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Okay Dakkadakka.

I'm FULL of soju, but it's all good.

So. 2020, huh?

That was a thing that happened.
Not unlike Ewan McGregor's dashing Obi-Wan at the end of The Phantom Menace, I too, 3 months into my tenure as a teacher out in Japan, found myself, unexpectedly, dashing and witty as I am, with a padawan.

From about as different cultures as it gets in the anglosphere, to really rather radically different backgrounds, kind of like a buddy cop movie, only like, teaching bumpkin Japanese kids who'd rather be playing softball, rather than breaking up an 80s drug ring, and fewer gunfights than navigating the horrific ins and outs of Japanese bureaucracy, we became pretty good friends.
This particular friend is gonna head back to the good old USA in a few months time.
SO, I decided, as the two of us have shared our mutual nerddom, to make a miniature inspired leaving gift.

Here in Japan, when someone is starting a new business, often they are given a gift of a porcelain, cartoonish Tanuki, the raccoon-like mammals famed for their huge testicles, love of sake and ability to shapeshift to get up to all sorts of hijinks involving both.
In my time in Japan, I've seen at least two. Much to the chagrin of my padawan, who loves them, but has yet to see one at all.
Cutting to the chase...
...man, I'd be a great drunk Korean Ajeosshi, all this soju makes me wanna tell stories...
I decided I'd build a little diorama type thing, inside a case (to make it easier to dust etc. my friend, tho a nerd, it also a normie, and an exposed miniature diorama would be hell to keep clean).

The rough plan is as follows. I'm building plaster rocks out of Woodland Scenics silicone molds. Currently weighing up what to use for the bulk of the rock/earth/terrain basing, but I have plenty of cork, and access to clay, so it's not a massive problem. Was thinking of using tinfoil, but I don't wanna scratch the inside of the display case (shown), so I think that's out for now. A real concern is weight, as when I asked

about a red herring thing to send to their spouse, they told me they'd take it back in their hand luggage - so keeping weight down is a bit of a concern.

What you see here is, broadly, a 3d sketch of what I plan to do.
I have some critical elements - tanuki, beer, takoyaki - already bought, and today whilst casting rocks, made a pretty nice cliff face. My friend really enjoys mountian stuff in Japan, so I thought I'd include a few mountain-y things - trees, moss, etc. as part of the diorama. Lastly, to make matters harder, I want to submerge part of the diorama in Woodland Scenics water, as a final touch.
This means I need to finish everything, and then, as far as I know, glue the case shut, drill a hole in the bottom, stick a syringe in, seal the hole around the syringe, flood however much I want with water, then wait for it to all set before tidying up wherever the syringe was.

So yeah. That's kinda how things are (I had to take a couple of phone calls and now I am much drunker)
I guess I'm putting this on Dakka for posterity, but also, a real critical concern of mine is that I'll do this wrong. If there are any adept diorama/terrain makers, please hit me up, pop into this thread, because, for the sake of the person concerned, I really really don't wanna beans this one.

So yeah, thanks for stopping by.

This is immensely adorable and also I need to rewatch Pom Poko now. Maybe you should cut up a couple of Lumineth kits for the little bonsai trees?

Okay, so, progress was pretty slow this week. Some of that was due to me shirking the state of emergency in my prefecture to go on dates with cute Brazilian girls, and some of it was because gak has been gakky lately and I'm tired.

However! Grabbed a wad of air-drying clay today, and while I very much need to shorten the legs on the bench (still not sold on this as a detail ) everything is kinda shaping up!
Might shift the branch in front, or swap it for a smaller one, and move this big boy back and to the left of the Tanuki, but otherwise, construction seems to be going alright.

Say a prayer to whatever fickle deity presides over us hobbyists that the good weather keeps up, but the plan is to prime this sometime this week, and then I get to texture and painting.

Cheers for looking!


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Oh feth it's sideways


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 MobileSuitRandom wrote:
This is immensely adorable and also I need to rewatch Pom Poko now. Maybe you should cut up a couple of Lumineth kits for the little bonsai trees?

Hahaha, I had, actually. Bit of an expensive way to get them, tbh, and my local hobby store sells tiny bonsai trees for a fraction of the price. Depending on how things look when I get stuff a little more painted up, I'll deffo have a good think about it! Cheers so much for stopping by!

Working on texture tonight! Hopefully I'll get this primed before Monday! Clock is ticking!

I've been using Tamiya's Diorama Texture Paint: Soil Effect - Dark Earth to give a more organic base texture to the clay, and fillin any holes. This was just the first layer and I'll probably do a fair bit of touching up tomorrow, though mostly this is all dry now. Idk if it's the early summer dry heat, but this stuff seems to dry hella fast.

