Cook Islands mobile in 1/160: island, airplane, whales, divers

**ReynoldsSlumber** · #1 10-10-2023, 11:27 PM

Someone I know went on a trip to the Cook Islands recently, including a local flight to the island of Aitutaki, and got to go on a dive with some humpback whales. As a gift, I re-created the elements of the trip in 1/160 scale and arranged them into a mobile:

Air Rarotonga Saab 340, downscaled from the 1/72 scale model by Gary Pilsworth in the downloads section here and recolored
Humpback whale mother and juvenile, downscaled from a 1/14 scale (47"!) model from InArtCraft on Etsy, colored in with marker to approximate the actual whales' colorations
SCUBA divers, with aluminum wire pieces as the air tanks
Aitutaki islands and reef outline (not 1/160 of course), made with stainless steel wire

The mobile is 6" in diameter and 7" tall from whale flipper to wire ring.

Saab 340 build thread
Humpback whales build thread

**Viator** · #2 10-11-2023, 01:12 AM

Wonderful idea! And the whales look surprisingly good at this scale.

**Siwi** · #3 10-11-2023, 03:04 AM

It's lovely. The only suggestions I would make are:consider revising the composition - the whales put a more weight on one side, and perhaps adding another element around the divers would balance it out more (something simple like some kelp or waves or something). This would also address my other point, which is colour contrast. Nearly all of this is white with a bit of black on the whales. When viewed from below it won't stand out that much against a white ceiling. Perhaps add colour/fill in the areas of the 'map' made from wire?

**MacSongLi** · #4 10-11-2023, 04:02 AM

That's a great looking diorama. Well done!

Gary

**rmks2000** · #5 10-11-2023, 07:04 AM

Very cool. Looks like you had a great time.

**ReynoldsSlumber** · #6 10-11-2023, 10:18 PM

Fair points, Siwi, particularly on the contrast with the ceiling—I might get a piece of clear aqua-colored sheet plastic and cut it into a circle to put on top of the wire ring, to give the mobile more presence.
Thanks kindly, all. Appreciate the encouragement!

**ReynoldsSlumber** · #7 10-12-2023, 04:11 AM

Indeed, the "low poly" faceting on the whales seems to blend away when you downsize them more than 12X like this.

The coloration also helped, as did the fact that, using a medium diameter ball end embossing tool, I smoothed out the seams some from the inside as I finished each segment of the whale's body.