let’s start with a blast from the past

a little diorama for Artitec

At the start of this project we decided to build many of the houses based on a limited number of standardised resin facades with standardised etched brass windows. This would of course greatly reduce the amount of work required and individual tweaks to each house would make sure the appropriate level of Belgian chaos would be obtained.

some of the standard facades, partly painted

As this system relied upon blatant abuse of the artitec casting facilities it would be nice to do at least something symbolic in return, like designing a model of a belgian corner pub and a number of houses as full kits to recoup some of the losses after my raids on the casting workshop. To launch this belgian product line I made a small diorama displaying the pub and a number of houses. Sadly only a few houses have really made it to kit stage in the end, but who knows what the future might bring.

For now, some pictures of the finished diorama:

and some taken while I was building it. Not many pictures and poor quality as this diorama was mostly a midnight job, I worked on it every day after coming home very late from work because at the same time we were frantically rushing out all new models for the nurnberg toy fair that year. I still remember working on this diorama at christmas, the whole housing block around me deserted, all housemates off to their families, just me and our cat being home (gently purring on the chair next to me), enjoying canned pea soup together as christmas dinner. Greatest christmas ever. seriously.