Science fiction and the fascination of space. Endless distances, unexplored, undiscovered, full of dangers, secrets, challenges, fiction and dreams.
As a kid and youth I devoured every sci-fi TV series, every sci-fi-movie and nearly every novel, as far as I was allowed to do so. They all enthralled me, and to the day they did not release me.
Perry Rhodan, Gozilla and its monsters, The Invaders, Raumpatrouille Orion, Star Trek, Alien and above all Gerry Anderson’s UFO – then and today.
It were the models of the airplanes, the spaceships and the bases, which fascinated me above everything else, like for instance the SHADO headquarters, disguised as a film studio, the moonbase with its interceptors, the hot “moonbase girls” with their purple wigs and – most impressive – the UFOs with their very special sound and the laser beams, combined with a realistic story in the not too far future: traffic of human organs! Not just on our planet, no, even through space.
Unfortunately there were not many ready-made UFO models for sale for us modelmakers prior to 2002. Usually it were building kits of models. Comet miniatures in Great Britain had the best selection, among that a line of small 1:72-sized metallic models and a few models were available from the Japanese firm IMAI.
However, most models were made of resin, and it was rather difficult to properly build and paint these kits. 2002 the breakthrough came with the very high quality models of the firm KONAMI.
They were exactly what Id always wanted:
Small, perfectly made plastic models, which I only needed to properly paint and fashion as close as possible to the originals. Most important, these models had a reasonable size to build beautiful, small scenes and dioramas with.
Thus I evolved from a “modelmaker” into a “diorama maker with models”, and I am every time very happy when my dioramas create pleasure for other sci-fi fans, and I can give them some time to dream. 😉 Oh, I almost forgot – what materials do I use for my dioramas? It is very simple 😉
The base of the dioramas is made of styrofoam, though I will replace that in my next dioramas with styrodur. I use lots of natural materials, because they look very realistic. Many different kinds of sand, soil, forest soil, real stones and roots and whatever else I happen to find. All these components are then placed in a setting mass (own recipe) and dusted with a variety of materials, like pigments or spices to adjust them to the background picture.
For the UFO Diorama base I used rocks and stones of different sizes, Sand and cement, mixed these and formed them. After everything had dried I painted the surface and dusted it with various colours and flour.
I took apart the Konami UFO and sprayed the middle section with a special acrylic lacquer, then I painted the Top with Schminke Metall Fluid and Schminke green until it looked like the original. Using the same paint in a diluted form I painted the middle part and the stabilizers.
Last but not least I dusted the transparent cover of the UFO with dust from the floor of my heating cellar – and the diorama was finished!
Thanks for reading and maybe we meet again soon!
Cheerful modelbuilder-greetings to everyone!
UFO-Bernd ;-))
b.spind1er@arcor.de