Dioramas!......

[midmanc82]

hey there red & joe, aye its def coming along nicely, i could’nt sleep last night so ended up working on it til around 3am, sadly at that time i cant do much on the practical side other than foam carving but i ended up marking the whole front of the fire house onto the actual wood so i knew where and what i was cutting out of it today, have cut the doorway out and am now filing the edges neat so i should be able to throw up a couple more pics later on along with a mock up of it all together with all the cut outs and firepoles etc, I always find it enthusing when i can see how its all looking built up

Hows the WW2 build coming along?

Yeah Joe, I found something on here actually and it said you had posted it, it was a firehouse facade but was for the matty 6" figures but maybe you just found the pic somewhere and posted it? It did look really good though, i knew as soon as i saw it i needed to make something like that for mine

[midmanc82]

okie doke, heres last nights and this mornings progress

[kingpin]

Coming along nicely, even reminds me of the foam mock-up in Making Ghostbusters.

If I may make a suggestion? If you haven’t already got it, it might be worth getting some brass tubing for the Firepoles, that’d look much more authentic than painting those dowels.

[midmanc82]

Absolutely kingpin, an awesome suggestion and as a matter of fact i was actually pricing up paint the other day and its gonna cost me £15 minimum for brass spray paint yet its like a fiver for a couple of the brass tubing you mentioned, its a no brainer really lol

I think i know the foam mock up you mean, I saved it as a reference on my firehouse project folder, although I’ve been following the video game as closely as I can I have been checking on some of the film stills to see what i think i can get away with mixing and matching the two interior layouts. I have managed to work in a space to cut out for the eventual basement level, as long as i remember to cut the hole in the base then I am free to add the basement as soon as I get the display unit sorted for it

My plans with this build today will probably be cutting the stairs out and poss gluing them all together, the staircase spindles I have seen have square bases so i will have no need to drill small holes in each step beforehand, they aren’t metal ones like in the film but they will at least match the barrier that runs around the top level of the staircase.

What I might do later is fire up a few pics of the bits and bobs I intend to buy in for this project, stuff like 1/12 arcade machines, dollhouse bits n bobs etc just to give an idea of how authentic (or not lol) I can get this interior actually looking, all thoughts are welcome, if something looks a bit crappy by all means let me know and I will look for other bits instead

[midmanc82]

start of staircase, once this is done ill prob finish cutting the windows out of the front of the station obvs stairs are going to be painted




haha excuse the background mess my son made with his toys

[redfive1973]

Coming along really nice. Giving me ideas on making my own dios.

[midmanc82]

hey there red and thanks for the nice comm’

I’ve just been on a mini spend spree on ebay actually, I have just ordered 1000 lolly/craft sticks to do the upstairs flooring and a walnut wood stain to give them a darker tone, I am going to be looking forward to squaring off each end of all those haha

also ordered my staircase spindles today so I will be finishing off my stairway steps today, painting them and hopefully gluing them all together so its more or less all ready for the painting and sticking of said spindles. all that will be left for that side of things will be some bannister rails and a balsa wood cover for the outside steps to give it that neat and finished look which i will also stain walnut.

once staircase is completely cut, stuck together and painted i will be making the interior partition wall to the sleeping area before the long lollipop stick task of flooring, boo hoooooooooo… actually i could do with drilling out and filing the windows on the front of the 'station, might do that while waiting for the stair paint to dry.

Also finally, as per kingpins suggestion i now have 2 brass rods at the desired size in my basket on ebay, will need to wait to wait a couple of weeks for that purchase so any mock ups i make of this build will feature the dowels i have used prev’

heres a few pics anyway just to whet anyones appetite till i can get the finished staircase up on here




also found these which i think will be great for venkmans office gonna be a bit before i order these though


[midmanc82]

staircase all stuck together pre paint and obvs waiting now for spindles to arrive in the meantime im going to make the ecto containment tank for resident ghost slimer

[joeghostbuster]

this is going to be so damn awesome

[kingpin]

Are you going to use static, non-functional lights for the room, or have you considered using some appropriate wired dolls house fittings?

[Farah]

This is going to be excellent!

[midmanc82]

Thank you joe and farah, I must admit that this is the most fun I’ve had building a diorama/set to date, today I’ll be cutting out the pieces for the slimer tank and the holes for the windows on the front of the building

As for lighting I will most definitely be going for fully functional dollhouse lighting, I’ve seen some really clever looking magnetic ones that run off a battery, they look kinda like they would run off the type of flat round battery you tend to get in watches or those toy mechanical fish that my son plays with lol, I could be wring though. Definitely needs working lights though as its going to look too dark a display plus I kinda want to emulate the effect that the smaller diamond select statue does by by having it lit up even when the whole thing is closed.

