is only in the set with the steps, but the parts for the quay itself are exactly the same in all sets, because:—

… the inside has lines for cutting out the opening for the steps.

Oddly, perhaps, there are no walls for the rear and sides, only two measly pillars with an L-profile that support the back of the top plate. I’m going to glue the whole to a base plate and so will add those sides to neatly enclose everything. Only thing is that a diorama doesn’t look so good when major lines run parallel to the base’s edges, so I began by drawing some lines to work out how to cut up the top plate:

It’s only a few degrees’ difference, but that will already make it look better. Important, though, is that the corners between the pencilled lines are 90° (assuming you want to use a rectangular base, of course). I pencilled in the dimensions too, so I won’t need to keep measuring them because I forget Then all that remained was to cut it with a Tamiya plastic cutter:

You don’t need to go all the way through, about halfway is enough, after that you can wiggle it up and down with some pliers until it snaps off. The plastic is about 2 mm thick and fairly hard, so this is more of an effort than it would be with regular plastic card. That done, I naturally also shortened the wall to match. What I only realised after the first cut is that I should have removed the raised bits, like the V shape that the pillar is supposed to be glued against, because they get in the way a lot when cutting.

And assembled for the picture:

Then I built the steps:

It still needs some seams puttied before I go on, though.

[Jakko]

After filing the cut edges of the main parts, cutting out the openings, smearing putty into the seams of the steps subassembly and cleaning that up, I put the three main pieces together:

That needs clamps (finally some use again for my ancient X-Acto ones! Largely because no others I have are deep enough) to get the “border” around the steps to sit correctly against the quay wall. That same border, though, means you don’t really have to tidy up the opening at all.

I found the best way to do this was to glue the steps to the top plate, by having them both upside-down on my work surface. Then, before the glue sets, I added the wall and clamped it once it was in position.

[c-g_simonsen]

always fun with something different. Here’s mine

[Jakko]

The base for the diorama, I made from a piece of smooth hardboard that I sawed to size by hand, then added some picture-frame wood edging around:

To have the edging fit properly requires some woodworking skill:

And since I have very little, I compensated with putty

I made the other three sides for the quay from 5 mm foam board, with some edges bevelled to make the corners:

Then glued them together with a hot glue gun:

The bevelled edges didn’t work that well, largely because it’s very hard to cut foam board neatly in a straight line and with a bevel. But we’ll fill that later, this isn’t the important side anyway

And since the glue gun was still hot, I stuck the whole quay to the base while I was at it:

There’s a bit of a gap between the wall and the hardboard that I didn’t count on. Now where is my putty?

[metalhead85]

I always liked that kit Jakko, there seems to be a lot you can do with it.

[SSGToms]

Hey Jakko that’s looking really excellent, and the way you have offset it from parallel really adds a dynamic element.

[Jakko]

@metalhead85

there seems to be a lot you can do with it.

You can get several and link them together with plates that are included on the sprue, though setting them at an angle will get ever more difficult, I would think. Unless you’re Bob Letterman reincarnated, of course

@SSGToms

the way you have offset it from parallel really adds a dynamic element.

I don’t like dioramas with major elements set parallel to the base, because I find it looks unnatural. In real life you very rarely look at anything dead-on unless you do it deliberately, and even then you can do that only with small things. Everything else runs off at odd angles to your frame of references, and since in a diorama the base is the frame of reference, IMHO it will look better if nothing is parallel to its edges. Even the small amount I did here (there’s only about a 1.5 cm difference in depth, left vs. right) breaks up that alignment and makes things seem less artificial to me.

[Tank_1812]

Shep Paine discusses it in his diorama book.

Your making good progress.

[G-man69]

Looking good Jakko, and I totally agree about not setting things out square, .

Looking forward to seeing this progress.

G,

[mech]

That looks nice.

[Jakko]

Tonight, I sprayed the first coats of paint on:

Tamiya medium grey plus dark earth (just a little under 1:1 ratio) for all of the stonework, because stones are generally grey-brown rather than just grey. I then mixed some black in to spray (semi-)random darker patches, and then much more black to add a dark area to some distance above the water’s surface.

For the water itself, I used Mr. Aqueous RLM 70 black-green for the area close to the quay wall and some random larger areas, while the lighter bits are olive drab (2) from the same brand.