I like big models and big dioramas, always have. I also have always wanted to do a huge diorama with many people involved. So, I asked a few of my friends who, in my opinion, are great modelers to join me in creating a monster diorama for Wonderfest that would be the biggest yet. The only problem was that Wonderfest has a size limitation on dioramas. To get around this problem I came up with the idea of cutting up the base into many smaller dioramas that could be pieced together later to form the big finished piece. Team members would get their own square or squares to finish. The only restrictions being that the groundwork and scene must flow with the ones around it.

The team consisted of the following guys: Erin Lantz (me), John Lester, Terry Miesle, Larry Strickland, Mark Yungblut, Vince Hoffman, and Chris Lynch. Eventually Jon Kunatz joined the team as well, sharing a square with Larry. John was kind enough to provide a web page where we could post all of our updates, maps, sketches, decal designs, and pictures, so we could follow each other's progress and coordinate the logistics of piecing together a diorama with participants spread all over the United States. Only 4 of the members of the team live close to each other, the rest of us are about as far away from each other as we could possibly be without leaving the country! Chris was kind enough to provide casting services, and John was the printed decals. We decided that the best sci-fi vehicles for the scene would be battlemechs, so our diorama was to be a destroyed city being invaded by Team SM, the mercenary mech team. The SM team would square off against Smoke Jaguar, the defenders of the city. Each person made a map of what they wanted to do, sent it in, then we edited them so that each scene flowed into the other. A final map was posted as the "bible" and off we went!

Construction commenced with John, Larry and Terry (the Chicago team) coming together and creating the bases for each team member to ensure all elevations matched. Each base was made from 2" by 1/2" pine framing topped with 3/8" plywood. The basic elevations were built up with laminated insulation foam and the roadbeds were etched in using acetone. Later they poured the streets using plaster, adding the curbs in as they went along. Once everything was dry they packed each base and mailed them to their owners, ready for finishing.

When I received my square I almost lost it! Wow what a big chunk I had! My original idea was to have two Smoke Jaguar Ishtars defending a coastal satellite receiver station from rushing Zugocks and elementals. Locating satellite dishes turned out to be more difficult than I had imagined so Mark gave me a crane tower to convert into a radio tower. Now the area had transformed into a Logistics tower complex that was the objective for my invaders to capture. The tower took up area which was bare, but the scene still looked bland. I decided that a few giant craters would be needed to show pre-invasion shelling from big guns offshore, and would make the groundwork a little more interesting to look at. Once my order of kits came in from HLJ, I did one last rough layout with the snapped together mechs, then proceeded to finish them first, before I started the groundwork.

We all decided early on that we each wanted to do a different type of mech, there are so many cool designs that we just decided as long as it was futuristic and was a mech, it was eligible for the scene. Only mech purists would know the difference anyway, and I think even they appreciated the blending of mechs from different universes. I chose to use two Bandai 1/35 Gasaraki Ishtars, three Bandai 1/144 Gundam Zugocks, one Bandai 1/144 Gundam Hygog, and 10 Battletech Elemental power suits. All were built straight from the box except one of the Ishtars, to which I would add a "Hammerhead" missile system. All of the mechs were roughly the same height so the scales didn't really matter much, as long as they looked like they were the same scale I was happy.

I built the Zugocks first, as they were the stars of the scene. When I got the base, Terry had written in the water area "Here be Otters". His comment became the team's name, "The Rabid Otters." Later I would add decals to reflect this naming. I assembled the kits straight from the box with no alterations other than adding LEDs for the eye in each one. All were painted in overall Steel MM paints, then given a little RustAll treatment on the upper regions. The dio team had decided that blue would be the SM team color, so I painted the shoulders and air tanks in Bright Blue MM. I saved the decals until later so I could do all of the decaling at one time, no sense in dragging out materials over and over again.

