Diorama with Ancient Themes

Transcript*

Intro

Hey guys, Paul here back again with another video and this time we’re doing uh what I said last week which was uh doing the expert part of the diorama. Remember I had easy, medium, and hard. I kind of messed up the hard one cuz I was a little impatient. I was I kept picking and proddding.

But this time we won’t mess it up. Uh because what we’ll be utilizing for this is the Ammo by MIG create cork line. Uh we will be utilizing I couldn’t do the sound there. Cork uh and cork extremely uh you know versatile in the hobby. You can use it for literally anything almost uh even filling actually funnily enough. Uh, but for this, we’re going to be using it for diorama because we’re going to be recreating something special near and dear to my heart.

Paul’s Inspiration

This piece right here is what we’ll try to recreate today for today’s video. Um, this was my Mother’s Day gift uh from last year. If you missed out on the last video, I briefly showed this off. Uh, and I gave this to my mom at a time where she was incredibly busy. Hence, you know, my title, my name for this thing, my peace uh tranquility or peace in tranquility.

Uh you know, she was extremely busy uh with the work at RBC. Uh but now she fast forward a year later, she has early retired uh at 59, which is very nice. Uh you know, so it’s great. Proud of my mom. We’re going to be using the exact same base, but instead of a tree, which I’m still undecided on, we’re going to be using Gamer’s grass basing bits, pillars, and temple or statues and columns. It’s way off. Anyway, we’re going to be using this for the most part instead of a tree, I think. Unless I still decide on a tree. Anyway, um this is resin.

So, we’re going to be doing a little bit of resin cleaning here and there, and I’ll briefly show. It’s pretty easy. So, first things first, pick your poison.

Products Needed

So, this is going to be the create cork that I’m using. It’s two sheets of 5 mm from Ammo by MIG. So, this is the item code. Put that on our website. It should pop up. Uh, they’re about that thick, which is slightly thicker than actually about the same as what I used on my previous diorama. Also, as thick as the base itself, that’s a little hollow.

Anyway, uh, yeah. So, that’s what I’m going to be using. And keep in mind, the thicker it is, the bigger like the cracks on it, like the cork patterns. I mean, corks are just pieces of cork put together, pulp, right? Uh, so I’m kind of going for that look anyway. I want a cracked ground look, but this might be too much. We’ll see. Um, and then obviously I’m going to be using the base. This is just a plastic base. You can throw away the acrylic glass if you want, but I won’t. Uh, it’s good for transportation.

Cutting Into the Cork

And uh be warned, despite this being quite thick, actually I think for our inventory, this the second thickest or third uh definitely not the thickest, but it’s up there. And despite that, it’s still quite flimsy. So this will break on you. Cork is quite easy to break. We’ll use this or any other knife that we have. We have quite a few here. If you’re using a knife, please consult an adult who’s very confident with knives. Knives are no joke.

I’ve transferred or not transferred. I’ve basically stopped using hobby knives on my personal time. They’re scary. They’re incredibly scary. [Music] Now, uh if we’re basing it off my previous here or the previous diorama, um this is a little on the smaller side. So, I’m going to be using this as like the final step. gonna need something a little bit bigger than this and then something a little bit bigger than that to make the well ascending part of the cliff face kind of thing. And whenever you’re cutting pieces of cork, pieces like this will inevitably uh you know fall, right? And this is incredible for rocks, right? So, you know, keep that and don’t throw it away, please. They’re important. And honestly, just start breaking pieces away.

It’s supposed to be like a natural formation. And by that, there’s not not going to be any straight lines anywhere due to erosion. Just break pieces where it makes sense and no 90° angles, I feel like. So, after nibbling at it, not really, I’m not biting it, but you know what I mean. I’m just taking pieces apart like that. um in a sort of an angle so it kind of slopes down like this, you know, slopes uh due to erosion. Uh and using my knife to hack away at it a little bit. Uh we’ve left with this, which is quite a good piece. And by having the smallest piece, we’re going to be putting this right here and then using it as a base kind of or basis for the bigger pieces, right? And then I’m just going to keep doing it’s like a Russian nesting doll but in reverse I think. So again, same principle. We’re going to be placing the two uh ascending piles of rock here. And we’re just going to be cutting it to piece. Right. And don’t fly too close to the sun.

