A special thank you to the very nice people at RetroKit who were very nice to me as a total newbie to the convention scene. I'll be back tomorrow, looking forward to it!

In the spirit of completion and fairness I should say that the Vallejo earth texture was fully dry by the next morning and gave a really nice finish. It's a bit spongy when fully dry but otherwise the texture (see below) if very good.

All of the plaster-based mixes dried within about 45 minutes, even the last one which had a lot more pva in it. I took some close-up pictures (below) so you can see the difference between them. Personally I think I could find a use for all of these depending on what I was trying to make and at what scale - and it was some geeky fun getting it done too - always a good thing.

According to my boys, my North African diorama needed to be bigger so they can have "bigger battles" on it - which is odd, because I haven't let them near it yet - clearly they have plans. Also, I need more stuff to show at IPMS2016 which has hoved into view like a great white at a beach party. So time for a (hopefully) quick build of an extension board. 

As you can see at the top, I've got some craters ready already. Still working on the crater obsession.

Next time I'll make the terrain units and let them dry before putting them on the board. As you can see I've got some colour down, matt khaki camo paint from Halfords.

I'll finish this post with an aerial view - haven't done one for a while.

The pictures above were taken seconds after spraying. First impressions are OK, it's basically paint with sand in it (not sure what I was expecting). It sprayed OK, smells awful. The sand particles are very fine and you don't get a really high density of sand particles after one coat. The can recommends several light coats and 10 - 15 minutes between coats.

In the interest of fairness, I also re-coated after the first coat was dry, just to see how much difference it might make. The results are down below. A definite improvement, I think.

In summary - it's ok, a bit interesting. I do like the texture but even after this one experiment the can is definitely lighter - so I don't think it'll go that far, especially if several coats are needed. I think I'll try it on my current project which is an extension to my previous North African board. I can see it working well over an already based and sanded and probably primed terrain. I think it might also add interest to buildings.

Of course, Halfords sells car paints, this was in the car paint section - none of this explains why you would spray this stuff on your car?

Also, it's a decent size for 1:72 and gave me a nice feel for the proportions, it also had a nice texture on the outside, but that said, it's a pretty boring building.

They took about an hour to dry enough so that they'll come out of the molds. Also, in that time the modelling clay can be reused for another mold (but probably only one more).

****  brief interlude while I went of and did stuff like being a parent and housework  ****

And that was mostly that. I faffed around a bit plastering and sanding bits I wasn't happy with but really it just needed time to dry properly. While the memory of all my mistakes was still fresh I did another one using the same molds but didn't cut too much off this time so it's a bit bigger, for the second one I tried putting a few bullet holes in the walls, I'm not convinced. When they were both dry I primed them, then they had a coat of white, vallejo off-white and then some very thin wash coats. They're not finished but they'll get more attention later, if they're well behaved, and if/when they get put into a project. Here's some photos of them both. I hope you like them, they were fun to build and the second one didn't take more than a few hours and a few more grey hairs.

The barrels, bike and other equipment all came from the BattleFront set as well, the "rope" is just some cotton twine I use when fletching arrows. I've just subscribed to Fine Scale Modeler - and I might be brave and upload some pictures there - but a lot of the stuff on there is amazing. Hopefully the bigger boys won't pick on me.

If they video doesn't work for some reason you can always go to my youtube channel, with it's laughably small content of ... 1 video. Although I suspect one or more of my sons creations will appear on there before too long.

I should probably have made this my first post, but I never got around to sorting the photos out. This also contains a lot of stuff that I did ages ago, when I was even worse at modelling than know (I know, hard to believe but true). And the boys have been trashing it for ages.

My other favourite set was the Desert Combat Pack, an awesome Christmas present. I played with that for endless hours. When my own kids were old enough, I gave them my old collection (like I had a choice, they also got all my Matchbox cars). Coincidentally, around this time Airfix had reissued the 1:32 desert outpost and I thought it would make a great present to make it and build a gaming board around it. There were several other toy-related issues at the time too.

As you can see, I still have the original Panzer and armoured car, and one pill box. I also did complete the desert outpost and the 1:32 airfix strong point (not exactly deserty but the boys don't mind) I'll try and add some photos of those later too.

And that was the first GAMEIN5D, a gaming board that folds up into a box. It solved all the problems I was trying to solve, and scratched the nostalgia itch. But it totally got me back into making models - and trying to get much better at it.

I've took, what I hope, are some better photos, and some photos of the whole thing folding away. That's the point of the GAMEIN5D idea, you can build something quite big, with quite a lot of vertical relief (buildings in this case) and it all folds up in a nice, stackable box. I should really put a nice design on the outside of the boxes, maybe for SMW. If you've read this whole diorama post, thanks for your time, and patience.

Finally here's the whole thing disappearing into some nice small boxes. Now I've got space to make even more.

I'm calling it done, although I'll almost certainly keep faffing with it. And once the boys get hold of it, I'll be repairing it - a lot.  

The "something scary" is that I've got a stall at Scale Model World in Telford in November. I'll be showing off the GAMEIN5D idea, trying to promote my Kick Starter, and using this model (plus some others) as an example of what you can do. Please come and say hi. I suppose I should show it all folding up - that is after all the main point of the GAMEIN5D boards. First one final aerial shot, I think I'm finally getting the hang of them. I'm going to try and take some better final shots for one last post on this.

Nearly there, just a few more details, keep working on the colour and I'm almost done.

I think I will start at the end on this post. Below is the complete wall sections that I decided I needed. They are the end result of much failed experimentation and possibly the invention of some new swear words. The walls are not stuck down yet, just put in about the right place. I've no idea how everyone else builds walls but this is how I did it.

Then I plonked them on the base and took the photo. In between waiting for paint and plaster to dry I've also carried on painting the minor items, you can see some barrels, etc. on the big photo at the top too. And the privet's out of the oven, nicely dried out.

I've seen some awesome sand-bags created by other modelers, but for me they are definitely a work in progress. Also, I think the whole thing needs walls. Maybe walls will be easier than sand-bags.

Well, maybe not the pub, but possibly the end of this project. On a side note, I have actually been to the pub from the XXXX advert, it's in Oz, it's very cool and has (well had 14 years ago) a car from Mad Max 2 parked outside. I spent two weeks out there once (field work, not in the pub) and brought my wife (then fiancee) a stubby (beer bottle) holder, themed shot glass and a fridge magnet back as gifts (from a major silver mining region). And she still married me, bless her.

Also, any surfaces I think are too shiny or uniform have had a few wash coats to "knock back" the shine and produce some variation.
So, this "aerial" shot, again produced in partnership with being too short and teaching your children some new swear words because you didn't know they were in ear-shot, shows where I am now 

I also need to start thinking about finishing up with accessories, some sparse vegetation, scrubby trees, some discarded equipment and a couple of road signs I think. For the trees I've got some bits of privet drying out in the oven, that's not a phrase I've used before, it'd make a great euphemism for something - "I'm just drying out me privet in the oven".