Doomsday Diorama Challenge

I had quite a few things that popped up in real life that prevented me from finishing the Doomsday Diorama Challenge the way I wanted. The photo above is really only about 30 percent of what I wanted to complete for the diorama. I’m currently working on finishing some details and more weathering on the ground work. When I finish that, the airship, the Ghost of the Gale, will be completely refurbished and repainted.

Running out of time

A couple of weeks ago, I wrapped up work on the Doomsday Diorama Challenge that was organized by @CraftyRic, @Modelrailroader and @RetroRoboland. I really enjoyed the challenge and met a lot of new crafters, modellers, scratchbuilders and hobbyists. Hopefully, I’ll run into a lot of them in future challenges or community builds.

There were a few people that dropped out, or perhaps left the group chat at some point during the six weeks the challenge was ongoing. Here’s a list – it’s as complete a list as I have, apologies to anyone not mentioned – of the Instagram pages for the people that took part in the challenge: @_trc_studio, @alchemicalabomination, @encounterprints, @jsk.miniatures, @dm.jime, @johnharrison1956, @johnny.simpleton, @jburns272, @lidscapes, @mmccormack89, @mountaingoatmodels, @nimo­colorfulgrey, @nabascrewn, @oakhillstudios and @ tony_scale.

There were also several participants that have YouTube channels who made videos after the challenge ended. Here are some links to those videos:

Crafty Ric’s video

Model Railroader’s video

Retro Roboland’s video

Alchemical Abomination’s video

JBurn’s video

The challenge was based on rolling two dice and the first number determined the method of escape and the second number determined the type of disaster. I rolled a three and six, which ended up being to escape from zombies by air.

My initial concept was to go steampunk and have an airship hovering above an abandoned coaling station. On the ground, the crew was trying to load up coal for the furnace before the oncoming zombies ate them. I’m still very fond of the concept, but there was a lot to build in the project.

The challenge was six weeks long, which was plenty of time to complete what I had in mind. Hopwever, there were some unexpected things took away a lot of time I had allocated to the challenge. In the end, I finished the diorama. But, it was only about half of what I actually wanted to do.

I decided to do a couple of smaller projects to give myself a little time off from the Doomsday Diorama Challenge. When I wrap up those projects, I’m going to reassess the diorama and finish it off the way I wanted.

Looking back on the project, the one regret I have is that I didn’t take very many “work in progress” pictures. In future builds,  I really need to take more photos. That will give me a lot more content for the blog as well as Instagram. One thing I’d like to do is have plenty of shots so I can do a mini-tutorial on little detail’s in bigger projects.

Painting was the thing I fell short on above all else. In all, there are 14, 28mm minis I need to paint for the diorama, I only got four of them painted with a base coat to finalize the diorama for the challenge. Plus, I need to do some more weathering on the whole diorama.

The main thing is the airship. I had to drop out a lot of details on it to finish the challenge. That’s the one part of the diorama I’m really disappointed in. I’ve decided to completely refurbish the whole airship. I want to add a lot more detail to the hull and deck and build a motor for the propellers. I think I may rebuild the deckhouse as well. Plus, there are tons of details I want to add to the ship.

Once I get started on refurbishing the Ghost of the Gale, I’m going to write a few updates detailing the process. I’ve also created a story to go along with the diorama. I set it in the Henna Shores, so look for a short story coming at the end of May or early June.

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