Next I built the tower. The tower Mark sent me originally was a crane kit by one of the model RR companies, I'm not sure which. The top horizontal parts were missing, but I didn't need them anyway. I wanted to make a tower that looked somewhat like a cell phone tower, so I need something at the top. I made a tower topper from the engine section of a Vorlon cruiser, but it just wasn't enough. Out came the Armageddon station kit and its (non-Mir) solar wings. I added one on each side but it still needed more. So, I looked for things that looked like radar dishes and found them in my spares box; Enterprise-D captain's yachts, paint mixing divot castings, tiny rods to mount them on, everything came together nicely. The first tower top had an X-wing gun for an antenna, but later I changed it to add an LED at the top by replacing it with styrene tubing. Once I had made a topper that I liked, I glued it to the tower and began painting. I painted the whole thing in Krylon White Primer, then used the RustAll system to rust the tower top completely while making streaks down the tower. Details were picked out in Tamiya blue, yellow, and red. After a final wash, the tower proper was done. All that was left was to fashion a flag from .005 brass sheet, add radioactive hazard decals to the dishes, then make a mount for the flag out of wires and styrene blocks. Later, an elemental would be raising the flag in a victory salute.

With the tower done I had to figure out how to mount it to the base. I decided that guide wires were out of the question as they would have to be secured to other squares around me to look right. To fix the problem I found a plastic figure base I had laying around and started converting it into a concrete bunker building that the tower could sit on. The first step was to cut a hole in the front of the base for a doorway. Once done, I added some stairs, a paper clip rail, and a styrene door. The end result was a sunken entryway at the base of the building. One last detail, a closed circuit TV security camera, and the construction of the tower base was done. Painting was straightforward, just a base coat of PollyScale Aged concrete with RustAll weathering. The final step was to glue the tower to the base, which I did using Ambroid Weld so that it would be sure to not break apart. Believe me, it's glued hard. The plastic will break before the bond does!

Next up I turned to the Ishtars. One I built straight from the box, the other got the tank killer treatment. As previously mentioned, I took the "Hammerhead" from an ESCI LAV kit and mounted it in place of the turret on one of the mechs, just to have that personal touch. I knew John was using Ishtars, so I wanted one of mine to be different. I built the "hammerhead" exactly as if it were going on top of the LAV, only adding a photoetched antenna to the kit parts. I was looking to end up with a design that resembled the robots in the movie Space Truckers, and was happy when I achieved my goal. The only other structural difference in the two Ishtars is that one has ankle armor, the Hammerhead doesn't.

Painting was where I spent most of the time on these particular mechs. The camouflage designs are Dream Pod 9 patterns, and of course I just HAD to choose the hardest one! Layer after layer of tiny squares of masking tape were applied to the hammerhead to achieve the multi squared look of the urban camouflage design I chose. The base coat is Dark Grey MM, the next set of squares is Light Grey MM, the next is Gunship Grey MM, and finally the last is Slate Grey MM. It took two weeks to get the one mech painted due to the excessive masking needed to achieve the design, but I think it was worth it. The other Ishtar received a much simpler design, after doing the last one, which kicked my butt! I went with a base of Russian Topside Blue MM, masked out a few lightning bolt-like camo designs, then painted them in MM Light Grey. Disruption pattern lines were then masked on and done in black and white MM. Final weathering was kept to a minimum as these mechs were based in a city, I didn't think they'd get too dirty except for dust. I gave each a slight black wash then dusted them with the dust from the RustAll kit. Again, decals were done later.

Originally I had wanted to use more Hygogs in the scene, but space wasn't available for all of them. One would be enough, I'd just call him the commander. This kit is very cool, the different hands that come with it allow for various weapons loads to be made. The kit was built straight from the box except for the following conversion. I chose to do mine up as an assault missile launcher. The kit contains pods that supposedly have missiles inside them, the idea being that the pods blow off then the missile fires. The kit parts only include solid pods or no pods (hands), what about the exploding pod? I would have to do it myself I guess, oh well. Out came the razor saw. I first glued the pods together so I could have a solid piece to cut on. Once dry I cut along the separation seams until each of three pieces were free. Next I glued piano wire to each piece and bent it until I had mounting wires that would hold the pieces in a position that would look as if they were blowing apart. The finished parts were set aside so I could finish the model, and were added last.

