To raise the bar on my model kit (modeling) hobby skillz, I’ve decided to make my first diorama. The protagonist for this piece is my Tieren Ground Type which I completed October of last year. I’m sure it will look better in a nicely detailed diorama.

For the diorama, I’m envisioning a battle-torn, slightly elevated hill. On the foreground is a wrecked Gundam, torn into pieces via missle, laser and melee attacks…. while the Tieren troops and mecha close in to investigate.

I’ve been into the project for two weekends now. Let me take you back for the process on how I did the steps.

First off, is to find a suitable Gundam body to “wreck”. Not wanting to buy one, good thing there’s a toy-meal Gundam from Jollibee that I “borrowed” from a co-worker (kidnapped from his desk). Now time for the fun part… wrecking the thing with cigarettes, design knife, pliers and dremel.

Here’s what the thing looked like after the torture I put it through:

For the base, I found small piece of ply-board (around half an inch thick). I then outlined where I want the parts and features of the diorama to go with a permanent marker, noting the scaling and such

Now it’s time to proceed to the actual making of the terrain. For the elevation, I purchased a couple of styrofoam sheets and with the help of the diorama-guru, Jeff Paulino, we worked on carving the styro using cutters…

Now it’s time (below) to check the elevation for scale and perspective…

Looking good!

We then purchased a kilo of Plaster of Paris, you can find this in your local hardware store for around P50 a kilo, and then Jeff mixes that with water. Now, the fun part begins.

You have to work fast since the Plaster of Paris dries quickly. Using spatulas, brushes (and bare hands) we pour the mixture onto the mold and then set it out to dry in the sun.

While waiting for that to dry, it’s back to doing detail and painting work for the “Dead Gundam”.

First step is to apply primer and the airbrush a coat of “rust”. The rust is a mixture of acrylic Nato Brown and Orange (both Tamiyas). Once that’s done, I hand paint in Tamiya Flat Black (Enamel this time) in the creases, crevices and damaged parts.

I let this dry for a couple of days.

By night time, the diorama base is already dry…

A couple of days later, I use an old sponge and sponge up Enamel White, Blue, Red and Yellow on the dead gundam. Thin your enamel a little and just light dab the paint and apply some layers into it. The effect would be aging paint as the rust eats it. The colors are still kinda’ sharp. That will be addressed later as we do some more layers like washes and Future (Wipe and Shine) baths.

I check it again using the dried base and assemble the pieces. This isn’t final yet since the plan is to slightly submerge the pieces with some more layers of Plaster of Paris. Meanwhile, just checking out how they’ll look… again, with the mighty Tieren!

Now it’s time apply some washes, filters and other detailing on the “wreck”.

Here are the steps in order after the paint sponge:

• First layer of Future/Wipe and Shine via airbrush
• Light black enamel wash
• Apply scratches with paint brush and lead pencil
• Drybrushing with Chrome silver for the metallic parts
• Layer of flat coat (Can spray)
• Apply wash of dark brown (to simulate rain and mud over the months)
• Apply Tamiya rust via their weathering kit
• Final layer of Flat coat (can spray)

And here’s the final output once you go through all those stages:

I also glued in some small wires for extra detail in the wrecked body.

Notice the difference in color? All those washes and stages gave the wrecked piece and “aged” and “weather” look naturally. This is in sharp contrast to the just the sponged up paint as per above.

Now I’m ready to place these in the diorama. After that, I’ll be using “cheapie” acrylics to paint the diorama and apply “turf” (grass and dirt) onto it.

That’s exciting! Will post more work-in-progress pics soon!

ADDITIONAL READING ON MY MODEL KITS

• Gundam Wing
• Star Wars Tie Interceptor
• M1A1 Abrams Tank USA
• In-progress: 1997 Ford Mustang
• Gundam Blitz
• MS-06J Zaku II
• Gundam Destiny
• Gundam Red Astray

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