I Made A Dinosaur Escaping Through A Time Portal In An Abandoned Warehouse Diorama. #scalemodel #dinosaur #3dprinting

And welcome to the Scale Model Geek. This week I'm working on a time portal and out of the time portal I'm going to have this dinosaur popping through. Now I've got this portal from Loot. Now as you can see it's a pretty cool looking time portal the only thing is the center of it is actually hollow. Now I've imported the 3D model into a piece of software called Blender. Now I'm using this software to actually fill the center section and also remove that walkway. And what I'm doing here is I'm creating a cube enlarging it and I'm moving it over to the areas that I actually want to subtract. And once I'm happy with the size of the actual cube I go into the software and use a technique called Boolean. And that actually removes the areas that I don't want. And as you can see the walkways disappeared. Now I also want to remove the side areas simply because I want to make the portal as large as I can. So when I stick it on the build plate it goes from corner to corner and I end up with a much bigger print. Now I need to fill the center section the way I do that is I just create a cylinder enlarge that and flip it around and then squash it and then again enlarge it and I've got my solid piece. And with that simple modification I end up with exactly what I need for my project. There are a huge amount of tutorials on YouTube that explain this process far better than what I can. So go check them out. Now I've imported into my 3D printing software called Chitterbox and you'll see what I was talking about earlier regarding enlarging it. So I'm just going to spin it around I'm trying to get it to corner to corner then I'm going to enlarge it as as much as I possibly can. Once I'm happy with the final size of the portal I then need to add some supports to it. And what I do here is I actually let the software work out where the supports need to go and the areas it actually misses I then fix up manually. And once that's all done that's ready to go to print. Now it's time to do the dinosaur and all I did here was actually flip him on a 90 degree angle and then slid him below the build plate. So the red areas don't actually print and he ends up being the perfect size to be popping out of the actual time portal. Now I printed up the portal in clear because I actually want to add some lights inside it. Now I printed it as a hollow piece and then I actually grinded out the bottom section so I can slide some led pieces in there. And the whole idea is to create a glow around the edge of the actual portal. So the first job is actually mask out the areas that I don't want to paint because this thing's going to need a few coats probably three coats of undercoat or maybe I'll do one coat of undercoat and two coats of black because I need to block off as much light as I possibly can. Now the story behind this little diorama that I'm making is an old abandoned warehouse and for some reason the time portal got activated and a dinosaur comes running out. I would really hate to be the security guard on duty that night. Now I'm just going to use some of this liquid mask to get to some of the areas that I think are a lot a bit easier to do rather than tape it up. And there we have our first coat of undercoat and the dinosaur as well. Really happy with the detail on both items. Now it's time to do some painting and for the base color of the dinosaur I'm going to use this sand color. You know what I think we're going to call the dinosaur Larry. From now on it is Larry. Now to add a bit of color to the top of Larry I'm using a combination of burnt flesh and sand. I'm just trying to break up the monotone color to it and some beastie brown as well. And to be honest I'm just making up these colors as I go. Just trying to make him look kind of interesting I guess. Now I did hum and ha about if I was going to make him colorful or just the typical dinosaur color of gray. Talking about gray I'm going to use this dark sea gray for his paws and his legs, his claws, his hands, his scratchy things. Now as I was putting it on I kind of wasn't feeling it. I was thinking it just didn't match the rest of him. So I started second guessing myself and I decided look I'm going to have to change the color. So I went for this dark flesh tone and gave the gray areas a light dusting of the brown. And straight away it looks so much better. I was happy I changed that. It's looking so much better. I'm glad I changed it. Now I'm just going back to the original sand color and just making sure my blending is a lot finer. I get a much nicer transition between the dark areas. Now I decided to use this hexagon for just for some more detail on top of him. And just adding some random patterns to the top. I think Larry needs to look his best for his first visit to the future. Now to do a bit of dry brushing I'm using some of this dark sand from Ammo. Dry brushing is such an easy technique to bring some life and depth to the actual model. Larry's starting to look like a dinosaur. Now for some reason I had this idea in