The rest of the Hygog was done as per the instructions, with again the only mods made being the LED eye added in the head. The whole thing was painted in a baby puke green color I mixed up out of MM Willow Green and Light Grey, with details picked out in various MM Metalizers. The pods were painted in International Orange MM.

The elementals were castings done by Chris of some resculpts that Mark did. I painted mine in Dark Metallic Grey Metalizers with Bright Blue details. All were given a wash of black then details were picked out with various MM Metalizers. The viewports were painted with Tamiya Clear Red. Assembly was your basic glue-it-the-way-you-want-it on these, not much to tell here, but they turned out quite cool. The main purpose of them was to have some sort of infantry on my end, have them helping the Zugocks over the wall for a little bit of humor, and to have someone raise the Starship Modeler flag over the battlefield in victory.

Decaling was the last step in model construction. I gloss coated all of the mechs, laid on the custom decals, then flat coated them. Each of my mechs, in fact everyone's mechs, had personal touches. All of mine had the names of my dogs on them, and the "Rabid Otters" all got faces made from black decal strips for whiskers, a painted nose, and dots of white on the exhaust grills for eyes. Pretty funny looking in the end, I think.

With the mechs done, I turned to the base and groundwork. The first step was to cut away the foam for the areas that would be water and craters. I broke out my hot wire foam cutter and a Olfa breakaway knife and carefully cut out the basic shape of a shore line and craters, then roughed up the edges with a few dribbles of acetone (it eats foam like there's no tomorrow!). Once I had the basic cuts done, I came back and placed the mechs and tower for one last check before I started smearing groundwork. Once I had a final layout, I mixed up enough Sculptamold for the whole base. I prefer Sculptamold with its finer grain and quicker drying time over Celluclay, but both work just as well. If you get right down to it they're pretty much the same thing anyway. I mixed in plenty of Elmer's glue to ensure that it would stay attached to the foam, I didn't want it popping loose later. Once mixed I smeared the mixture over the whole base, filling in the crater edges and sculpting in explosion scars leading away from the craters. The tower was placed in its final position and worked around, but not permanently affixed to ease transportation of the finished diorama. Wire was added to each side of one of the craters to represent underground cable busted in the explosion, one of those little details I like to add that most people never see. The underwater areas were smoothed and textured to resemble the beaches I grew up on here in Florida with different levels as you head out from shore. After carefully sculpting the whole thing, I set it aside to dry for a few days before painting while I built the sea wall.

The sea wall was made by cutting foam the correct size and then etching it with acetone to achieve that "busted concrete" look. Craters in the wall were made by dripping small amounts of acetone on the foam and letting it etch until it looked right. This process was stopped using a spray bottle of water. If the acetone isn't stopped, it'll etch all the way through leaving a pile of goo. Later I would learn this lesson, again, the hard way! I melted the first wall I made after it had been painted by doing my wash with lacquer based paints! A case of not thinking before I do something. Once I had the distressed look that I wanted, I airbrushed the wall with PollyScale Aged Concrete, then gave it a black wash. I also made a sewer pipe for the wall by cutting a small length of styrene tubing, rusting it out with the RustAll kit, then mounting it in a hole made especially for it. Along the edges of the main hole/crater in the wall, I added small reinforcement wires made from paperclips, then hung a chunk of "concrete" from one of them.

Now that the base was dry I started painting it. I started with MM Dark Earth as a base color, airbrushing it on in thin coats, mainly in the highlight areas. Next up I used Burnt Umber for the shadow areas, making sure to only get it into the recesses. Next I dry brushed a lighter shade of the Dark Earth over all of the raised details, bringing out the details and adding depth. The next step was to add the scorched areas around the craters, and for this I used Badger brand black acrylic, misted on in thin coats so as to not completely cover the colors underneath. I was looking for a "just burnt" look. Final drybrushing was done in the Dark Earth color on the backsides of the dirt piles around the craters to simulate unscorched earth.

