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THE TROUBLE WITH KARL (or a Trick of the light )

Brokeneagle

Master at Arms
:laugh:
Hello Sci-fi ers,
it has come to zero hour so I will throw in my weird little story for this sci-fi dio.
Time, place, ? could be 20th century but could be 19th, might not be this reality.

A war has come and gone, and the remains of the violence and destruction still stain the eastern half of the once great Gothic capital. Gaslamps light the streets at night and their flickering, sickly yellow haze try their best to bring some saftey to the darkness that prevails in this end of town. Rumours have it that some evil malevolence has been born under one of the old defence gun's - Battery 17, but the levels of radiation spent in that area to push back the inhibitors to the outskirts, has rendered it a forbidden zone to all but the most hideously deformed. A lone figure has been reported to be living at the gun site, along with what seems to be a kind of living technology, born from the mutating environment and feeding on the machine of war; changing it, reforming it from within to become..............

"That's all that was left in the diary sir. Couldn't make out the rest, it's too damaged. I'll have Jenkins run it down the river to the professor, he will be the only person who can get any more from this carbonized mess."
The Captain replies:"OK, just get back here before dark. You know how the Inhibitors favour the far bank at dusk."


Ok so there you have it, a strange Gothic tale yet to be told. This Nightmarish vision has been looming for a while through the idea of a post apocalyptic dio set on a river bank in a destroyed city. This will be quite a large dio that will involve a BR52 as the central theme. I have coined it 'THE JETTY DWELLERS'.
This then led me to come up with a few outlying ideas for this world so I could use some other models within this theme such as the MIG Prod KV2X. I also wanted this world to be a little confusing using some WW2 style stuff, Nuclear war but combining this with an old 19th century feel with a touch of Mad Max.
I then found the Smog figures. These are 1/35 scale figures from a 1888 London setting that is not quite right and not quite on our time line. There is also a website for theis type of thing called Steampunk. A grand but nightmarish place of great imagination.
Anyway, I hope that you get it so that you can appreciate my own special form of Steam punk.
I have used a Smog Figure called Dr Proteus Treves who is the smog equivalent of a kind of Hunchback Elephant man. The moulding is super crisp and the sculptor is one of the best I have seen as he gets the character across beautifully. The figure is quite large and probably about 6 1/2 to 7ft tall.

I have used the remains of my doomed Karl Gerat /Dragon version that was smashed and replaced with the trumpeter one. I have kept the pieces and the intact gun cradle for such a nightmare as this.
I will be painting this scene as a night setting with just a gaslight to through off highlights and shadows. I have wanted to try this idea out for a while and have been thinking about how to go about it. I will discuss more when I get to the painting stage but suffice to say that this will be the hardest paint job I have ever attempted but probably (If all goes well )the most exciting.
I have purchased a couple of new bags of modeling clay and my spare parts box is spilling over so lets just run with this and see if it works.

THE TROUBLE WITH KARL

So here is my starting point - a Karl Gerat cradle and gun already built with some scratch work - the rest will need to be created.

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THE FIGURE

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Gizmology parts

I aquired some packs of springs and sci-fi parts for robots when I was in Japan in Feb.They will help. I will get some more when I go Back.

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THANK YOU FOR THE POSTS - I HOPE I CAN KEEP UP THE ENTERTAINMENT THIS WEEK UNTIL I HAVE TO HEAD FOR JAPAN ON SUNDAY.

:geek
STAGE 1.
GETTING THE IMAGE IN MY HEAD ON TO THE WOOD........


Order of the day here is a bit of packing foam, the Karl and some clear water based glue(that will not attack the foam). Lots of adjusting the Karl around the base and standing back to judge the spot. I need to take into account the other aspects of the dio that only I can see but are not there yet. I also have to consider how this will be suited to dark colors and where the light will be projected from.
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The piece of plastic at the front is a section I melted off the back lower section of the creadle side to assist the lean of the subject. It will now serve as a additional piece of metal retaining structure at the lower front.
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STAGE 2
I added a piece of track because I think rail gives it an older feel and also balances the subject by raising the level of ground at the back. I dug out some old train accessories for HO scale that I have kept over the years for such as this.......the bolted bridgework again will give an old possible part 19th century feel, as does the KARL i think with it's boxy design. WW2 circa model but I have always felt it had an older feel, almost 'WW1 ish' B)
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I AM USING THE TILER'S GROUT AGAIN AS I USED WITH MY ME109 BASE. HERE IS MY SETUP.
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Now originally I was distracted by trying to make the rear to high but i will now go for a different result and keep the bridge and cliff for the other dio set in this world -'The Jetty Dwellers'.