What’s that saying? Um or who said that? I don’t know. Anyway, we’re just going to be cutting this into shape. And don’t be ambitious, you know. Um, this is the third layer, but I wouldn’t go beyond third uh three layers mainly because I only went three layers in my original thing. So, anything beyond that is beyond my purview and scope and I feel like you’re not doing a whole thing. This is a vignette, right? So, keep that in mind. A tiny diorama. So, just to further emphasize my previous point about the shavings, do not throw them away. Uh, you can take your bigger shavings, uh, and just, you know, nibble at them, quote unquote.

Don’t bite them. Actually, what I mean by nibble is just breaking it apart piece like, you know, piece by piece like this. Because when you’re looking at this pile and then you look at the Army Painter cork thing that they sell, you’re like, well, what’s the difference? Because I’m pretty sure this is more cost effective than that. So yeah, and what you can even further go further beyond, right, as the kids would say, and you can take it from your existing pile from this is from last week. Remember this? And just mix it in. So that when you dip your mini onto your mix, like what a lot of the kids would do these days, you know, they would dip their bases full of glue and then they just put it there. You would have some sort of like diorama trail mix.

Now, obviously, in a ideal situation, this would be more filled, but you get what I’m saying. So, war is over. Um, I have my three pieces here and yeah, the prevous is going great because again I have a pattern. Um, and yeah, this is, you know, not an exact thing, but it’s not supposed to be. It’s going to be a different diorama uh though inspired by it heavily. So, the next part will be the more challenging part.

Mapping Out Your Diorama

And that is to select which basing bits that I want and to clean it up because it is resin and you need to clean resin. Now, visualizing it like this is probably the best part. Um, or at least the most fun part because this is where you brainstorm. It’s like, well, you know, this is kind of sloping down there. So, logistically speaking, if it falls, it falls like that, you know, or this thing maybe it was standing like this, but then the storm came and finally broke it.

So, it fell like this and then this came off because of the impact and got launched. So, it was like that, you know. But then there should be a base in the pillar. So maybe let me put this right here, right? Because it was kind of like this in the original, right? So I don’t know. But so the next step is to clean the pieces.

Clean Your Resin Pieces!

And you know, you grab your nearest disposable cup uh and you just put the pieces that feel like you should clean. And you should clean them, by the way, because these are fresh off the factory essentially with the oils still there, the the resin dust, which is toxic, by the way. So, yeah, put that in in warm soapy water for maybe 15, 20 minutes.

And really, that’s all that needs to be done. There’s a little bit of uh light scrubbing by the end, but not too much. I would just grab an old toothbrush to do that. I’m just taking a picture of the positioning of my previous. And once that’s done, boom, dumping it. Put a little bit more pieces than you intend to use. These will be demo pieces.

Gluing The Base Structure And Priming

So, while the pieces are soaking, uh obviously use super glue. This is CA glues. Though with that being said, uh find a responsible adult to do the super gluing for you if you’re not, you know, confident in your abilities cuz super glue is no joke either. There we go. The next step is to just prime it black as we will be utilizing my favorite method, the slap chop technique. Uh, and if you remember, you have to prime your kit black for that.

So, you’re going to be using Vallejo spray primer black. While this is drying, you take out whatever you’ve been soaking and start scrubbing it lightly. Now, uh, we don’t exactly have a used toothbrush here, which is the preferred method, but we do have something similar. I mean, we have a dry brush that we can use, right? Uh, and that should be soft enough to where when you do it, it’s not going to scratch the pieces, but it will remove the softened up uh, oils and such and any debris that’s been left over. Uh, that’s the entire purpose of this.

