 Hello everybody and welcome to another PMP end-of-month review. Why what is this? Well, this is the end-of-month review for the painters motivating painters Facebook group where we look at all the brave souls That submitted their entry for the month into the event For review this month's topic was diorama each month We have a specific subject and invite the members of the PMP to submit pieces that that fit description So I'm really excited about this month dioramas are a really fun chance to tell a story with miniatures And I think we've got some great ones here If you're interested in joining us on your hobby journey, you can find the link right down below Super easy. Make sure when you join up you do answer all three questions Otherwise you don't get in quick note to submitters remember to keep it short and simple As to what you're looking for advice on members can post One thing it has to be in theme and I generally I would prefer if you gave me some kind of direction as to what you're Looking for feedback on challenges you see with the piece or you know, just general advice you need So with that out of the way, let's go ahead and jump right into the pieces So we begin the month with Steve Smith So who wrote me quite a bit. That's the other thing keep it short. There's generally a lot of these So, you know, it takes it like keep it to what you're looking for And what he basically said he was looking for Overall feedback on composition or areas that didn't work well or any specific pointers. Sure Great piece. Love the the base for it. Love the the nameplate. That's really wonderful All in all, this is nice. What I like about this piece is it makes good use of the space One of the things that's always a challenge of dioramas is you want to make sure you don't have too much negative space But you need just enough. It's kind of a proper balance. You've also used a great Compositional trick here. So this is something really wonderful that a lot of times people don't recognize But you've created the vertical line. So you're going for a triangular Composition scheme the barrel here actually works really well So you we've created our standard lines of Badoop Badoop like creating these triangles It's really really great composition. Honestly, which I think was your main piece of feedback And you know, I saw in your notes where you said basically this is it sort of 85% the other 15% would just be more time And I think that's probably what I would say some of the elements here need refinement like chances are the Groundwork needs a little more dirt or debris or something like that a little more character here Or there. I'm just to make it feel a little more realistic Maybe a little more controlled Chipping or weathering in the parts of the ship where it would make more sense So you've really focused on the edges and kind of the panels and that's good But there are other places where things are connecting or moving and those would be very Subject to where beyond just the edges. So those places where water might collect or capture and build up and cause sort of a weather like pattern But overall I really like this piece I think compositionally you're strong like I said I really think it's just a question of some refinement. I love the cut to the middle of the ship I think that works super well. I don't have any really issue there So yeah, I mean, it's it's really nice. I think just continuing to refine adding a little more Contrast of things like maybe the skin or some of his pieces of his outfit. So the pilot stands out a little more So because if he was highly contrasting, I think that would make it stronger. But all in all, this is this is really great work I think he did a fantastic job lots of little details and things to discover which is also important in a diorama and Overall it it works for me Probably the one thing I'll leave you on is the yellow of the front of the thing is this part here is So bright it does kind of distract from what should be the central axis of our figure, which is this guy So that's kind of the only compositional element that I question is making this such a bright yellow piece If I'm not saying it couldn't have been different That's a statement But I almost wonder if it had been maybe the same green as this barrel that night that might have worked better So just a thought of what occurs, but overall really really cool piece Okay, next up we have Tanner diorama Hope that yeah, sure. Yeah, it's nice Fun piece of a bunch of towel All getting there. So the and I really I think we can see what we're talking about here So when we're having a diorama and telling a story certainly You're doing that with the the towel kind of taking this bracing stance against something with a big robot with his back against the wall Probably the one issue that I have is that the overall piece lacks a Lot of tonal variation so contrast of hue The little orange or red that's on them is really nice But everything I like that as a pop color, but everything is pretty muted here There's not a lot of contrast of value on the big robot or the little guys The rocks and stuff like that. There's a lot of very obvious cork There's no coloration or saturation difference to the rock anywhere no variation of hue and saying like oh You know, this is the part that That has That has some reds in it some oranges some greens life growing here toughs plants You know, that's the kind of stuff you need when you have a diorama You have to really set it in that reality and even if this was a building that had been blown down then there'd be Black for you know char