IDEA I HAD CONSIDERED -NOT USED.


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Oh yeah...this is the kind of stuff I love!! Great use of spare parts...really sets this one out from the ordinary... :popcorn
 
You always make it look so easy, Ian! :ro: Hope your trip to Japan goes well and I'm looking forward to your next installment! (y)
 
Thanks Mike - i wish it was easy. :)

UPDATE
i HAVE BEEN PUTTING DOWN PLENTY OF MODELLING CLAY TO BUILD UP THE GROUND WORK.
There are a lot of barrels as well as these are storing the radiation that has driven back the dark ones, 'the Inhibitors'.
When I last posted I had reached the second stage of building up the basic unpainted scene.
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Stage 3
at this point I have gone further with the modelling clay, added some of the more detailed parts as well as using the base that came with the figure - it started round but I trimmed it up to match the front edge. This was a better choice than wasting the beautiful detail of the paving and the iron grate cover. I have also begun to add the segemented piping than is meant to simulate the machine growing and transforming inside the old gun. I have added a power node that the machine has established outside on the rail line, to continue expanding it's influence out into the street and beyond.
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MY ROOM ALWAYS GOES FROM ORDER TO CRAZY WHEN I AM ON A CREATIVE BINGE AS YOU CAN SEE BELOW - I REALLY ENJOY FREE MODELLING WITHOUT CONSTRAINTS.
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Thats a busy little dio- and an interesting work area.

You know its a fact of model building physics that no matter how big your work table is you always do your work in a 6x6 inch area...
 
:geek
Thanks everyone for your posts and interest.
I have some more to update......also though I should point out that all those wires are only guidelines for the tension springs that will be running off them. All of these will be pushed down flat on the ground work and fed into various places as I get to that stage in the ground work.
The ground work for this dio is quite extensive and requiring a bit of thought. I want everything thing to blend and form and not look as though it is sitting there on top, so that requires a bit of work. I have used tiler's grout mixed with white glue and water, then some really fine dust mixed with small stones and white glue over the top to make sure I get plenty of texture over the MODELING CLAY.
And don't forget the deformed hunchback figure will be standing 'atop' of all of this, on the gun platform either holding a gas lantern or standing under a light of some kind.

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I have been keeping track- In materials alone this year I have spent well over 200 buck$ (paint, glue, bits, blades, styrene stock ect) -not counting the $53 on my Paache H.

But I have only spent $55 bucks on models- I'm not counting the Arizona set a friend just gave me for fixing his lavatory- nor the Tony Stewart car I'm building for my Brother in Law's B-day!My sis paid for that, I'm supplying paint and labor (It gets a thread tomorrow) - of those I have almost built ONE- The 1/72 F-104 to NF-104 conversion, and still can't find the decals for that!

Saucer doesn't count, i have had those kits for over a decade.

It would be very interesting to see how much $$$$ we put into this hobby on the chemical\tool end.
Kits don't count, simply because there are those that collect unbuilt kits like some collect comics they never read. lol Guilty there too!
 
It would be very interesting to see how much $$$$ we put into this hobby on the chemical\tool end.
Kits don't count, simply because there are those that collect unbuilt kits like some collect comics they never read. lol Guilty there too!

That information is highly classified and it's release might get me in a great amount of difficulty if it fell into the wrong hands! We simply do not discuss that. :pinch:

Awesome, Ian, just awesome!! I love the way it is coming together! I have a similar issue with my bench and room during that "high tide" time of modeling, however mine doesn't get re-organized very often!! :D :ro: Please keep on keepin' on!!
 
It would be very interesting to see how much $$$$ we put into this hobby on the chemical\tool end.
Kits don't count, simply because there are those that collect unbuilt kits like some collect comics they never read. lol Guilty there too!

That information is highly classified and it's release might get me in a great amount of difficulty if it fell into the wrong hands! We simply do not discuss that. :pinch:

I'm not married, that classified info can't fall into enemy hands! lol :Hiay
 
:Hiay
Ok I updated again on the last page (2 in 2 days there must be something wrong with me!).
I spend too much on models and would hate to contemplate the yearly cost. :blush:

Thanks for the posts and I will see you all in a week or so as I am off on business overseas.
 
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