I could have put this thread in the ship's forum, I could have put it in the Alternative Dimensions section but in the end I decided it would fit rather nicely into the diorama part. Because that is what it is. A diorama.
Where to start? I wanted to do something different, just to be away from the regular space stuff for the time being. There was a diorama made in plastic I saw years back I wanted to try in paper, showing a scene from War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells. The HMS Thunder Child attacking the Martian tripods.
So I went looking for ingredients.
I needed a boat. An old one. Found one
here. A German ship from 1905. Old enough. Since there was no actual Thunderchild and the description also was open enough for interpretation, I thought this one would do very nicely.
Then, Tripods. I needed two. One intact, the second, blown apart.
Now I always had a little trouble with the most well-known variant of the tripod, the "Jeff Wayne's musical version of 'War of the Worlds'" one. Its legs were stiff and completely the opposite of how Wells describes the tripods in his novel. They should be nimble, agile and quick. Things I couldn't imagine looking at the Jeff Wayne tripod. Also, Wells' war machines had a separate arm for the heat ray. Wayne's version had it like an insect's proboscis placed in its head. Only option left: scratchbuilding.
The builds happened simultaneously. a Way of preventing boredom and monotony. The ship was reduced to be at around 1/780 or thereabout. I used 200 gpm2 paper, which is my standard paper and sometimes a bit on the thick side. The tripod was tried and tested a few times before I had the right shape. I wanted it to look a little more alien, insectoid, if you will. A segmented shielded "head" would add to that image. a Double-fold origami method did the trick. I used copper coloured paper for this model.
Writing down all measurements for the second tripod, I build the machine, giving it three spidery legs and an arm for the heat ray. Tentacles below were made from iron yarn. It curls nicely when wound off the bobbin.
The legs were supported with thin welding wire inside. This made the legs nice and bendable and I put them in a nice curved position.
Well, let's cut the story a little short. Ship was built, readied and the tripods too. The second being partially blown to pieces by the ship's guns, given a smoke cloud made of coloured fiberfill (the stuff used to insulate winter sports clothing with) and hand-ripped snippets of blotting paper coloured with yellow and red ecoline / coloured ink to imitate flames.
The diorama. I used a 20x50 cm picture frame and painted the hardboard backing in blue colours, adding the ship's wake in white and some depth nuances.
The glass plate was added on top and I used transparent, rock hard drying acrylic paste to make the surface. I structured the surface with stiff, flat, bristly brushes at several stages during the drying process to refine the textures. Wake and waves were thicker layers and dried slower, giving me more time to refine them. Finally, I added some arctic white to the wake, stern waves and other areas, again with flat, almost dry brushes.
On my blog I will soon add a tutorial on how to do this kind of water texture, for those who are interested.
As a second post here I'll add some making of photos.
Here's HMS Thunderchild fighting the Tripods from Mars!