The idea for this vignette came to me just after I sculpted the parts for our North African Street Scene kit. This was some years ago and I had come across a list of "Band Names" on the internet. Some of the names are outrageous and quite creative and one band, "Afghanistan Banana Stand" really caught my attention. No connection or disrespect to the group is intended.
The Street Scene seemed to be the right facade for the idea but I could never decide how to populate the scene with fgures and/or vehicles. Other projects came along and I just let the idea sit as so many do.
Early in the year, I was organizing my workshop and began going through my bin of second quality and cast off parts that aren't good enough to sell as kits or that were created without resale in mind. As cleaning the shop wasn't fun or interesting and because I discovered a wood plaque in the mess, I started to see what cast pieces could be arranged on it with the idea to create some kind of military scene.
The size of the base would allow for more than one vehicle and it seemed the scene, whatever it was, would be a lot of work and time. I was losing interest in pursuing the project when it occurred to me that it could finally be the Banana Stand I had forgotten about. The arrangement of the various parts came together pretty quickly and at that point, I still didn't know how I would populate the scene but I kept at it without worrying too much about it.
I found a scrap piece of "yellow foam" that I cut to fit the base and decided this would also be a good project to use the cobblestone pattern wallpaper I found awhile ago.
This first part of the article will show some of the steps in creating the composition. My hope is that it will be a little bit of a technical guide but mostly serve as inspiration to look again at some kits you have and try using them in a little bit different way.
The first construction photo shows the foam base and the cast resin building pieces arranged on the wood plaque. The foam has been carved to create a sloping road and steps. The staggered height of the wall pieces help to keep the eye moving and make the composition more interesting then if it were all on a flat plane. The buildings are parts taken from the North African Street Scene and North African Fountain. The street scene facade was lifted up one story by using a rectangle of cast cobblestones as a wall. The staircase and wall going up to the door as well as the small steps are from the "Winegrowers" houses that may never be released as kits. The parts all fit in the space very neatly and I was lucky that I didn't have to do any major modifications to any of them.
The hillside is just indicated and the low wall and cobblestones are yet to be added.
The cobblestone wallpaper has been laid out and the curbs are defined a little bit. The paper sheet cobblestones were a very good solution for this scene as the material was easy to cut and fine tune to the space and it conformed to the uneven foam surface. It was a lot quicker than trying to lay out and carve the stones and really allowed the project to progress quickly.
The next photo shows the base with the small wall made from a scrap of foam. The parts have been primed with gray aerosol and the hillside has been carved and sprinkled with small rocks.
The yellow foam was sealed with clear acrylic medium before priming. After priming, spackle mixed with gesso was applied to the foam. This was sanded smooth, eliminating any seams, tool marks and other blemishes. The small wall also got some spackle to indicate a coat of render. The hillside was spritzed with water from a small pump bottle and concrete patch in powder form was sprinkled over it. The powder soaked up the water and hardened to a convincing dirt texture. You'll notice that I have added a small bit of terrain back to the right, forward corner of the base. This was a way to incorporate a telephone pole and the resulting seam is one of things the spackle mix covers up.
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