Now that all of the dioramas elements were done, it was now time to bring them all together. The tower was put in its hole in the groundwork, and dust from the RustAll kit was added around it to blend in the seam between it and the groundwork. Since the scene was of an electrical complex type area, I thought that gravel would be a good ground covering that would also aid in hiding seams. The gravel I chose was the Wooodland Scenics Talus, small grade. In hindsight I wish I'd have just not added it, it looks too fake to me. Still, I used the gravel, using a thinned down mixture of Elmer's and water I coated the groundwork in the pattern that I felt the blasts would blow the gravel, leaving it to cover up the areas unaffected. The seawall was glued in place with Elmer's glue, and yet more gravel/debris was used to blend it in. I drilled holes for the power mechs' power wires and then mounted the mechs, pinning each one in the feet and gluing them in with Elmer's. The wires led to a battery mounted underneath the diorama, and that was wired into a switch that I mounted on the backside. Next the dust and gravel were worked up around the feet of each mech to give them the heavy sunken in look. The scene still looked bland, so I broke out some static grass and added a few clumps of grass around the tower. These were drybrushed a brighter green to mute the plastic look of the unpainted product. I also added some clumps of dirt to the side of the tower exposed to the big crater in the wall after I had airbrushed some black onto it for scorching. With that big a blast, everything around would have some dirt or wall dust on them. This was done by painting the glue/water mixture on the tower building, then actually throwing the dirt on it from the direction of the blast. What stuck was what was there in the end, I didn't want to over do it.

Final details were added after all of the major groundwork was finished and dry. The smoke for the Hygog's exploding pod was added using polyester pillow batting, pulled and shaped around the missile, in which I added another LED to simulate the firing rocket motor. This LED was an afterthought and was actually easy to put in. I just drilled the arm out, ran wire through, soldered the LED to them, then glued it to the end of the missile. The "smoke" would cover the wire and tape of the LED, but for good measure I painted them both white so as to blend them in better. Two of the elementals were jumping to join the one on the tower in helping to raise the SM flag, they also got the batting treatment. I mounted each of them on piano wire painted white, then worked the batting around it into a flowing pattern, gluing it to the exhaust ports at the base of their ankles. The end effect was quite effective I think; they really do look like they're jumping.

My finishing touches were to add some blown-over biohazard waste barrels, add more dust to the groundwork to blend it and give it a sense of chaos, add various grades of gravel piled at the base of the wall to simulate the remnants of the wall, a tire from a Kubelwagon (what sea shore scene wouldn't be complete without the tire in the water?), and finally the water itself. I have 4 dogs, so I decided to wait on the pouring of the water until I got to the show. I didn't want dog hair in my ocean!

To prepare the base for pouring the water I made a dam out of Plexiglas cut to the height I originally wanted the water to go. The dam was glued to the base sides using clear silicone adhesive in a tube, and the corner where the two pieces come together were glued with Ambroid. The water would consist of EnviroTex brand gloss coating for tabletops. It dries VERY slowly so that it doesn't hold bubbles, and when hard it's clear and shiny like water. I had heard several different viewpoints from several people about this stuff, some said it got REALLY hot while setting, and others said no heat at all. I even contemplated sculpting waves using acrylic gel medium instead, but eventually went the quick and easy route due to time constraints. I took no chances with the heat factor, I poured it in only to 3/8" thick. I obviously missed some holes when making the dam as I had slight leakage at each end, but nothing that some masking tape couldn't hold back. The big crater in the center of the base also got some water in it, the left over epoxy was just enough to give it that "busted water main" look.

The last thing done was to bring all of the other bases together on the contest table and wrap the edges in a felt-like material held to the edges by doublesided tape. Flip the switch and stand back, this diorama is ready for judging! This project was a blast to do, the most interesting aspect being that we all had to communicate constantly to ensure continuity between our bases and the general look of our mechs. I think the only problem we ran into was time, some of the members of the team either didn't finish or didn't do all they wanted, but in the end I don't think it made a difference in the big picture. The precedent was set, we now plan on doing another team project for next year, and this time we know exactly what to expect. The multi-square diorama idea is out there now, waiting for another bunch of guys to do it again with their own ideas, and I for one can't wait to see them.

Modeling is known as a personal hobby, this is proof that it's not. People coming together to do what they all love to do is what this was all about, and on that point, we won gold as far as we're concerned.