The Shire

[dykio]

Hi guys,

first to answer some questions, i really have no idea yet wich figures to use. I have some strelets figs in mind combined with some airfix... but they look a little bit to big. Im also looking at 15mm figs from a couple of compagnies. But most of them are in the uk and the shipping costs are
But since it probably isnt finished in the next couple of days i have my hopes on RedBox/DarkAlliance.

But other sugestions are more then welcome !!

Great project! I am also curious what figures you will use as hobbits. I have some, but they are in 32mm.

I think you mean the mithrill figures? I also have a lot of them. Great figures but to big for this dioroma...

Talking about the dio.... here we go . Not to much happened but there is some colour so the waistland is getting more hobbit-ish

First i covered the whole thing with my plaster paint mix


next i decided to do something with the background. I just mixed some cheap white and blue and tried to make it look like a blue sky with some clouds


now as the famous Bob Ross used to say, you dont make mistakes but happy accidents.... Well.... i had a very happy accident

this was way to blue... and i also tried to put some clouds in but im not to pleased with that to.

But i decided to leave it for no (also because i did not know how to make it look better ) and just start by painting the ground green. Also just some cheap green paint and it will be covered so the colour wasnt that importent






As you can see i did hit the blue background so that also needs to be looked at...



but in the end it does look ok. And from a distance .... ( a great distance ) it starts to look a bit like euh...... wel something

Thanks for looking and laterrrrrrrrrr

[PaulRPetri]

The sky looks very good to me!! This project is turning out excellent!!

[Santi Pérez]

This Shire scenery is getting better and better, dykio. It's a pleasure to see its fantastic progress.

Santi.

[Peter]

I was wondering how you will transport this to the FIGZ next year????

The sky looks good to me. And when you really start with groundwork I don't think we will really pay attention to the background. A landscape with lots of trees, grass and many colorfull flowers!

[Susofrick]

Will be a great dio, figures or not.

[dykio]

Thank you my dear friends for the nice comments and :

I was wondering how you will transport this to the FIGZ next year????

lets hope that this will be possible

now the last couple of weeks i had a lot of complaints (especially from a couple of dwarves and two very irritating dark riders) that it is hard to get to the shire. The main reason being that there is no bridge !!!
So that needed to be fixed

now im not quite sure what tey are complaining about because as you can see there no water yet ..


i started by making a template out of cardboard and then cutting it out in the cheap isolation stuff





i cut 3 layers and glued them together so that makes the bridge 6 cm wide. Which is ok i think



after some extra cutting it just fitted and then i decided to give the same "hand made"stone treatment as described before







so after some puzzeling it looks like this


next a bit of paint.....


and voila.... the bridge to the shire.


Next will be some roads or grass or water or.... well i have no idea but there will be some progress im sure.

Regards and laterrrrrrrrrrrrr

[Bluefalchion]

That bridge looks incredible. You make it look so easy, although I have little doubt it would take me several months, perhaps even years, to duplicate.

[Bill Slavin]

Nice bridge! Very Shire-like.

[Rich W]

Keep up the good work!

[PaulRPetri]

It looked like you created that excellent bridge out of thin air!! I don't know how you do it!

[Santi Pérez]

This bridge is a wonderful addition to your diorama, dykio.

Let's hope that the dwarves and dark riders stop complaining now.

Santi.

[Peter]

Excellent bridge!

[Denyer]

Great stuff...

I see from the above that you were pondering about what figures to use. I recently "converted" some Essex 15mm bods into adventuring Halflings for 1/72 (I wanted them to look like "little people" - not pumpkin headed freaks) and hauled in some Blue Moon figures for same. What with the comment about the cost of getting figures from the UK (this is an "ouch" here re. getting stuff from Europe now, thanks to the Brexit krazeeness) ) this may therefore be of no use, but I thought I'd flag it up.

Pics on a couple of posts on my Blog:

https://denyers.blogspot.com/2021/06/into-woods.html

https://denyers.blogspot.com/2021/05/pa ... lling.html

[Susofrick]

Looks like some of best options for hobbits in 1/72 I've seen!

And that river looks very promising and it's good that there is a bridge for the tourists. (Ah, you called them dwarfs and black riders, not very nice but understandable when the tourist are a bit too much).

[dykio]

My dear Bagginses and Boffins, Bennosfiguresforum members, Tooks and Brandybucks, Grubbs, Chubbs, Hornblowers, Bolgers, Bracegirdles and Proudfoots its time for a smal update.

Although still trying to figure out which figures to use (@Denyer, youre essex 15mm do look like the best option so far ) i continued with the landscape.

Although the shire is mainly grass and hills i wanted to have some rocky surface here and there. So i started out with......

Treebark (and when you get it be sure that there is no ent still attached to it...)



using a small saw you can get some small pieces from it and paint them grey



then i dry-fitted them





and glued them in place



here is an overview so far...


next i glued small rocks everywere i wanted but not to much. These are just small stones found outside when going for a walk so not to expensive



the last thing i did was making the roads. I used a mixture of sand (from scheveningen), glue and cheap dark brown paint. And just starting spreading thing al over the place



when dried up it looks like this



and then i gave it a dry brush



so here is the situation at the moment



until the next update stay safe

[Rich W]

Wonderful update. That scenery is going to look marvellous once completed. Would look very good if you managed to get an orc warband spreading through the settlement.

[PaulRPetri]

Boy that road mixture really looks great. Nice idea. I use the glue and sand as stucco on buildings but I see adding some paint and making roads is anoher option I had not considered.
Keep up the outstanding work I look forward to it.

[Michael Robert]

What wonderful progress, dykio
the landscaping of the shire looks good. The step by step approach is nice to follow. With my little time I have the tendency to do things too fast and then they get easily butchered.
Keep up the good work
Greetings
Michael

[huib]

This is developing into a great diorama, Dykio! Really nice.

[MABO]

Love to see the overview. I am looking forward to the next steps...