Sea Dub

Just an update to show the diorama's paved areas finished. The striping will begin immediately since I want to get this going a little bit quicker. These are just 3 pictures to show the diorama from different angles. Thanks again for everyone who has come by the website and made suggestions and comments. It helps me stay motivated!

Cory

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Cory

http://orlandoexecutiveairport.webs.com/

Sea Dub

And just a really quick update showing the striping progress. It's going really well.

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Cory

http://orlandoexecutiveairport.webs.com/

Sea Dub

Just an update to show the current progress. The airport striping is done minus a few sections. Even though it's a bit more labor intensive, I'm happy with the overall effect of painting the stripes on instead of using tape. I think I would have been stressed about the tape coming off and so now I feel I can relax a bit. I actually just bought the base landscaping materials and will start experimenting with them and then hopefully will have this thing green before too much longer. I'm so tired of seeing all this brown everywhere!

To explain the pictures really quick, I modeled the southeast corner of the airport and came up with an idea to place thread across the old WWII era taxiway. After covering it with joint compound and letting it dry for 12 hours, I removed the tape and ripped the thread right through the dried mud. The effect was just as I had hoped for and I'll be adding grass in the broken cracks in the pavement. The first and second pics show this process. The last picture shows the model in it's most recent state. I decided to upgrade the west ramp since I had extra material and I only extended it about 15". I hated not having the west side modeled as it should have been. Now it's correct and I don't shutter everytime I look over at it! The paper cutouts are there to show the size and location of the water areas that I'll be routing out and putting in Realistic Water in the very near future. The buildings also are paper fakes that I made quickly to get an idea of size and scale. Also you may notice the small gaps between the boards. Chalk it up to being a Stinkin' Noob! I will be sanding like crazy to get these boards to meet together again so the gaps are negligible.

Will update soon!

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Cory

http://orlandoexecutiveairport.webs.com/

armandollv

This airport its going to look sooo awesome when its doneee =]

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Antesyd

If you already are using paint software, try to make the foils with photoshop (or similar). It is really easy and gives you a much more professional look than with paint and a paintbrush.
And why are you brush painting? As I see you have already printed some "google earth" photos. I did my runways by printing Google Earth, EGLL runway photos in the correct scale. Really easy and it can't be more realistic as it is the real photos.
I don't really get why are so many here are making it so difficult, when the simple way is so much better. And many times more realistic.

But as you can see here in the picture, if you are going to paint it, at least use airbrush. I guess the people who did the foil in the picture used the computer and airbrushed the terminal. Most likely an airbrushed plexiglass structure.



//Antesyd

Blackball

I'm surprised you of all people would say this. Foils suck. Period. It is the cheap, lazy way out. Copying pics from google earth? Gimme a break! So, when your all done, your going to have a large print of an actual photograph glued down to your base, and try and pass that off as a "custom creation"?

This model Cory is doing is being primarily used as a learning aid for his Flight Instruction students. Half the fun in these projects is making something out of nothing. No matter how hard they make it for themselves, they have much more pride in their accomplishments than someone who simply printed off their airport. Tell me, how much pride do you get out showing off your airport where the hardest work you did was click the print button?

I don't know if it actually gets more "realistic" than this anyway! How many other airports have you seen where the creator actually "PAVED" the runway....do you have any idea ho long and how much work this guy has pored into this project? Considering you may have gotten, at the most, a cramp in your index finger from hitting the "print" button......my guess is no. Look at how perfect and in scale and dimension his runways and taxiways are! Look at how they actually sit above the base, just as real concrete and asphalt would! Look at how perfect and beautifully rendered his runway markings are! And this airport is about 1:650 scale!

You can impress all the kids here with your printed airport. For a select few of us however, we will enjoy this project ten times greater than some cut-and-paste job.


Oh, btw, I just went through your post history. Didn't see one single pic of an airport you've created. And yet you show a pic of someone else's work? Excellant advice from a true model airport connoisseur.

uncle beat

I have enjoyed watching the evolution of this outstanding project. The attention to detail and workmanship sets a high standard and is an inspiration for all of us! Using temporary paper cutouts as shown here to establish the scale and location of things like buildings and water features is something that I like to do, also, and would recommend it to the other diorama builders that frequent this forum, so as to ensure a better-looking end result (and less remakes/waste of time and materials, etc.!). One thing--consider positioning the lake so that it doesn't sit on two separate panels. Due to their reflective properties, the artificial water products (such as Enviro Tex Lite, among others) are very unforgiving along the seams if juxtaposed on multiple panels. Excellent airport--keep us updated! pete

Antesyd

First of all, isn't it kind of cheap to start a new alias just to get back at me for giving constructive criticism. How old are you? 3? How on earth do you know; "you of all people" if you are new here??? I have a hard time understanding why someone just register and make just ONE (1!!!) post... A really long one too.
You post will be reported. We all know who wrote it, right...

