Kirk

Is there an Academy Awards category for "Best Diorama Involving an H.34"?

I see that the quality of this has literally blown the figures' minds...

Not sure whether to be inspired or burn all my styrene. This is all just amazingly good. At 1:16 it would be impressive. 1:32?? Will go with the inspiration for now, and save sending the neighbourhood up in smoke for another day. Edit: I suppose I could argue that the hammer handle is a bit too light at the end, but it really is a bit of a gratuitous dig. Better than any hammer I've ever made...

Wow.

Are these scan- or CAD-based? I'm rapidly coming to the view that the battle between 3D scanned figures and all other techniques is a non-contest.

I thought the last toolbox was great. What do I know. The thing that stands out to me most in this last update is how unrealistic the figure looks in comparison with all the scratch-built jewellery. Let's hope Reedoak come up trumps in time for this diorama's completion.

It wouldn't look wrong on 50 x 20 but it might be a challenge to store!

Base is beautiful... but yes, it needs to be bigger to do justice to the scene. To my (armchair expert) eyes, anyway. What's your concern with the toolbox?

Thanks for the heads up Oliver. Sorry about the decals. I won't tell if you don't.

I know precisely nothing about US military asset identification/registration markings (so please take the following comment with this in mind), but noticed that the crane truck has both "M559" and "M-560" showing. Was this deliberate and coincidental or may multiple references from different vehicles be causing something unintended? Whilst I'm here, is there anywhere that illustrates your approach to paint in a step by step way? Your style is very distinctive and seems to have a lot more 'white' (or at least paler shade) highlighting than I've seen elsewhere and I'm curious as to how it is achieved. No problem if not - I'm more than happy to simply marvel at how this is all coming together!

What you call "Dio pieces" I'd be happy to have produced as the main event. Your distinctive airbrush work really is fab. You must get through a lake of solvent cleaning at every colour change.

It looks splendid without. I only mentioned it because there looked to be one on your reference photo and it was the expected working height of that one that made me think your larger tool chest was more to scale. It's all coming together now. I can't wait to see all these accessories in paint. Don't rush though! 😊

Wot, no vice?

If I've ever been in this position, my instinct is to look for the online catalogues of real world equipment suppliers, who (helpfully) tend to dimension their products. However, in this case (pun unavoidable) it was less useful: Beta Tools' cabinets seem to mostly be around 800mm x 400mm footprint, which seem a fair bit smaller than yours. For what it's worth, by my eye I think the larger one looks more to scale - even before you've added the 4" vice. That said, I think it's clear that you and Peter have better eyes and fingers than the rest of us mortals. 😉

Looks a touch over scale to me.

Great work Oliver. Fuel hose looks very realistic. Is it solder?