My Little Polish Outdoor Museum.

Hi Guys, This is a small Diorama i did towards the end of last summer and managed to finish in time for the Scale Model World at Telford in Shropshire England.

It all Started with the Tamiya 1/100 scale IL28 Beagle, at the time i was still trying to work out how to do different natural metal finishes and i planed on doing this one as a well worn aircraft coming to the end of its service life, anyway every time i looked the aircraft up online the photographs that repeatedly appeared were ones of Beagle's that had been stuck out in the open air for 30/40 years in some outdoor museum somewhere in Eastern Europe and were completely weather worn, so it wasn't long before the bright idea came along to try to emulate this tarnished and stained finnish,

So the first thing was to build the kit up which didn't take long as there aren't many parts, just a small amount of filler along the top seam and top wing joints was required and that was that i didn't even paint the cockpit what there was of it but i planned to yellow of the glazing so you wouldn't be able to see in anyway i must mention masking of the nose glazing was complete Ball Ache, (english term for pain in the arse) once that was done it was time to concentrate on the finish i decided to paint the whole thing with Alclad II so chose to use the Dull Aluminium as i wanted a tarnished finnish so the model was primed with Alclad's grey primer then sprayed with Aluminium it was ok but it didn't have the anodised whitish look i was after so i sprayed over the model with Alclad's White Aluminium starting to look better but still not what i wanted it was still a bit bright it was at this point i had a happy accident to avoid the Finger print problem associated with Alclad's i sprayed Citadels Purity seal on to protect the finish and low and behold there it was the dulled off Aluminium finnish i wanted the Satin varnish took away the brightish silver and replaced it with a silver grey, now i wanted to make the top surface look more weathered and lighter than the sides so i used a very very thin mix of Life Color RLM 02 and began layering thin coats on which in time built up a nice greenish grey colour,

Now it was time for the interesting bit, first job a wash to bring out the panel lines and rivet detail ( forgot to mention i did a bit of re-scribing here and there ) once done i started to use the finest brush to try to paint on the staining streaks which was ok but i wasn't overly happy with the results, the next thing i tried were my Prima Colour pencils sharpened to a tiny point, first of i used a medium grey working my way to darker and darker until i got what i wanted i then started to experiment with different colours reds and browns for the rusty streaks and lime green for the mossy parts, the glazing was yellowed with multiple coats of Citadel Sepia wash this also dry's matt which was a bonus, the results are what you see in the Photos the other aircraft were done in pretty much the same way but in varying tones of wear this is because i assume the Mig 19 would not have been on display for the same amount of time as the iL28 same goes for the Mig 21 Fishbed.

The Base was actually a bit of a headache once i got the base itself the difficult part was trying to find a grass surface that would look ok in 1/100 scale eventually i just went for a fine green woodland scenic grass that looked ok the paths were a bit of artistic licence the ones in the photo's are small red coloured block paviers i tried to scribe them but gave up i just couldn't do then that small and look authentic so it was back to Google Images to see if i could find an alternative idea maybe something like a concrete but luckily i came across an old grainy colour photo from around the 70's / 80's showing no paths at all just worn out and worn down grass. Great, thats what i would do so i placed the models on the base to figure out how i wanted them to look and marked out the pathways.

I mixed some modelling plaster and applied it to the base ( Base already stained and masked ) smoothed it out sculptured the paths, once dry i painted the base varying shades of brown, when done left to dry, next i painted diluted white glue on and spread the grass avoiding the pathways, when i looked at the old photos one of the things you notice is the tufts of tall grass around the wheels and under the wings ( doesn't get cut or walked on ) i made tufts of grass by putting small blobs of white blue on some wax paper the stuff blue tack is stuck to in the packets i then used my static grass applicator filled with varying lengths of fibres plus the rite colour this worked a treat and was actually fun to do so it wasn't long before i had lots of little tufts of grass all varying in length's ( check out static grass tufts on uTube ) so now it was just a case of sticking them to the areas around the wheels and random patches here and there in the end i found it easier to actually stick them to the wheels them selves and i must admit i was very happy with the way they looked as an after thought it was obvious i needed people walking around so i got 1/100 Architectural figures from eBay, these were actually very good i am led to believe they were originally by Prieser of Germany who make some of the best small scale figures for the Rail Road model world, i think the ones i got were copies so some of detail is slightly lost but i did my best with them to be honest there is only so much you can do at this scale.

The first one i painted is the guy who looks like a Polish Air Force Officer reading the information stand, i tried to shade from top to bottom on all the figures i.e. lighter shades on the top of head shoulders and spots in highlight i found it quite impossible to do much with faces so i just painted a dark flesh tone and basically dry brushed with a lighter colour to give highlights,

The other thing i kinda struggled with was what colour to paint peoples clothes looking at the old photos every body seemed to wear browns and more browns and very dull colours so i decided to try and colour them up a little.

The little pale grey chap in one of the photo's is a Airfix 1/72 pilot just to give you an idea of how small the figures were.

Any way chaps Hope you like it if i have forgot something in my description please ask.

And yes i know i need to get my watch cleaned thats the trouble with close up photography its warts and all. Oh and one more thing - i did ok with this at the IPMS Nationals at Telford it picked up the IPMS Poland Trophy for wouldn't you just know it, best model in polish markings as you can imagine i was very happy and Honoured with that result and to think i wasn't going to bother entering it when i saw some of the contenders entered in the same class as mine.
Cheers Guys
Mark

31 additional images. Click to enlarge.