Action Figure 1/6 Scale

Dio Base details

Dio base is made with pieces of styrofoam glued together with carpenter’s glue and held in place with wood screws, a tecnique I developed making model railroad scenery.

Spackled the bolt holes in the foam.

I used a new technique to treat the foam before painting. I always used spackling compound, this time I painted the foam with carpenter’s glue to which I added fine ballast material from Woodland Scenics.

I added damage marks to the walls, floor etc. I then added a couple of I- beams, some styrene tubes and one bigger metal tube to make the area appear as some sort of industrial complex that had been bombed. The image that inspired this scene had a brick building, which would have beet better, but I have not been able to represent bricks in a way they look sharp enough o use in a 1/6 dio. The material available from the 1/12 scales doll houses is just too small. So I went with a representation of damaged re-enforced concrete.

I added small piles or rubble throughout. Added a piece of balsa wood to represent a fallen beam and some more “pipes” made of thin metal to which I added some damage.

I made the rubble with some small pebbles and sand I have saved, got it from the side of the road, great place to find material for modeling jobs. I pass the stuff through a sieve and save the thinner pieces in a bag and the corase part in another. I would fix the rubble in p lace with carpenter’s glue and then add diluted carpenter’s glue over it , then adding some of the thin ballast material. I kept doing this in laters for several days. Added the steel bars to a couple of damaged columns, these are thich florist wire. Also added some foam pieces to represent fallen beams or columns which I had painted with the glue and ballast mixture. I had thought of adding the beams and pipes after painting and finish these separate, but decided against it to have these pieces blend into the dio in a more natural way.

I made a large batch of grey mixture, mixing Black:White:Flat Earth (1:5:1 all Tamiya Acrylic paints, actual colors shown in capital letters) . I kept adding details to the base and then started to paint it.

Thought it would go faster by using the airbrush, eventhough my air brushes only shoot a relatively small area (about 1 ½”) it went along relatively at a good pace. I also painted the tubes and I-beams, I always want to get rid of any white color as soon as possible. I would pain these items later.

I’m not very experienced with the airgun, prefering to use dry brushing instead to create many of the airbrush effects. But this time around I wanted to use the air gun for the weathering of the dio base. I added Black to the base mixture and went over the pipes and I-beams and also sprayed the corners and rubble piles. Also sparayed some of the black on some areas of the walls. I then got another bottle with a mixture of Buff and White and sprayed it here and there. I also sparayed Flat Earth in assorted areas and kept switching from the almost black mix and the very light buff mixture, until I was satisfied with the results. I let all this dry briefly and then went over the base, dry-brushing with the original base color using a very large brush (almost 2”). I lightened this mix with Buff and White and kept dry-brushing over the piece, bringing the texture out nicely.

I then painted the beams and pipes with a mixture of Red Brown and Black, making a very dark brown color which would be the base for all these pieces, including some corrugated styrene pieces that I detailed separately. On this base I dry brushed ( ½” brush) with a mixture of the base color and Chrome Silver. Added Hull Red and yellow to the mixture in a sort of metal and rust palette of Yellow, a mixture of Yellow and Hull Red, Hull Red, my base dark red brown and Chrome Silver.

I then made a diluted mix of light brown and used as a stain on the balsa “beam”. I aded some of the same mixture all over the dio, on the rubble, on the nook and cranies.I then went over the same areas with a lighter mixture of the base color. Always like adding a bit of brownish tint to the grey color if it is to represent concrete or masonry. Pure gray just does not look right to me.