But realism isn't about using real gravel and paving runways, it is making it as photorealistic as possible. Using Google earth pictures is the most realistic you can do as it is a photo of the real thing. Unless you find a way to make the real runway shrink 650 times...
But I agree that this airport is a nice example of an airport used as a training aid and as such the scale is correct but is it not realistic, but suitable for the purpose.


//Antesyd

a_loser

Hmm, this post gets a big "" from me....

"First of all, isn't it kind of cheap to start a new alias just to get back at me for giving constructive criticism." Umm, do you have an IP address of both people to PROVE it's a second account? Nice of you to jump to conclusions right away.
"But realism isn't about using real gravel and paving runways, it is making it as photorealistic as possible." According to YOU maybe... I'll come back to this thought in a bit.
"Using Google earth pictures is the most realistic you can do as it is a photo of the real thing." Actually, Google Earth sucks. Very little coverage of the area, and it doesn't allow one to zoom in very close compared to other mapping services. Now, back to the "incomplete thought" I started earlier: "Unless you find a way to make the real runway shrink 650 times..." Hmm, you mean like ACTUALLY PAVING the surfaces like he's doing perhaps, considering how the actual runways are paved?
"But I agree that this airport is a nice example of an airport used as a training aid and as such the scale is correct but is it not realistic, but suitable for the purpose." Again, kindly explain how it "isn't realistic" as there are plenty of us who think it is? Just because YOU might not think it's realistic (simply because it's not using printed pieces of paper, no less) doesn't mean it's unanimous.

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-Kevin
CEO, Nice Airports, Inc.

You'll find me at Trains N Planes - you can be there too if you'd like.

lufthansa340

No IP address match by the way...

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GREG

Rex

I'd bow down to Sea Dub. It's an old school way of making his airport. Capturing the google earth (maps) shots and apply in on the board is less fun than actually "paving" it the right way.
Sea Dub, thanks for sharing your work. For the informations, tips and "know how". I appreciate your good work and follows the updates with excitement. This has been somewhat one of the best IN THE MAKING airport diorama so far. Keep up the good work.

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Antesyd

I like the post from "a loser".
I agree that I only posted my opinions and I can take that you have another opinion. And damn, you got answer to all my punch lines.
But I still think that it is cheap to try to be anonymous and criticize me. Do it like a_loser and we can discuss it..



//Antesyd

Antesyd

I still think google earth(or other mapservices) are the best for runways. A runway is fairly 2D and can be photographed from above. Many airports have pictures of such high quality that it make excellent foils (especially with google earth pro). It is hard to do other foils as you don't want a flat towtruck on your foil. Here photoshop or airbrush are the best choices. I have yet to see other methods (other than different mapservices) that can produce such photorealistic foils.

//Antesyd

SouthwestAirlines

The problem that I experienced with foils is, that in STL we have high humidity over half of the year and this causes the foils to to warp. The only reason my Herpa foils don't warp is because they've been laminated and stuck down using carpet tape. I just got down tearing out my semi custom foil job on half of my international section because of the warping issue and now I think it looks a ton better. The thing about painting is that it only looks cheap when the person putting it down does a cheap job.
Getting back on topic, I love how you are doing this airport. There's a lot of great techniques being developed with this project. I had the same issues with the plywood I used for my biggest airport, I spent the first month using a sander and wood putty just to get the lines to dissappear and now you can't even tell, I wish you the best of luck!
P.S. if you decide to use wood putty, do it outside, I did in the same room as my other mega airport and I ended up with a mega mess that took 40+ hours to clean up

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My airport: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mO-gDpSH8A
http://www.wings900.com/gallery/show...r=3888&cat=500

http://www.flickr.com/photos/38005486@N04/
http://www.freewebs.com/brookefieldairport/index.htm
http://ltdsai.webs.com/
http://midwestairportteam.blogspot.com/
http://www.squidoo.com/runwaymodelz

Private Pilot
ATC Student
Deicer at KPIT

Antesyd

Humidity may cause problems. Here in Sweden we have the opposite problem wood tend to wrap as it is to dry. But a laserprinter instead of inkjet solve many problems. and I use 220g (0,5 lb)photopaper. Luckly I can get it from my work as it is quite expensive.

//Antesyd