I have used and described most of the techniques used in the build before, so there is not much to say here, really.  I will however, highlight a few noteworthy items.

Momento Mori

Completed September 2019

The kit, an Italeri 1/24th Mercedes Benz 540k, was supplied by the client with the words I love to hear “Do your own thing”. I immediately thought of an old barn find and set about along those lines.   

Starting with the base.  I cast the cinder block walls from real cement and, when almost dry, I scribed the block outlines using a sharp toothpick. The floor was also cast from real cement. 

Then I randomly spread some wood glue on the floor, and covered this with a sprinkling of Woodlands Scenics long grass. For the straw bales: I cut blocks of wood, covered them in glue, rolled them in Woodlands Scenics short grass, and tied cotton around to make it look like bale wire.

I made all the typical stuff one might find in an old barn. (Not yet having my own 3D resin printer yet, I bought the few garden tools from someone who did).

The car was an easy build and the rusting process was typical of my usual method. The hood however, was something I had not done before. It was factory moulded, so nothing to build, but I did not want a smooth texture and so I covered it with micropore medical tape.

I airbrushed a light coat of Tamiya matt black, followed by a drybrush of grey once this had dried.

….. and the junk for which the good folk had used the car as a storage dump for……

This was followed by some weathering….

The bottles were made as follows: 

Once dry, I painted them and put them in crates. Easy enough.

I took solid styrene rods and shoved these into short lengths of styrene tubes. Then I inserted those into sections of 3mm aluminium tube and cut the styrene rods to the correct length.  I then added a blob of quickset epoxy to create the bottle neck shape.

All that still had to be done was the final assembly and then positioning of the car on the base. (Spot the mouse. I like including animals in my dioramas)

As an afterthought, I decided that someone had tried to pump the flat tyre whilst listening to the radio. (The telescopic aerial was made from syringe needles, reducing in size, and fitted into each other).