One thing that did arrive for me the other day were those fairy lights I wanted for the roof top that look like the spirits flying to danas building, I will be needing 2 more mdf boards soon for the roof and other side of the firehouse, soon as I get them and cut them to size I will mock build again and see how they look sat on the top

Hows the fan fic coming along farah?

[Farah]

@midmanc82

Thank you joe and farah, I must admit that this is the most fun I’ve had building a diorama/set to date, today I’ll be cutting out the pieces for the slimer tank and the holes for the windows on the front of the building

As for lighting I will most definitely be going for fully functional dollhouse lighting, I’ve seen some really clever looking magnetic ones that run off a battery, they look kinda like they would run off the type of flat round battery you tend to get in watches or those toy mechanical fish that my son plays with lol, I could be wring though. Definitely needs working lights though as its going to look too dark a display plus I kinda want to emulate the effect that the smaller diamond select statue does by by having it lit up even when the whole thing is closed.

One thing that did arrive for me the other day were those fairy lights I wanted for the roof top that look like the spirits flying to danas building, I will be needing 2 more mdf boards soon for the roof and other side of the firehouse, soon as I get them and cut them to size I will mock build again and see how they look sat on the top

Hows the fan fic coming along farah?

it’s coming alone great and I have it posted up soon.

[midmanc82]

OK spent most of the day cutting the ecto containment tank for slimer, couple of hiccups encountered so bear in mind that slimer at the mo only just fits in with his stand, I will be able to drop him by 20mm by the time the tanks base is done and the foam core is stuck to the base of the firehouse. If he still looks to high up in there then I will dig out some armature wire I have kicking about my place and make a smaller attachment for him to have him looking a bit more centred.

Will be adding some bits of foam core to this to hide my lack of joinery skills lol, at the moment it does just look like a wood hut, The bits I will be using the foam core will be the attempt at making it look how it should do and the wood the foam board is stuck to will be the support needed to hold up the middle horizontal stairway bit.

[midmanc82]

OK managed to sand down most of the tank flush now, also have cut the base out and have cut a hole in it so slimer can be dropped down by 5mm, will be doing the same through the foam core and the actual base of the fire house so he will drop a further 15mm.

Also have cut the hole out for the basement stairwell for when I get round to doing that and have glued the support columns on the back wall so I’m pretty much ready to make a start on cutting all the foam board out ready.

Here’s a few more pics of progress, am not sure if I will end up doing much more with it today or over the weekend actually as I have a pretty busy one ahead of me

[midmanc82]

OK just so you guys know I’m not dead or have abandoned this project I thought I would post a quick progress update

My lollipop/craft sticks arrived on saturday so I spent much of the weekend squaring each end off and have begun the mammoth task of sticking them to the upper floor. I started laying down all the ones I had precut and we are now on tuesday and I’ve probably only got 1/5 of it done lol, it is gonna take forever buuuut looking on the bright side I have nearly covered the sleeping area so I guess that’s one section put to bed (haha pun intended). Also have cut 4 bottom dowels to size for the support columns on the downstairs area and have also given my wood stain a few test runs on one of the staircase spindles and a piece of my laminate flooring. The results are pretty much as I had hoped so I will be making the bannister bits and edging for the stairs out of stained laminate flooring and the panels for venkmans office too. Oh and the guys wooden uniform lockers too and I will be staining the upper flooring as well.

I took an earlier pic of where I had gotten up to with the flooring but have laid about another 5 or 6 rows since but for now I’ll just wet you whistle with this one until a few days time. I’m laying between 5-10 per day so as not to get bored and careless although today I’ve managed to keep the enthusiasm a wee bit longer lol.

[midmanc82]

Ahaaaa!! some more substantial pics and progress report for today!

First is that I have been cutting out and filing/neatening up the windows on the front of the fire house, to me it’s starting to take on proper shape, I am cutting/filing them in sections so I shall do another three tomorrow.

Second one is that I have now reached where the wall and doorway will be on the guys bedroom with the lollipop stick flooring. I have measured up the sizes I need to cut the wall and now have my board ready to go and will be getting on that within the next hour.