Also! Made some leaves! Tiny tiny little leaves. Gonna scatter them around as a final touch.

Thanks for looking fellas!

So, a quick break in the weather today means that I could finally get this primed. Plan on getting a bit wild with basecoats and overbrushing, but it feels like this is coming together nice and fast.

Okay, did a cheeky round of colour-blocking-in, things are starting to shape up. I'm planning on drybrushing the sand darker initially, to make is seem a bit soilier, but like, sandy soil? Y'know?

I'm going to die laughing how awesome and humorous this is! Tottemo yoii desu!

 RegularGuy wrote:
I'm going to die laughing how awesome and humorous this is! Tottemo yoii desu!

ありがとうございます〜
Appreciate the kind words! Trying to tread a fine line between like actually good looking, funny and cute all at once, and feeling the pressure a bit. I've got 5 weeks, which I know is plenty, but really I need to be a bit more militant ahaha!

Did a lot of drybrushing and washing and re-drybrushing tonight. idk how well it shows up on camera, but I've worked some greens and browns in, mostly as a prelude to the vegetation I want in the scene. The rock faces are starting to be pretty much there, so soil should follow pretty shortly after, and then...

...moss hell.
Ishikawa, being as it is, one of the wettest parts of Japan (yo, wtf is up with this??? We're the bit that's like second closest to Korea, and they get no rain at all??? smdh), we are very mossy - my pal is Texan, so like, no moss, just scorpions and grackles and brisket (am I doing this right? Should I be mean about Austin techbros too?) as far as I've been able to culturally osmosis? But it's something my friend really likes (yo moss gardens out here are pretty dope though... ) so I want to really moss it up. I've got a bunch of bigger, clumpier synthetic moss that I want to make a little finer, but my local hobby shop also has a few really nice bags of moss, so I might raid those, esp as mine are a tad garish and sythetic in colour....



Also! I've more of less got the bench sorted, now, but I'm toying with getting a slightly thinner bit of wood, just so there's more space between the top of the Tanuki's head and the case.
Initially, going off of the weight, I thought I had balsa wood - (I have 100円 shop wood, don't think it even came with a label haha) - but having gotten my modeling saw into the stuff, it's much much tougher than balsa ever was when I've used it in the past.

Should I bother with priming it? Or should I just dive straight in and throw some agrax on it, and just work with the textures and colours mother nature is giving me?

Again, cheers for looking, guys! Doing my best!

This weekend was crazy, and humidity is shooting up, so I've had to battle with paint drying on my drybrush faster than I can get it on the model, now I'm having to fight washes and inks never ever drying because the air is made of sweat and discomfort (I think rainy season came like 20 days early this year and I am unimpressed).
That said, I think - save one final pass of weathering powder - the terrain is about done, before moss.
I gave the Tanuki a pass of agrax, too, just to give him a spot of depth.

I'm probably gonna weather the bench a little more, but I haven't really decided how I'll do that. I like how much agrax darkens the wood, but I feel like maybe the color isn't dark enough. It looks much lighter in the pictures, but I also think the weathering solutions I have might be able to get things a bit more contrast-y, which might be cool.

Again, cheers for looking! Take care!

So, it's been a while, but I'm REALLY getting close to the deadline of when I can finish this. This week wasn't great, and I was pretty timid about using my new moss, but I got over it today, and I've made an okay inroads. Been practicing on this lil whfb base that I've been using to test ideas on. Gonna keep picking away tonight - I've got a lovely bottle of red wine to finish, and I'm gonna try to get to the end of this the way I started it - drunk and scared.

Anyway, some pics. Glued the bench on today - after all, it's a little crooked, but damnit, I think it kinda fits. Gonna get the legs nice and mossy, then glue the stuff on top. Not sure where I'll put the crumpled beer can - tempted to leave it on the ground, or even in the water, but something about making the Tanuki litter doesnt sit well with me hahaha. On the subject of which, I decided to touch up our little furry friend again. I washed him with agrax before, but there was just something unsettling about how his eyes had been painted red. I decided to give them a more naturalistic look, and made them a kind of shiny brown? Think it's more or less worked out, though the curse of the right eye just being kinda hard to paint remains with me.
I got some little plastic ferns at the local model shop, too, I think they really fit nicely. They're also kind of useful for covering up little mishaps, which is nice, and I think I'll toss a few on my boggy whfb bases if I can, too, as they scale really nicely with warhammer minis.
The main thing today was drilling out holes for the syringes for the water. I'm gonna trim the tubes down, and, since the holes are a little wide for the needles, plug them with epoxy before the great flooding, when I'll glue down the plastic case, and then fill the bottom of the diorama with woodland scenics water.

