Of Mice and Ma.K.----DONE!!!

[John Everett]

With the Chase's End diorama complete I needed to decide what was next on my long list of kooky ideas and partially finished projects. 

After watching Bryan Krueger finish his latest resin kit in the Ma.K. style, I've decided to give it a go of my own. But I've never been too much of a believer in the whole "WWII 800 years from now". You've got to figure that the German army would have updated its uniforms at least once in the last 8 centuries.

I want to try to emulate the the general look of the Ma.K. vehicles with their compound curves of cast iron but more polished, less camouflage paint, fewer air-cooled engine parts, more hidden battery technology. No idea exactly how I'm going to do that, but we'll burn that bridge......

Speaking of bridges, the diorama will feature a bridge!




The vehicle bodies:
Most of us have a few of these laying around. I like the nice compound curves.






I'm not going to use the 800 year old uniform design which was so popular in the deep past, but this figure was convenient to provide a 1/35 reference.
Pull the panels apart and flip them around to create odd shapes and gaps in the body.




Blue insulation foam painted black to hide any spots not covered by the future landscaping.





Plaster rock castings........Heavy!!!
Bridge position is set, but its materials and type of construction remains to be determined.



Thanks for stopping by. And thanks again for all the comments and feedback on the last diorama!
Depending upon how quickly I can get the vehicles done, the landscaping should go pretty rapidly. This will either be done in 2 months or 10 years. There's no way to know just yet.

[TRM]

Very cool thought John!! Count me in...even for the long haul if needed!!

[JimD]

I really enjoy seeing these types of projects coming together, so just like the last I'll be lurking for sure. Not sure what help I can be though...you're well outside my wheelhouse here. Cracking start and looks to be an interesting landscape taking form.

[k1w1]

Interesting. Looking forward to seeing the " Mice " cars evolve.

[dierk]

I'll just get me comfy chair, some beer and crisps/chips. Let the show begin Thumbs Up!

[coro69]

i like your mouse idea... hanging around just to see what you get out of it... :-)

[wbill76]

Pulling up a mouse pad to watch this one unfold! Love the concept.

[Return_To_Kit_Form]

Time to raid the spares box of all those extras that Dragon throw in

[tigrazor]

Ah yes, exactly me gusto... Watching, watching.

[Leon]

Looks like a cool project John! Waiting to see how this evolves.

[John Everett]

Sept 10, 2015 11:56:08 GMT -5 wbill76 said:

Pulling up a mouse pad to watch this one...

Hey, That's funny!

Getting the basic shape finalized. Simple sheet plastic will be decorated with a few thingies. But I don't want too much clutter on the surface, just enough to give it the feel of a working vehicle but retain the slick "Futurama" polished alloy appearance.

And a general question to the membership here: Which end should be the front end? As this is a SciFi car, it doesn't matter really which is the front or back.


But if you were to just look at the shape, would you say that the "pointy" end or the "blunt" end would be the front of the vehicle?




Blunt end.


Pointy end.



A random selection of Thingy parts!



Thanks for watching!

John

[dupes]

I think that the blunt end looks more likely to be the front.

What are those discs with holes in them in the container of thingy parts?

[wbill76]

You could go either way I guess...all depends on how you want to 'arm' these? If you go for the 'jagd' kind of look...it would be low profile, therefore the pointy end makes the most sense. If you're going more like a traditional take look, then the blunt end. Personally I'm with Dupes and lean more towards the blunt end as the 'obvious' of the two.

[tigrazor]

Very cool so far!

Dont remember the exact word for this but a building... market (?) is a good idea too for sci fi parts (that shops where you can buy things for your household, carpenting and so on).

Not too long ago I found for example anti-gliding pads for furniture - with imprinted checker plates. The insides of a tap - mixer jets - give good engine exhausts too.

Just a thought.

[John Everett]

Sept 13, 2015 11:01:43 GMT -5 dupes said:

What are those discs with holes in them in the container of thingy parts?

I'm not sure what they are. But they're directly from the jewelry/neclace section of Hobby Lobby. Their stock seems to change over time, but odd objects like these are usually available.

[John Everett]

Doogs' technique of black base primer was applied prior to the silver.

I was working with Testors' "buffable" metallic lacquer. But in the end, plain old Vallejo silver acrylic with a polish of graphite pigment powder (AK Interactive, Dark Steel) was pretty much identical to the polished lacquer.

Also with Vallejo, it's easy to add another color to the base silver to create a sort of anodized effect. (The blue and pink areas were done this way.) As much as we rave about the look of real metal from oil based paint, I've had tremendously better luck with Vallejo over any other paint I've thus far used.





What was that thing from the Dr. Who series, a Daleck???

[Leon]

Looking really cool John! I really like the color on this.

[k1w1]

Looking good......whatever it is. Cant see a Darleck here though. One of those Robotic Vacuum Cleaners possibly. - ( No offence intended. )

[John Everett]

The first, very messy stages of landscaping. Now I just need to wait a few days for everything to dry.

Acrylic bathroom caulk covered in a layer of sand and small stones. Plaster rock castings are embedded and held down with Gorilla Glue.

