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Tents Camp

Posted by Phersu on 18 Jan 2016, 19:29

Last summer I made a new set of tents.

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Now, despite all the other works to do, after a long time I finally made the molds and started to cast some sets for the project of a camp diorama... a Roman camp in my case, but these tents are generic enough to be used for other periods too.

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After my first tent, which I made for a small Contubernium scenery three years ago:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14422&hilit=contubernium
...the logic step ahead was to make more different tents of different kind.
So i made 3 small tents for troops and 3 large tents for magazines and officers.

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The tents unpainted, front and back views... just with grey primer on to make the details clearly visible:
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Also this time I sculpted the tents interiors too... it was not really necessary as the inside is not much visible from the little openings on the front, but it is useful in case I want to show the tents from the inside is some little scenes... and for another reason I will explain! ;-)

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The other side of the same pieces
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The interriors detailing is important for another reason, especially for the front pieces of the tents... :winky:
I planned the assembly a bit differently from my first tent kit, to allow a little trick: the front and back of the tents are sculpted differently on both sides, so they can be assembled in both ways, to make 12 slightly different looking tents out of from the same 6 models... obviously two sets are necessary for this trick.

These are the "double face" assembly of the two sets:
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Of course these "home made" castings (made without any machinery) are not so perfect like the old tent produced in series from a professional casting workshop... but not so bad neither. :eh:
Furthermore I used a new resin which is much more flexible and similar to soft plastic, so the assembly is much easier and come out quite good anyway... despite some (unavoidable) tiny eventual imperfections along the assembly joints, the gaps can be closed bending the resin, and are small enough to be ignored anyway, or can be filled with a bit of glue or putty.

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I planned to make also a bigger command tent, but I have to study well the assembly... because the roof shape and the frontal open porch are complex shapes, and very difficult to cast.
I wonder when I will find the time to make all the rest which I still need to complete my diorama project... well, one step ahead at time, one dey I will do it!
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Phersu  Italy

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Posted by sberry on 19 Jan 2016, 09:44

They look nice and will be very useful! And the modular system is really a good idea. When will they be available from your shop (or retailers)?
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sberry  Germany
 
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Posted by DickerThomas on 19 Jan 2016, 09:59

Hello Leonardo, :-D

they look good :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

maybe i can use them for my asian Dio too :winky: :winky:
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DickerThomas  Germany
 
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Posted by Peter on 19 Jan 2016, 22:14

Great looking tents Leo! :thumbup:

Konrad will need a lot of them for his Roman army! :mrgreen:
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Peter  Belgium

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Posted by Phersu on 20 Jan 2016, 01:42

Thank you my friends!

sberry wrote:They look nice and will be very useful! And the modular system is really a good idea. When will they be available from your shop (or retailers)?


Yes, the idea to flip backwards the "double face" modular pieces was very tricky indeed! :mrgreen:
I can already cast some sets on request... but I don't know if retailers will distribute these tents, mainly because these home made castings take me quite a long time, too long to provide enough discounts and the quantities usually requested from the shops in a short time.

I just tried to add some pigments to the new resin I'm using for these tents... this raw resin is white and slightly translucent, which probably is good for some particular effects like marble statues or translucent cloth... but sure is not the best to see clearly the models details and eventual imperfections.
Adding more or less black pigment the resin turns dark or light grey, and the details became much more visible... in the next days I will try also some other colors too, and perhaps also some plain white to see if the raw white resin can become less translucent.
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Phersu  Italy

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