Topic: Lambonspit's dio

[hemble]

This is such a fantastic idea, I'll be watching this thread for sure.

Ron

[Mando Commando]

Nice idea.  Have you thought about using a type of wood painted black?  For some reason I thought I've seen that wood somewhere.  As for the decals, I'm stumped!  Can't wait to see this turn out, and can't wait to see the Kashyyk!  Will it be made now, or once you move in?

[lambonspit]

Some serious change in plans has led us to change the location of the star wars room and the fire place hangerbay is now to be made redundant.Instead our Dad has realised the pontential to dig out a basement and house our star wars collection in there. So the reason i haven't been on the yards lately is because i have been toiling away at diging out this basement, with a bit of help from dad and my brother. The whole idea of the basement is better than what we were thinking before as i have much more room and can have even bigger dioramas. Here is a photo of the basement. There is still heaps to dig out, almost 12 cubic metres of compacted dirt!!! this photo was taken a while ago and much more dirt has been dug out. The plans for the basement are to have a large hoth diorama, kashyyyk diorama, death star hangarbay, wall with movie posters and shelving with figures and vehicles. Also, if you can see there are some small holes in the wall that are there for air ventilation. Those are going to be blocked up from behind and used as dioramas. I will try and post some more pics tonight, just to show you guys how it is coming along.

[TheCloneCommander]

looks like you need a bigger shovel and Pick... lol look like you have a bit of shale and sand stone there that is not fun stuff to dig, i use to do under road boring and what should take a couple of hours could take all day to a couple of days to complete...

i would suggest hiring a dingo or a kanga for that amount of work with a ditchswitch attachment, Kangas are smaller and have seen them in action my father in-law has one they are great fun to use,

if only we lived in the same state i would come over and give you a hand....

[lambonspit]

LOL, thanks mate. The majority is actually finished now. Its taken about a month part time work, but we're almost done. I'll get some more photos of it up 2nite.

And that bluestone/sandstone that you see is actually the foundations of the house! I never knew that foundations for houses in the 1800's were made of stone!!

[Luke Sprywalker]

I have been wondering where you were. Glad to see you have about dug your way out.

[lambonspit]

Ok everyone, i need some help with a diorama i will be placing in my star wars room (the thing full of dirt above lol!!), when its been dug out. The diorama is gonna be a large scale Hoth Battle. So heres the layout:

A Millenium Falcon will be placed inside a cave as seen in the movie.
Outside there will be some hoth turrets and some rebels engaging in the battle.
In the distance there will be a few AT-AT's (the new BAT-AT's) engaging in the battle, with my older Endor AT-AT's kneeling after being grappled and tied. This will mean i will have some snowspeeders flying over the battlefield. (also, when the AT-AT comes out, 1 will be completely gutted as i have done to my Turbo tank that has not yet been shown and will be displayed with figs inside)
Some AT-ST's will be engaging rebels closer to the hoth base.
Inside the hoth base will not feature prominently, and i was only thinking to show a tauntaun and maybe, luke, leia, han, C-3PO and R2 and some pilots.
Outside will also be a shield generator.

Ok, so looking at it it seems immensly difficult and complex and i am very daunted by the idea of even considering such a dio when i have no prior experience!! This was what i was thinking! What i'll do is make the cave out of paper mache into a circular type shape so that a millenium falcon (probably the saga version) will fit inside and the use some foam core to make the entrance look really linear and like metal. I will place some LED lights inside to light it up. The exterior snow area is what i am really stumped on!! I know the rebels need trenches and that the natural hoth environment was not just flat. So i was wondering how to get that 'Hothy' look?
Another issue is the shield generator!! No idea what to make it out of and how to keep it in scale without it being overwhelmingly large.

Ok guys, thats the q's for now. Any help would be appreciated lol!!!

[Mando Commando]

Well, my best guess for the snow is use model snow.  Haven't tried it myself, but I've been wanting to.  Or, just lay the whole thing down with stirofoam.  That looks really good, but it tends to warp so it may not be flat, unless you find a place where you can buy it.  For the generator, I'm stumped as well.  If you don't need it there, you may just want it to be a cut out of the generator in the movie.  Maybe you can find a picture, blow it up to size, then cut it out.  But, it wouldn't be 3-D.  That's the best I got.  Hope I could be some help.   

[Clonehead]

For the generator, you might be able to find circular shaped foam slices at a hobby lobby that could be cut in half across the diameter  to double your material. You could make the shape that way. As far as the groundwork, i would use foam there as well, ripped or tore to shape to form hills and or valleys and trenches and then cover over the top of the foam with tissue and white glue/water mix. The model train diorama snow would work well on top of this applied with a mix of water and white glue but it would take alot. Around Christmas time, some stores sell this spray-on snow that is used to frost up windows. I wonder how well that stuff would work for this?

[hangarbay94]

Dude, that's one hell of an obsession when you dig out a basement to build a Star Wars Diorama. I hope you took into account the property's foundations before digging the thing out....

I am very impressed with your determination...