Resin is nasty. Now that the resin pieces are relatively dry and clean, we’ll be priming them with Vallejo White Primer. Uh, again, incredibly smooth primer.

Slap Chop Paint Method

So, just to reiterate, slap chopping is just you dabbing a little bit of gray and then dabbing a little bit of white. And for this, we’re going to be using uniform gray from the Fanatic Army Painter line. And we’re going to be using for white the ionic uh line from Army Painter. So, this is going to be just their number one uh which is white. Uh and we’re going to be testing that out. Uh, but we’re not going to be applying too much.

Just a light dab of both. So, again, just grab your paper towel and remove the excess from your brush, making sure that it gets pushed in into the deeper parts of the bristles while removing majority of it. You can see the effect building up. And because a cork surface is quite porous, um, and because it has those cracks, just lightly dab the dry brush even on the surface, but just very light because the bristles will catch on to some of those crevices and therefore highlighting that part. So, uh, but it’s going to be irregular, which is what we’re looking for.

So yeah, obviously focusing more on the ridges though. Uh feel free to add more or just keep it uh you know kind of light, but maybe I’ll go a little harder than normal just to emphasize the kind of worn down nature of it. Once you’re satisfied with the initial dry brush, uh, move on to the next step, which is white. And this is going to be a more stark step. So, just lightly dry brush to start. Just literally just do this back and forth, back and forth, just catching the littlest of details. And then now that it’s looking good, honestly, I’d go a little heavier.

So uh the way I applied both dry brushings or dabbings of dry brushings is uh I went this way with the clear purpose of you know in my mind people are walking up the steps meaning that this will face the most weathering like this front facing part. So that’s where I focused majority of my dry brushing and they look the most worn. Now obviously I still applied it to the other sides with uh you know weather and stuff but right I feel like with just you know the fact that these are steps they will face the most erosion and weathering. Look at that. Nice. Honestly, if we’re keeping the fantasy vibes, I could probably stop right here.

Additional Shading

I don’t even have to apply the next step, which is ashen stone. We’re going to be trying this out. Uh if not, we can make it more brown later on, more stark, but let’s see. So, you can apply it as thickly as you want, but this time I thinned it with Vallejo glaze medium, but up to you. Then just start applying it. Now obviously the thinner you apply it the more apparent the dry brushing will appear as that is the purpose of the dry brushing part the slap chop part to make
[Music]

Paul’s Impasse

I am now at an impasse because on the one hand I kind of want to continue this more natural look. This look how vibrant this is, but at the same time I’m kind of falling in love with the obsidian look of this rock. Uh maybe continue more down like a fantasy route uh with like out of this world looking grass and stuff like that. Um but yeah, I’m a little bit stuck. I’m not sure what to do here. You know what? We’re here now.

Dry Brushing

So, we’re going to keep it simple. Uh we’re going to be using a light gray here. We’re going to be dry brushing this on and then we will be applying a brown wash and then red dry brushing it again.

Adding Weathering

There we go. Yeah, stronger dry brushing this time. Just compounding that previous effect that we’ve done. This time we’re going to commit So, we’re going to be compounding the uh slap chop effect uh with Saigore Brown thinly applied. Um and you know, you’ll just notice an exponential increase in this effect. It’s going to be awesome. This is heavily thinned out of course, but hopefully I don’t regret this step because this is it. While that’s drying, we’re going to be applying Agra Earth Shade onto the primed out uh well statues and stuff and pillars.

Now, it might seem like I messed up, but if you look closely, the slap chop is still in effect. This is still the lighter part, the more weathered part, and the back part where no one really goes in this diorama will be darker. So, all we got to do is make it a little bit more obvious for this to work. Uh, we’re going to make a cocktail of urban buff, ashen stone, and thinned out with more glaze medium. This will of course provide what would be the final look of the rock. Uh, and again, it will be applied more towards the front while keeping the back darker.

