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I´m currently building my first diorama and would now like some feed-back on my work so far. The theme is a death rider patrol in no mans land in front of a hastily abandoned section of Imperial trenchwork.
I´ve been buildning this more or less non-stop for the whole weekend and i´m starting to feel quite blind for my own mistakes so I would really appreciate your opinons on possible improvements.

The diorama so far:


Looks really messy as the glue isn´t dry yet
I´m planning to paint it up as wet mud, the metals are going to be covered in rust.



This part is supposed to look like a command center of some sort.



Gun 1, still missing trigger



Gun 1, different view.



The patrol in progess. It will be a really intresting challenge to paint these really awesome models.

Thanks for viewing!

So far I think that it looks awesome. Can't wait to see how it develops.

Reminds me of the scene in Mulan when they walk into the destroyed town.

Thanks for the positive comment!

Must be a long time since I´ve seen Mulan as I can´t remember any such likeness

Anyhow, here´s a small update. It´s sanded, primered and the mud (thickly) basecoated. The recipe for the mud is stoled from doubleT (thanks!).



Any and all criticism welcome!

Looks pretty damn cool - looking forward to seeing this progress.

Looks good so far.

Can I suggest a armourd shield or roof to go over the hvy bolter . And Bodys in the trench ? Also rats ?

Also it mite be hard to do but got about a dismounted trooper searching the trench ?

Looks good though looking forward to seeing it done .

Oh and shed loads of razor wire !

Bullfrog wrote:Looks good so far.

Thanks!

CURNOW wrote:Can I suggest a armourd shield or roof to go over the hvy bolter . And Bodys in the trench ? Also rats ?

Also it mite be hard to do but got about a dismounted trooper searching the trench ?

Looks good though looking forward to seeing it done .

Oh and shed loads of razor wire !

I added gunshields to the heavy bolters. About the trooper, I want the focus to be on the death riders so the trench will most likely be empty, but I will keep your idea in mind.
There is already quite a lot of razorwire on in the mud, but it´s kind of hard to see atm.

Thanks for your suggestions!

It dawned on me that I have not posted any photo with the riders in place, so here you go:

Nice work Sir! Hoping to pickup some Death Riders myself on Saturday. Looking forward to seeing more progress on this

Neat!

Fantastic work! Truly a tribute to the Emperor's loyal soldiers.

Nice! I'm liking what I see. Can't wait to view the final product.

Looking pretty good!
If you ever visit Helsinki I'd like you to show me that.


EDIT: Damn, my flag is lagging again... I'm from Finland.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
You should make The ground muddy/snowy, for The sake of "Kylmäsota" or was it "Jatkosota"?
Never been good at history

Very nice work!

sluggaslugga wrote:Looking pretty good!
If you ever visit Helsinki I'd like you to show me that.


EDIT: Damn, my flag is lagging again... I'm from Finland.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
You should make The ground muddy/snowy, for The sake of "Kylmäsota" or was it "Jatkosota"?
Never been good at history

Greetings fellow valhallan!

About that snow, I had that same thought, but got a definitive no-no from the "powers that be" (she said something about having seen enough snow to last for a lifetime this winter)

I heard that Turku was pretty white (no rasicm involved).

A fellow Krieg player salutes you.

Nice work. I'm liking the exposed metal plates. It gives the piece quite a bit of depth.

sluggaslugga wrote:I heard that Turku was pretty white (no rasicm involved).

Yeah, but Helsinki must have had really much of the white stuff, just read the other day that they had found some dead guy on a parking place outside some school there. Poor guy had been under the snow all winter and nobody noticed.

Evewalker wrote:A fellow Krieg player salutes you.

Nice work. I'm liking the exposed metal plates. It gives the piece quite a bit of depth.

Thanks! I´m aiming for a really rusty feel to the metals, I got hold of some nice vallejo pigments I'm dying to try out.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
A small update, I´ve started to get some paint down, still lots of work left, but atleast it´s something else than black primer



I´m quite pleased with how the wood looks, almost looks like it´s not painted at all(!)



The tree-stumps were a real challenge to paint, birch is really hard to get right.



I tried giving the rightmost corner in this photo some gloss varnish. What do you think, should I go for that look or keep the "dry" looking mud?

This looks awesomesauce. Quite incredible actually.

Absolutely stunning piece! I can appreciate the beauty of Death Riders, being the proud owner of a squad of them (with an extra thanks to Forge World's human error). Can't wait to see this with the finished Riders.

Good luck to you, this looks really good.

fallen_wolfborn wrote:This looks awesomesauce. Quite incredible actually.

You're making me blush, thanks for your feedback!

Oppl wrote:Absolutely stunning piece! I can appreciate the beauty of Death Riders, being the proud owner of a squad of them (with an extra thanks to Forge World's human error). Can't wait to see this with the finished Riders.

Good luck to you, this looks really good.

Yeah, the riders are really nice, almost makes me want to finish the base quickly so I get to paint them.

Oh my 0_0 wonderful work! Love the work on the trees, they do not look painted at all. As far as the varnish... maybe just apply it to the craters so that they look like recent impacts? I think that would make them stand out a little more.

Looking very good - love the colours already.

Luco wrote:Oh my 0_0 wonderful work! Love the work on the trees, they do not look painted at all. As far as the varnish... maybe just apply it to the craters so that they look like recent impacts? I think that would make them stand out a little more.

Thanks for your input, sounds like a great idea, i´ll try it out to see how it looks. Thanks!

SilverMK2 wrote:Looking very good - love the colours already.

Thansk!

After a slight pause to do some schoolwork(thesis seminar) I got a small update for you. The base for the diorama is done and I've started work on the riders. Sadly enough I'm not just that great of a painter so it's a bit "fugly".



The diorama with the riders, I'm really not pleased with how the "floor" of the trench turned out, any suggestions?


WIP on the first horseman, any thoughts on the greatcoat colors?

Also, as this seemed to have turned in to a blog, could any mod passing by maybe see fit to move this to P&M blogs?

Riders look great, the only suggestion I could think of for the floor is to use lolly sticks or matchsticks and create a duckboard effect, which would hide the bits you're not happy with. Edit: Also, the riders look a bit too clean, I would expect them to be a bit grubbier.

Valkyrie wrote:Riders look great, the only suggestion I could think of for the floor is to use lolly sticks or matchsticks and create a duckboard effect, which would hide the bits you're not happy with. Edit: Also, the riders look a bit too clean, I would expect them to be a bit grubbier.

Thanks you for your feedback, it's much appreciated!

About the trench floor, I've been playing with the idea of "muddying" up the floor completely and adding "walk boards" made out of wood on top of that to simulate a really wet, unstable mud. Also, I'm planning to add some weathering in the form of mud splatters to the riders greatcoat based on your suggestion.

I think you need to do some more paint layering and more hand done shadowing/highlighting because it looks obviously washed in not in a necessarily good way. Add more you actual painting on shades and highlights instead of just washes. Like, leave the wash in the darkest areas but repaint the base color every else then highlight the extreme edges. It will get rid of the near satin finish the wash gives and make it look less "3 colors then washed".

My $0.02...


Hit the riders & mounts with some dark and light brown weathering powders.

Drizzle some thin pools of water effect resin over the trench floor.

Cool stuff, can't wait to see it when it's done.

Also, it looks like you are a fast worker only 10 days to get that far? I know I couldn't do anything half as good in as much time.