The bridge pillar is a damaged railroad casting. It will be modified somewhat before the bridge is installed.

Bridge deck is two paint stir-sticks from Home Depot. The sheathing over this core will be stir-sticks from Starbucks. So it's pretty much a stir-stick theme with the bridge.










A few natural stones mixed in with the plaster castings. This adds weight, but if I'm careful about masking them during the painting and staining process, they add a nice detail.




The general idea:

I'm just not sure if I want to deal with another water featured diorama. The last one was hit or miss all the way through.

[deafpanzer]

WAY TOO COOL! Am really enjoying this... ALOT!

[Wes]

Ah yeah. This is going to look brilliant. Love it

[remarc777]

Hi thjohn,

As I'm working on a river bedding too, I will watch this one closely to see how you work out certain problems/issues. What I see so far really inspires me. Good layout and great use of the mice: it's going to have me stay tuned.

Are you not a bit scared the metallic paint is going to come off with a smooth surface like that from the mice?

Keep us posted!

greetings, Richard.

[John Everett]

Sept 20, 2015 5:28:07 GMT -5 remarc777 said:

Hi thjohn,

Are you not a bit scared the metallic paint is going to come off?

I did worry about that before I began to play around with the various metalizing options. Although the surface may not be as perfect as is achieved using Alclad paints, I think I've decided to go with Vallejo acrylics. They hold well to most surfaces and are easy to work with.

Still not sure how I'm going to deal with any water effects?






So some update after a few days of allowing the acrylic caulking compound to dry.

Slightly blurry but the real stone is my color reference for the whole canyon. Everything was sprayed with various tones of Vallejo Model Air paint







More acrylic caulk to seal up around edges.



Genuine Colorado sand covers the caulk while it's still wet.




I still need to produce some largish rock castings and have selected a few stones with good texture.
Simple and fast casting technique with plaster and clay:

Press the clay into the stone to get the right surface detail.



Fill with soupy plaster.


Pressure casting is not required. But it gives me an excuse to show off my brand new 9 gallon compressor. It's sweet!


Finished casting with original.


Geology Joke:

Even if you don't think that this is pretty gneiss sample, you've got to agree that I've at least got my schist together.




Thanks for stopping by!

[Leon]

Just getting caught up John,this is looking really great.

[TRM]

LOL...John made a funny!! Nice on actually!! Well done so far John! Great job on the painting! Love the color of the craft and the dio is really coming together!! You could probably use a number of items for the watery effect, but have a look at Vallejo's Still Water (26230) and Transparent Water (26201). I am guessing if you were looking for just the steam, the Transparent would work just fine Works pretty much the same as Woodland Scenics Wet effects which is a treat for moving water.

[k1w1]

Really liking your rocks. Nice colours also. ( Colors ). Those Starbucks wooden stirrers you mentioned are great. Not to wide and nice and thin unlike popsickle sticks.
Looking forward to seeing   how your water goes. I have used the Woodlands Scenics water. It creeps up the banks and climbs reeds and any other plants it touches. I plan to use 2 pot clear resin in future.

[remarc777]

Sept 21, 2015 1:49:02 GMT -5 John Everett said:

Sept 20, 2015 5:28:07 GMT -5 remarc777 said:

Still not sure how I'm going to deal with any water effects?

For the dio I'm doing I'm using a two component resin called Mr. Boat. Great stuff that doesn't heat up when it's poured. No air, no bubbles, completely transparent but can be mixed with acrylics... Unfortunately it's not available in the States (I think), but it looks to me you should use a similar product.

Nice work on the dio by the way  .

greetings, Richard.

[wbill76]

Nice progress on the landscaping John. Can't beat nature for 'real' patterns and colors!

[John Everett]

Thanks, all for taking the time to stop by and offer advice.

More rock castings and painting. I'll spend a portion of tomorrow working on the wooden bridge and its respective landings on either bank.






Riprap barriers around the base of the pillar prevents moving water from undercutting the structure. These small stones will deliberately be mismatched with the colors of the canyon around. So I've got to be careful when painting near these.



Coffee and paint stir bridge. Lots more to do in building that.



Yep. It warped slightly as the wood glue dried. Easy to fix, but a bother nonetheless.


@ ReMarc: There's a similar business here called Smooth-On which produce a wide variety of plastics and rubbers. I would guess they buy their stuff from the same suppliers as Mr. Boat.

For any water effect which I may or may not place in the scene, I'm looking seriously at this stuff. It has a long pot life and it's cure time should be more that enough to clear out any air bubbles. I'm not sure how much it will want to creep up the edges of objects along the shore. There will be considerable testing before this would be applied.


I'm also adding a radio/techno/MaK/Mast/Tower thingy which will be embedded directly into the rock. (Because as we all know, anything embedded directly into solid rock is probably associated with a Federation cloaking device.)





I wasn't happy with the hover car shown earlier in the thread and tore it down. I think I want to go in a fundamentally different direction with the two hover cars, shorter, leaner, fewer dangling pieces. You know, more like an iPod, less like a Walkman.

[S e r z h--Rest In Peace]

John - thank you for the interesting and instructive stories from the construction site!