While waiting for my order of Krycell snow to arrive, I started to work on another diorama. This one, for my ISU-152. I decided to document pretty much every steps while doing it, so enjoy the step by step making of this diorama, part 1.

1- The base itself: A simple, and used, bevelled wooden base I had lying around would do the trick here. I had to scrape off some glue and old basing material from the surface with a chisel, then I used a hammer to fix a metal plate in the center, as a support for the bolt that will hold my tank in place.

2- I made sure to drill a large hole in the base before, so it will be easy to turn the nut on the screw under the tank.

3- Foam core is a nice material to “carve” stone work. I used tracing paper to reproduce the exact shape  of the wooden base, then used an X-Acto knife to cut it. I carefully peeled one side of the black cardboard from the foam core. Then I made another shape that I glued on top of the first one: this will become the sidewalk.

4- Using the X-Acto knife and a metal ruler, I carved 2 channels for the Tramway rails.

5- Then… the LONG work: using a custom-made tool (a modified old brush) I began stamping every stone of the pavement. Tedious. But the final effect was worth it, I think.

6- I did some carving on the sidewalk and used a small plastic bit to represent a drain cover plate.

7- I scratch builded a sewer manhole too, with left over bits and plasticard.

8- To make the Tramway rails, I glued strips of plasticard in a ” T ” shape. To glue them to the base was a challenge though: white glue won’t glue plastic very well, plastic glue would likely melt the foam core, and the hot glue gun was quite scary to bring close to my delicate foam carving… So I tried to use Tamiya putty, thinking it should bond quite well to both metal and foam. I did a test, but on a scrap piece of a DIFFERENT type of foam… B-I-G MISTAKE!!! It looked fine on the test piece, with very limited melting of the foam. But on my diorama, the Tamiya putty solvent (Acetone I presume now) melted huge patches of pavement… ARGH…..

9- So I had to be meticulous and repair individual stones…

10- In the end, the final result is decent and once weathered It will look pretty much the way I wanted. Yeah!

Part 2 of this step by step guide coming soon…