Thirdly I have now cut all the dowels I need to make the cylinder support columns, one type of dowel is a thicker base type dowel and the other one is a thinner one and there will be much carving/filing/sanding to make this look right. Also I did another mock build up to give you guys an idea on how its looking on the whole and looking the the pics I’m almost ready to start a little bit of foam carving. First things first though, the support columns are desperately needed as you’ll see from the pics that I’m having to hold up one side of the second floor as there is no support on that one side. Oh and I’ve also included my “test swabs” of the walnut wood dye I had sent to me last week

Half of the window cutouts done. There will be foam board over the top of these so anything that doesn’t look as straight as it should will be covered as I want a tiny over lap by about 1mm to hold in the perspex/black card I’ll be using for the windows.

Those are the bottom base dowels mentioned earlier

Flooring laid up to the interior bedroom partition marking

Just liked this pic so thought I’d share

Egon checking out his bedroom for spooks, spectres or ghosts

And finally my test swabs for the wood dye. I like the spindle and the offcut of laminate flooring, I will be using this to make the guys wooden lockers and also the panelling on venkmans office but I don’t really like the effect it’s had on the lollipop stick, I think it’s a bit too dark for my liking so I will probably just laquer/varnish the flooring as that will have a somewhat darkening effect even if only slightly. Or I may just leave it, I haven’t decided properly yet

So there it is, my up to date progress, I probably won’t post much again over the next week or so as I’ll be concentrating on the upper floor flooring once that internal wall has been cut so that will take me a good while plus I’ll be carrying on with cutting the windows out, if I happen to make anything totally new just to have a break from the monotonous bits i.e the ghostbusters sign then I will throw that up for you to have a ganders

Hope you all have a fab weekend folks, ciao for now

[midmanc82]

Hello there ladies and gents, sorry no pics but thought I would post a quick progress report all the same so you all know where I’m up to on my build

OK so actually not much big news, if there was then I would have included pics but most of the work now is incredibly lengthy and dare I say it boring, I can only do so much of it at one time without getting sloppy and as you can imagine I really want this to look like its had that last little 10% actual care taken to get this looking as right as it can be. The dreaded lollipop stick flooring lol. It’s taking forever but I have indeed cut the interior wall now and have 7 rows of flooring continued from the other side. Still need to cut the doorway out of it but I mainly just wanted the wall so I could have it sit in the flooring gap as snug as possible.

Have also very nearly completed the front of the firehouse windows, only 3 more squares to cut and file so it really is starting to look how it’s supposed to. other than that not much has been done but what I will do is try my best to get as much of the flooring done before friday and maybe the rest of the windows cut out along with the rest of the interior foam board cut out for the interior and I’ll mock build again to show you guys what it looks like essentially “white washed”.

Thants about it for now so peace out and hope you guys are having a fab week

[joeghostbuster]

you are dedicated my friend! the finished piece is going to blow us away!

[midmanc82]

Thanks Joe, I have to say a big part of why I’m making this was that I never had the kenner firehouse when the real ghostbusters were at the top of their game, my mam was convinced it wouldn’t last 2 minutes and break lol, never had a problem with me having any of the vehicles though. When Mattel brought their first few figures out it was my nerdy dream come true and always hoped we would maybe get some sort of diorama to go with them and in a way I suppose there is with the Janine and samhain figure set but I don’t really like the Mattel real ghostbusters, there’s something about figures with actual clothing on (apart from Hot toys) that just remind me of dolls really which is ironic given that my firehouse is essentially based on the same principle as a doll house lol.

Anyway in other news my courtroom Egon arrived a couple of weeks ago along with my slime blower Ray so apart from the 2 slimed variants, the ghostbusters with removable packs, the GB2 blue jumpsuit/xmas hat box set and the rookie I will have a fully complete set of the mattel range, I even manage to pick up the 20 inch stay puft on ebay the other day and have a thread on here bookmarked on how to fix his eventual yellowyness. I got him for a bargain though, £26!!! Eventually Ill have the resin diamond select one anyway so at that price he’s kinda tiding me over til then. My firehouse is bigger than 20 inches tho lol but then to be a proper scale the stay puft would need to be at the very least about 37-40 inches…Ha, I’m rambling!

So todays mission is more of the flooring, when I get bored with doing that I’m gonna finish off the windows on the front and I also started on the sign yesterday so I’m gonna finish that off today so I’ll at least post a pic of that attached to the front of the fire station

Wishing you a very happy build up to christmas