my head to cover him with some streaking grime here. I kind of want to weather him up a bit. I don't know what possessed me to try this but in the end I ended up hating it. So out came out the sponge and I ended up getting rid of it. Now I'm using that brown sand for all his horns and his spikes. That's just the base color and a bit of German red brown for the inside of his mouth. Now what I normally do is I'll do the outline first then go in and basically color it in. Larry's jaw is coming up really really well. I'm very happy with that color. Now to add some more highlights I'm using a combination of the red and the sun yellow. Mixing that together and just hitting some of the high areas in his mouth. This is just making the inside of his mouth look a lot more interesting rather than just a flat color. Now I decided to add some transparent blue to the mix and I'm going to paint his tongue with it and once that was dry I added a bit of white to the original mix and dry brushed the inside of his mouth and the white grays for his teeth. And Larry's come up absolutely fantastic. Very happy with him. My very first dinosaur done. Now it's time to paint the actual time portal and I'm using this camo black from SMS. I've never used this brand before but it seems to work really really well. The only thing I didn't like about it was it was an acrylic lacquer so I had to use a thinner to actually clean the airbrush and I was really actually happy with the final finish of it. Got a great look to it and I ended up doing I think three coats of the actual black and it's at this stage I kind of thought oh look I just might add some more greeblies to it just to add a bit more detail. So I pulled out my box of bits and went foraging and all I was doing was just looking for small interesting little pieces I could stick on and I'll just use a bit of super glue to adhere all those little pieces and of course you have to go back in the spray booth or rather the spray box. Now to bring out all the detail in the black I'm using this gunmetal from Ammo. There's so much detail in this portal. Looks really really good and Luke did a great job on it. Now the portal's got some locking latches and I'm going to use the steel from Vallejo to actually paint those. I think you need to paint little details like that just to break up that blackness of the actual paint job. I'm using some of this metallic grey for the exhaust bits on the actual portal. I have no idea what they're supposed to be but they look like mufflers so I'll just call them exhausts and some light metal to actually dry brush those areas and I'm also dry brushing some of those locking clamps just to add a bit of visual interest to it just to break up all that blackness again and with the paint job all done it's time to work out some of the lighting. Now I have some of these led strips are also some filaments and I'm just trying to work out which one to actually use for it and look turned out the led strips were a bit big so I'm going with these led filaments. Now because they're three volt I will need to add some resistor to them because I'm running off a 12 volt power supply. This filament's actually looking really good. Big advantage of using the filament as well because of its flexibility when I push it inside the actual portal it can actually go around the curves and it's a matter of just shaking it and pushing it in slowly till it actually pops right in and there you've got a fair idea what it's going to look like. With the lights all done it's time to actually do the base for my diorama. I'm using my old trick of a picture frame. What I'm going to do a little bit different than I normally do is when I pop out the base instead of that base being slid from underneath it's going to be actually glued to the top because in this particular project build I don't need it to be recessed. A bit of PVA glue and once that's dry and held it into place I just hit the back of it with some hot stick glue. Once it was all cleaned up I just used a couple of blocks of timber and they're my weights to hold it in place while it dried. While the actual base was drying it was time to get onto Larry and glue him with some five minute epoxy resin to the actual portal. Now I'm using this impasto gel to create the same texture and the same look that the Stargate has out of the TV series or even the movie Stargate. Now this stuff dries clear. Now I'm just creating a circular pattern around the dinosaur as it pops out of the actual time portal. Obviously I have to do it on both sides. Now I've pre-drilled a hole here off camera for both the wiring and the actual 12 volt plug. Now off camera I actually painted the base black and I'm using this pans of grey to dry brush it. It's time to glue the bits and pieces together just using the five minute epoxy resin again. Unfortunately I didn't make too much of a mess as I glued it down and once that's all dry it was time to wire up the actual lights and voila it worked. Now I need to create an access ramp and I'm just using some plastic card for this and it's just a matter of scoring the plastic card and snapping