Retro Red Planet

[trekriffic]

[size=10pt]This is a diorama I finally completed after 18 months about 2 years ago.
It features the Glencoe Mars Liner spaceship Solar Flare with kit decals modified to make it the TWA spaceliner (same as Disney's Tomorrowland rocket from the 1950's). The smaller ship is a scratch-bashed creation made from a Dollar store booklight and model airplane parts. MARRV stands for Mars Advanced Rapid Response Vehicle. It's a patrol and rescue craft employed by the United States Space Patrol or U.S.S.P., sort of like the US Coast Guard of space. The premise behind the scene is an emergency landing on the desolate sandy plains south of Mars. The pilot of the MARRV and captain of the liner are conversing about the damage done to the liner after a near collision within the asteroid belt. The MARRV captain, famed space ace Horatio Barnes, is preparing to fix a hole in the bigger ship with his gamma welder. Meanwhile, the copilot of the TWA flight can be seen stepping off the ladder from the spaceliner with a tool box in hand. All this takes place against the backdrop of the Olympus Mons escarpment looming majestically 4 kilometers high in the distance. [/size]








You can see more pics by visitng my album on photobucket here:

http://s146.photobucket.com/albums/r259/Trekriffic/Martian%20Diorama/

 

[Cave_Dweller]

Oh wow I love it! How did you do the red sand? Did you paint that backdrop yourself? Very nice diorama.

 

[alfonzo1]

Love it.

 

[spud]

Very cool

 

[YOULI]

Nice pictures and nice build.

 

[trekriffic]

Oh wow I love it! How did you do the red sand? Did you paint that backdrop yourself? Very nice diorama.

Thanks for the comment! The sand is orange craft store sand I bought at Michaels. I glued it to the plywood and ceramic tile base with white glue and water from a spray bottle. For the area around the base of the ships and where you see footprints I needed something finer to I colored flour with orange dye and, after it dried, ground it up to a fine powder with a mortar and pestle before sprinkling it around. The backdrop was painted by hand using watercolor and acrylics.

 

[JohnSimmons]

Stunning! ;D

 

[schweinhund227]

We don't see many of these! Awesome work!

 

[Rentar1]

I dig it dude! The story you told really brings the scene to life. looking forward to more!

 

[gaspur]

I really like this you should put this in a shadow box with some red light really awesome.

 

[the Baron]

Great diorama, great scratching and kitbashing, and excellent story! I agree, you should install it in a box.

A note about the lighting--I would avoid using a red light, at least, a deep red light. Avoid an off-the-shelf red incandescent, eg, "party lights" that you'll find at the hardware or department stores. It'll give everything too much of a red cast and overpower all of the other colors.

I do stage lighting as another of my hobbies, and I recommend using a bastard amber (that's what it's called) gel, preferably an 03, or a pink. I don't have my color chart with me, but I think it's a 32? The amber will impart a richness to the objects' colors, and the color of the sand, the backdrop, etc, without changing drastically the color the eye sees. The pink will tend to tint the light, but it will look more realistic (see photos that Viking returned, for example). Both of those colors are used on stage, by the way, to make skin look healthy under the bright stage lights (we use 500w), which wash everything out.

 

[astroboy]

Oh wow I love it! How did you do the red sand? Did you paint that backdrop yourself? Very nice diorama.

Thanks for the comment! The sand is orange craft store sand I bought at Michaels. I glued it to the plywood and ceramic tile base with white glue and water from a spray bottle. For the area around the base of the ships and where you see footprints I needed something finer to I colored flour with orange dye and, after it dried, ground it up to a fine powder with a mortar and pestle before sprinkling it around. The backdrop was painted by hand using watercolor and acrylics.

did you solidify the sand at the end? sealant?

 

[multicam]

Very cool. I love the retro feel to this and dig the background! Nice

 

[trekriffic]

It's twin wing-mounted rocket boosters churning up an immense cloud of dust,
the MARRV lifts off from the Martian surface...


MARRV Liftoff with Moons by trekriffic, on Flickr

A graphic artist friend of mine created this composite image using my MARRV spaceplane and I just had to share it with my fellow Addicts.
Hope you guys like it!

 

[hilld]

Soooo cooooool!

 

[The Chaos]

Very Cool 8)

 

[cargoman5126]

Luv it...Great dio..A bonus seeing the TWA livery on the rocket, I used to work for them a long time ago..very cool and luv the work you did..Great!!