marks or maybe small little fires or little bits of life that had grown up moss algae Things like that like, you know things that are outside. There's always just life galore on them And bringing that more into the piece as a way to sort of create more visual interest I think is really would be my number one recommendation to you. So Overall very cool. Every time I see tau. I think maybe this is the time I should get some tau and paint them. They seem fun Peter Lundstrom his first diorama wanted to incorporate some OSL was thinking about moonlight, but he says that he chickened out Yeah, and it's no issue So this is a fun piece Peter This is it does fall victim to one of the sort of classic diorama challenges Which is the thing you want to have the attention focused on is the least interesting part of the piece because of the colors You've chosen so what I mean there is I understand we made the spiders bright to make them stand out I'm not sure what's going on with this tentacle banner, but Kind of a cool thing But the the issue is we have these bright pink magenta spiders and magenta reds all those things are very eye-grabbing colors Same with the tentacles themselves and our actual hero of the piece is much smaller and he's much less bright He actually is quite dull and so somewhat fades into the background of the piece One of the things that you want to work on when you're doing a diorama is you want to make sure that if there's a central focal point It's really where we draw the attention to and one of the ways we could do that is if the spiders were maybe more muted more Part of nature looked like they were kind of blending into the swamp and he was actually the bright element amongst the neutral colors If maybe he had the Non-natural tones and the other things around him even maybe his banner could keep you know unnatural tones because it's all part of him I suppose Then that might be a way to distinguish it because they could still be punchier versions the spiders For example of natural colors Incorporating maybe more ochres or something like that that would still be in line with the colors of diorama But would still make them stand out from the rocks the trees But then if he was in the unnatural colors i.e. things that don't normally exist Quite regularly and in swamps or nature like the magenta or the sky blues and stuff like that The electric blue I should say Then that would really make him the center focal point of the piece So that's what jumped out of me Peter. Hope that helps overall very cool. It certainly tells a very interesting story All right next up Painting sloth. I don't know what that says, but I assume probably something about which Hex sounds right First dioramic background vignettes based on the story of German children's writer Ottfried. I'm not even gonna try Yeah, this is super cool, so I looked at this. I really want to show like I think this is great So here's the sort of zoom in where she's on her broom kind of floating above the city And then if we I actually love this shot here that shows how she's kind of placed in the shadow box with with all this Yeah, really really cool Really cool piece. I think probably my only Like I really love that the setting it has sort of a Kiki's delivery service vibe, which I'm all about Probably the only thing I would say is even though she's in a rather large scale She does need a little more sort of contrast of both value and hue especially on the skin You know, assumingly she's up in the air or she's holding on to this thing kind of tightly on her broom But to some degree make sure she doesn't fall off But like there's quite a lot of skin so like more pink into the cheeks more separation Here in the fingers, you know, like if you look at my fingers, there's pretty dark lines in between them, right? And you can see the contrast on my skin the other colors the reds and pinks and stuff like that So I think really the contrast of hue is what I'm at is what I would want the most to make her a little more Live same with her hair there It's probably a little more value contrast Especially in the stranding and making sure we're really capturing that kind of blowing in the in the wind, right? As it would be if she was up here, but overall, this is a super neat piece Really really cool. So yeah, I dig the heck out of it, man. Great stuff Okay, next up Rodrigo Diorama don't have any particular point just anything you can prove on sure So cool showdown of some night haunt against or I should say some undead I guess against some storm cast the number one thing that jumps out of me is we've really packed in the space Here we might actually have a bit too much. I think Within the space like because we've got one two three four, I guess horsey boys and then one two three four five Six seven eight maybe nine. It's hard to tell Well, that's kind of part of the challenge skeletal boys I would maybe subtract out just a little of this if it was like two or three horsemen and five skeletons or something like that I'd be like, okay Because you really got to be careful you don't pack it in so much that it's actually hard Especially since they're all similarly colored and can kind of lose You kind of lose them amongst the the the Darkness there and then them all being against each other Other things that jump out at me are just kind of a few small things You want to make sure that when you're doing stuff like this, especially with reds that you map these things out Red is often very naturally satin or glossy. You don't want these banners reflecting They would be very natural canvas cloth. They