Things I'm planning on doing before the flood
This is kind of just a reminder for me.
I want to add some twigs, as fallen/decaying trees/treestumps. There's one in the case, that was kind of a visual sketch, but idk how much I love it right now.
Need to apply moss - this also means I need to finish messing about with moss.
Need to figure out if I'm just gonna paint the base black and leave it, or if I'm gonna do something else. There's a shop in town that sells pretty nice Washi tape, so I might wrap that around the bottom instead? As of right now, I kinda feel like I need to give it a slightly more Japanese vibe?
Leaves. Man, I made all those lil leaves, you can be damned sure I'm gonna use 'em.

Anyway, thanks for dropping by!

Quite update before work!

Last night I finished off the last of the moss. I think I went through most of the stages of grief with this one, starting with a beautiful bottom layer of olive green, dry looking moss (will probably use that stuff again for warhammer projects, feels like it would fit human sized GW minis-scale terrain very nicely), followed by much denser dark green, that on it's own didn't look so pretty, and slurped up the PVA solution I was using like it was the precious last drops of PVA in the world. Last night, I got the light green on, and I think it's really pulled the whole thing together. Gonna tidy up the base tonight, glue the tanuki, his beers and his takoyaki to the bench, and from then on, I put my fate in the hands of Woodland scenics.

Looks amazing. Fun project.

 Nevelon wrote:
Looks amazing. Fun project.

Thanks very much! It's been a very specific kind of nerve-wracking fun, hahahaha, but the masochist in me likes to try and push my hobby stuff out of my comfort zone once in a while

Again, cheers so much for the comment! Really appreciate it!

 posermcbogus wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
Looks amazing. Fun project.

Thanks very much! It's been a very specific kind of nerve-wracking fun, hahahaha, but the masochist in me likes to try and push my hobby stuff out of my comfort zone once in a while

Again, cheers so much for the comment! Really appreciate it!

I’ve been lurking from the start of this thread and enjoying it. I try to make sure my posts add value to a thread, and haven’t had any consecutive advice to offer. But this whole thing is pretty darn cool, and it’s been too quiet. Looking forward to seeing it finished, hope the final steps go smoothly.

 Nevelon wrote:

 posermcbogus wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
Looks amazing. Fun project.

Thanks very much! It's been a very specific kind of nerve-wracking fun, hahahaha, but the masochist in me likes to try and push my hobby stuff out of my comfort zone once in a while

Again, cheers so much for the comment! Really appreciate it!

I’ve been lurking from the start of this thread and enjoying it. I try to make sure my posts add value to a thread, and haven’t had any consecutive advice to offer. But this whole thing is pretty darn cool, and it’s been too quiet. Looking forward to seeing it finished, hope the final steps go smoothly.

Hahaha, not gonna lie, I was pretty nervous about how silent everything was, so I kinda just felt my way through the whole project. No one's butted in yet to tell me that I'm gonna ruin everything, so... that's probably a good sign, hahaha. Very neurotic about fogging up the case with glue or the Woodland Scenics water, though...
Nearing the last few steps is pretty dizzying, but the timing is working out pretty good. I'm hoping to have everything assembled and in place by Wednesday, and if the Woodland Scenics dries, I should be able to give it to my friend before the week is out.
Knowing someone out there is reading my mad ramblings means a lot, man, thanks for all the kind words.

Looks great so far!! I kinda like how large the beer cans are compared to the Tanuki, shows its mystical strength that it can crumple an entire can with its little paws

Good luck with the water effects, looking forward to the next post!

looking really good,

MobileSuitRandom wrote:Looks great so far!! I kinda like how large the beer cans are compared to the Tanuki, shows its mystical strength that it can crumple an entire can with its little paws

Good luck with the water effects, looking forward to the next post!

Thanks very much! It was sort of just the scale that the world of Japanese miniature goods gave me, but I like that the cans and the takoyaki feel like they're scaled for humans, and he's somehow gotten his rascally paws on them.
I've done a smidge more this evening - mostly watching paint/glue dry, haha. And! Step 1 of the flood begins. I've glued the needles in place, and I'm going to (probably, pretty sleepy right now. Got caught in a rainy season downpour on my jog and I'm feeling ) mix up some epoxy and fill in the gaps from below, with a view to clipping the needles down to a better size after work tomorrow, when everything is nice and dry.
really glad this little drying rack has enough clearance to get the syringes underneath, and I think I have two very conveniently identical bookcases to set the whole thing up on in preparation for THE FLOOD, but then I can just move the whole setup back onto my workbench while it dries. Scary stuff haha.

bobbuilder wrote:looking really good,

Cheers so much, dude! It's mad to look back at how this started with a mess of bits, wood bark chippings, some plaster molds, cheap air drying clay, and some very wild dreams, and how it's more or less come together exactly as I'd hoped. There's light at the end of the tunnel, here.

