"Life after Death" Diorama

Two weeks off work, mainly to spend with kids so thought I would try my hand at a twist on the epic "Saipan Beach M4A2 Sherman Tank  "
This Diorama is in 1/35 scale and is done by Mike & Pepe for Cobra Modelling Club. http://cobramodell.blogspot.com/ even better is the YouTube link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYFv75x4tAc

So here goes.....





 The easy part:
Built (lots of spares), even retro fitted an engine (don't ask from what...

 primed , Base coat -Tamiya Red Brown XF-64. sponged? Tamiya flat brown, red Hull. used Soft pastel (rusty colours, smoke and red and yellow flecks with a bit of Humbrol deckle fix and matt cote. More weathering work to come later....

also Humbrol pigments with deckle fix and matt cote for good fixing

Now onto the ground work...

 Durban beach sand for the base, glued down by a liberal smattering of pva.
I love sunny South Africa!

Onto the newly formed reef 69 years on.... hence the title "Life after death" ... I know, how could a reef form in a lagoon? Nothing wrong with a bit of fantasy is there?

Washed up corals from South coast beach ( fav caravaning spot). They were all white (which is what normally happens after a while when something is dead) so airbrushed very loooow pressure different colours.
- Couple of different shells for the reefs.

These little suckers were a nightmare to make...took longer than the shermy.
Fish and aquatic animals from a bit of old soft plastic had lying around. Don't know what made me think to do this but I lightly toasted them after shaping to as close to a fish as possible with a lighter and it seemed to round off edges and gave a nice blackened edge to high light the fins etc. Must admit , I over cooked a few too...

As you can see, same time started to build up the Sherman weathering for the submerged look...

 - Hull silt and seaweed growth - Mixture of Skale & woodlands scenics turfs and bushes for the larger clumps. then light airbrushing of matt cote to dull it down a bit
 

Boom!.. sorry couldn't resist it.

 

 

Hey Presto....

 

 

Think that's about it for now.....

now to prepare myself for the scary bit, this could really put all the hard work to date to pot and a shout out to Eric from NCS polymer R&D dept. for the right product to use and tips to hopefully make this go smoothly... as he said, no guarantees

here's most of the materials used in a test run...Help!

no melting!...

Laters