And if you so choose, you can even apply a bit more of the dry brushing before you apply this unholy concoction of colors. Oh my god, she’s perfect. Yeah, she’s perfect. That’s the most realistic looking rock I’ve ever painted. This is even a better looking rock than the initial one. This one is too cartoony. I think like cinder blocks almost. We’re basically done.

Adding Gravel

This is right around the time where you start considering what to put onto the uh diorama itself. This part is completely up to you. I want what I want. You want what you want. But to apply it, uh you have two options. You have the CA superglue option or the Elmer’s option. the Elmer’s may not adhere uh uh you know as well because of the smooth surface.

Also, Elmer’s can peel and it dries for longer. So, uh keep that in mind. But both are viable. Just apply it on where the path would be. Shout out to VMS. These diorama products are pretty good. Quite nice. Sprinkle it like you’re salt bay. dry brush them with either Urban Buff purely or with white uh or a mix of both depending on how dirty you want them. But you know, you got to recover some of the shininess of the statues. There we go. There we go. Looks great.

Adding Tufts and Greenery

Now, all we need for the final final step is to match the aesthetic uh with what we choose. So, we can maybe choose something more like this. Uh, giving an implied faded ancient look or something like this. But I think this may be a little too green. But this part up to you. Literally up to you. Wait, I think I have a perfect inspiration for this. You guys won’t guess what it is. Watch. So, I’ve decided on a golden hue look uh to keep that and preserve that ancient sort of feel. Take a look at this. It’s coming together.
[Music]

So, you guys aren’t prepared for this mess. So, I used this golden terrain. Well, it looks gold to me. Goldish brown.

But I applied it with this glue. Look at it. Looks like I spilled the seasoning to dump it the excess onto the cup of destiny. Oh, that looks good. That looks very good. Giving that ancient feeling. And then finally, to preserve that maple kind of autumn look, we’re going to be using maple autumn to get that golden kind of look. Uh, and we’re going to be placing it near where the gaps are and in some of the rocks here. So, just don’t be afraid. sprinkle and then remove the excess. This is why I prefer using some sort of super glue or CA because they act faster.

So, what I did just now is place super glue all over the thing uh all over literally the entire thing and just drizzle like your salt bay and remove the excess and place it into the cup of destiny. So, to be reused later, nothing will be wasted if that’s what you’re worried about.
[Music]

Final Look

And what you’re left with is a sight to behold. Look at that. I think I’ve genuinely outdone myself. I prefer this over the other one. Might just be biased. And I think I need to put a little bit more in the back, but otherwise, yeah, this is done. This is completed. Wow. Excellent. Chef’s kiss. Five stars. Uh, I’m biased, of course. It’s my product, but one more for the road here.

Paul’s Conclusion

Hey guys, hope you enjoyed that little exercise in happy little accidents because that’s what they are. Um, and even that is a happy accident. But that’s okay because I get to show off my new baby. Look at that. because, you know, nothing in nature happens on purpose unless there’s human interference or something. So, we made it as tranquil as possible. Uh, and I think that’s just beautiful and gorgeous. I didn’t get that. Could you try again? No, Siri, stop. Anyway, guys, that’s it for today. Thank you guys so much for watching. You can find this and my other one, the one I made for my mom, uh, on our display case at the front end of our store. Um, for other videos, keep an eye out for our socials and our YouTube channel. Thank you guys so much for watching and I’ll see you guys next time.

Bye-bye.

About the Author:

Paul Catindig As someone who’s been building model kits since he was 8 years old, Paul is very knowledgeable and adept at model kit building! When he’s not building or painting kits, he spends his free time cooking, playing video games with friends, or at a restaurant patio somewhere. Hopes to make his very own movie one day.

*Video by Paul Catindig
Video Edited by Daniela Castellano
Transcript generated by youtube
Edited by Angelo Castellano