Thanks everyone for dropping by today!


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tiny baby bedtime edit: epoxy now in place, needles fully glued

Okay

Tired Friday night. Work tomorrow. Trying to get this done on time. gak gak gak.

Tonight was the night of the flood. Put approx 30ml of woodland scenics water into the bottom of the diorama. Now, if you look at the second picture, there's... a small leak.

I'm just gonna ignore it for now, and keep an eye on the project for the rest of the night (I have work tomorrow morning, to complicate matters more). Additionally, there's a smaller leak on the epoxy for one of the syringes.
Right now, I'm essentially banking on the viscosity of the water to keep too much from draining out. I've put a cleaning bucket underneath the whole setup, and for now that's just kind what I'm going for, and praying to whatever hobby god that is out there to keep this all from fething up to hard. They're barely dripping right now, so that's keeping me sane, but still, a bit of a worry.
Wish me luck, Dakkanaughts


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okay, pre-work update this morning for ya!

The water is looking decent and tough now. The dripping from the leaks seems to have stopped totally before I even went to sleep, and so I'm not gonna touch ANYTHING until Sunday night/Monday morning.


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also here's a banger for anyone stuck working saturday like this chump over here https://detergents.bandcamp.com/track/wont-work-saturday

Okay - final update on this project. As of writing, the Tanuki is safely in the paws of my friend, and this project, with all it's giddy, fume-induced highs, panicked, terrifying "oh gak I've actually ruined it this time" lows, along with the "Y'know, buying an actual tanuki might have been cheaper than this..." moments of getting all the stuff that I needed for this together. By Friday, he'll be on his merry way to Texas, for a whole new adventure. I really hope my friend has a good time after all of this, life hasn't been super kind to her, and the last 8-ish months of our job has been an unrelenting grind, and we've come out the other side feeling a bit less valued, and a bit more bitter and frustrated.

It was fun to push myself in regards to all the untread ground with this project, and I had some lovely feedback from you boyos, but also the intended target, so that was really nice, too. Applying all the nerd gak I've learned here over the past...6? years was really rewarding too, considering I went from being like "I'm gonna keep my painting simple and try my best" back in 2015 to finding one of the early sketches I did for this project yesterday, and the ideas I had in my head, and like??? DANG I can kinda make stuff pretty good.

It was good to clear out the old pipes with something wacky and out of my comfort zone, and I think it blew away some cobwebs.[/spoiler]

Anyway! Thanks everyone for commenting, thanks to everyone who stopped by to look at all of this, I hope you can get a decent sense of the chaotic chapters of this endeavor, and maybe have a laugh or two about it all. I know I did.
Sun's setting on the ol' dude ranch.

Amazing finish on a epic project. Love how the water effects turned out. Adds a lot to the piece.

Motivation comes and goes, but I’ve always found the hobby helpful. Creative and constructive activities can help get you through some rough spots. Did for me. Keep your chin up and moving forward!

Cheers man! Both for the feedback, and also for the chin up thing. Needed it a bit after today hahaha.

This turned out great! Yeah, hobby burnout is definitely a thing right now, stacked upon pandemic burnout stacked upon professional burnout ... but honestly checking Dakka and seeing the crazy stuff people come up with nevertheless has at least helped me a little bit in the last months, so thanks for sharing

Excellent work

looks fantastic

MobileSuitRandom wrote:This turned out great! Yeah, hobby burnout is definitely a thing right now, stacked upon pandemic burnout stacked upon professional burnout ... but honestly checking Dakka and seeing the crazy stuff people come up with nevertheless has at least helped me a little bit in the last months, so thanks for sharing

Hey, thank you very much for the kind words. Trying to ease myself back into the hobby groove. I know I've got it in me, and that all it'll take is picking up a brush and having a good old crack at something, but... that hesitationis real haha. Also I'm just at the part where you figh Lord Gwyn in Dark Souls, so that's taken MUCH time. Having a deadline helped a lot lol.

The_Real_Chris wrote:Excellent work

Thanks so much, dude! It was great fun!

bobbuilder wrote:looks fantastic

Cheers! I feel like for everything I was scared could go wrong, it actually went extremely smoothly. A bit of uncharacteristic good luck hahahaha