it. It's a simple little ramp nothing special about it. I'm keeping it simple so Larry doesn't trip and I don't get a visit from health and safety. Now I did need to actually do some braces on the inside just to give it a bit more strength. The plastic card I used on the side was a bit thin. I'm just making up a jig here just drawing up a jig so when I make up all the hand rails I can get them at the correct angle and I just drilled some holes here. This is for the hand rail supports and these are just plastic rods that I cut to size. It would be greatly appreciated if you smash that like button and subscribe. Your support would be most welcome. Now of course it needs the top rail. Now this is where I'm using that jig that I drew up and this gives me the exact angles that I need the rail to be at. Now back to the five minute epoxy resin again. Now the reason I'm using this five minute stuff it gives me the opportunity to actually adjust the hand rail as it slowly dries and there it is. It's come up really really well. Now back into the spray box a quick coat of just the flat black. While I was doing all the other bits and pieces I decided to print up a computer terminal to use as a prop in the diorama. Now I end up dry brushing that with that gunmetal and the gunmetal really made the details pop in this computer terminal. Now while I was doing this I think I might add a bit of wear and tear to it add a bit of rust to bits and pieces here and there. Of course the hand rails needed a bit of dry brushing as well. That will too get some minor weathering done to it. Now for the actual keyboard I'm just first painting it in silver and there was a lot of buttons to do and once that had dried the silver areas I decided to give it a coat of some clear paint. Now I'm using the clear red here and for the buttons I'm using a combination of the clear blue from Tamiya, the clear orange from Tamiya as well and of course the clear yellow all from Tamiya. And because I had painted them silver it really gave them a bit of a glow to it. The button colors are just being randomly selected definitely no plan there. Oh yeah I forgot I did some clear green as well. Now that terminals come up really really well it's time to add some of the rust I mentioned earlier. Now I'm using this rust texture from Vallejo and just dabbing it around the place with a piece of sponge. Sadly the warehouse has been abandoned for many many many many many years so a bit of wear and tears accumulated over the years. And some hot stick glue just to stick down the actual ramp. And just to sell the story a bit more that the warehouse has been abandoned for quite a while I've cut up these little foam blocks and I'm covering it with some tissue paper and then I'm actually covering that tissue paper with some diluted PVA glue. Now this is just to represent some storage boxes that have been covered with a tarp and I'm going to put a tarp over the actual computer console as well. And there it is once the PVA glue dries it's actually quite solid. It's light as a feather because they're only little foam blocks but yeah it looks like storage boxes. Off camera I painted them gray and glued them to the base. Here I'm giving the storage boxes a wash of brown acrylic paint and I also gave them a dry brush of some that lighter shade of gray. Now I also printed up some of these containers as well as the 44 gallon drum and I'm going to give them a bit of a dry brush with the light metal there. I'm using combination of this IDF blue and the deck tan to create some streaks on the barrel. Now adding some of this oil wash to stain up the barrel just to give it a bit of more wear and tear. Now something toxic in there once lived and then in with some of that rust texture that I used earlier. Now just around the actual spouts I'm using some of that panel line. There it is come up really well. Just using some PVA glue to glue those accessories into place. Now I decided I want to add some crates with some bottles in there and these are bits are actually left over from a previous diorama that I created. They're all 1 24th scale which fit in perfectly with the existing diorama I'm doing and also PVA to hold them into place and since uh it's an abandoned warehouse I figured some you know bottles laying around would help. These type of little details really help to sell the story. I mean with bottles laying around it kind of feels like the whole place has been abandoned left alone for many many years. It's looking really really good but I think there's one more thing I need to do to it and using cotton wool I'm just adding a bit of smoke to the actual portal with some PVA glue to keep it into place and I'm just getting the rough shape to start off with and once the glue is actually dry I then start shaping the actual smoke so it looks like it's cascading and it's time for almost the final reveal. Good news I didn't get any paint bleeding underneath the tape and there it is it's pretty much done. I personally think it's come up really really well very happy with it so I think you know what I think it's time to show you the hero images.