wouldn't be made of silk or something that would be highly reflective So, you know, be care of make sure you're matting the elements again with things like stone Like I've said before you've worked in greens. That's good I would take it even farther have a lot more stippling and texture there And then the only other thing that jumped out of me is those trees I like a lot of the detail on here like the the texturing on the dress The texturing on the wood of that the rust and stuff on the swords like it. It looks really nice The the trees though are a challenge for me So you're doing the wire trees like I can tell you're doing the spun wire trees, which is fine Nothing wrong with that at all So I've done some spun wire trees myself But you want to make sure when you putty over the trees that you really cover More of the spinning wire because otherwise they just look like spun wire Right, so you need to have a little more putty in there stuff like that to make them feel a little more like bark Then actually just weird twisted wire. That was actually the number one thing that jumped out of me. So hope that helps Okay, next up. This is just cool one building. This isn't painted by I thought it was really fun He billed loop for his wonderful wonderful Soul-Blade grave lords army, which he's been working on for years and is one of the better painted armies in the United States Probably the top three I've seen at any given tournament and I judge a lot of tournaments And he made this fantastic centerpiece tower with an actual working mechanical ringing clock The the man is amazing. So super cool bill. I absolutely love it It's I can't wait until I get to see in person at tournament. I hope to see this painted I look forward to seeing you again, buddy Okay, next up William. Uh, so this one was really fun. Uh, so Base, uh, so he said, uh, you know, he tried to spend some time making each material look and feel different different leathers Uh, and does anything else stick out? Yeah, so I look this piece over. It tells a very clear story I really liked that like obviously this guy lost somebody he loves and that's her spirit behind him as he's very sad Fantastic absolutely wonderful story communicated So that's great rocks came out wonderful You're you really are using like the most minimal amount of space. So I have no issue there I think the ghost actually looks pretty fine You might want to pop a little bit more whites on there in just a few places Really kind of take her up to make her even a little more ethyl Uh, but overall good probably my biggest challenge is in sort of two areas here Um, there's some lack of smoothness in some of the blends So I would work on that as well as just another cleanliness of the separation of elements Some of the things look kind of rough and not in like a oh paint texture rough Just as in uh, the blends don't look like they they came together or the texture is not telling me the right story Really love the tattoo think that came both of them. I think that came out Well, the red is honestly my biggest challenge So again, we've got a little bit of glossiness on there And it just looks dirty in the wrong ways the light and shadow On the red aren't falling as I would expect them to like so What is lit and what is in shadow doesn't really make sense The blending on some of the arm I can really see where the shadow is just like Really working on separating and making the elements clean is what I would recommend for you But overall, this is a great piece Really cool story that you've told with just two miniatures. So I think that's fantastic really great stuff, William Okay, next up we've got timothy, uh, so very small diorama, but I'll give it to you Uh, and you know My this is the the the Gandalf. It's a neat piece because it's him catching a little butterfly kind of talks about You know why he's he's such a gentle figure Um, one of the things that you that I would say here is we kind of have an overuse of tufts That aren't really separated like I don't know what's going on with all of them If you had them more Either filled out so they were full grass And then drawn together through some kind of painting that would probably be the way to go That's the number one thing that jumps out at me That plus Gandalf himself needs a little more definition a little more texture and things like the hat And the cloth but overall a very fun piece. Uh, really nice. So it looks like you had fun with it All right, so continuing here. We've got uh, uh, ballas brings us a a good, uh, scaven invasion, which is always fun Uh fun kit bash of a lot of different parts one thing I would say That jumps out at me. You know, I like all the different things, but You want to make sure that uh some of the elements Or a little more separated strongly what I mean by that is like I understand you're going for the glow The osl doesn't super work, but I mean I understand the the the nature of it We need to focus more on like the glow and softening what's glowing This is just as green as the thing that's generating the light, which isn't how glow works The other thing that jumps out at me is like having the stairs have more Rungs and then having maybe another scaven or two coming up makes it feel more like an invasion. So Um, whereas, you know, I kind of talked about with the skeletons. There was a few too many here. We've got Not quite enough, right part of the challenge of a diorama is always getting exactly the right amount of figures to tell your story And certainly the narrative is still communicated here But this feels more like three scaven kind of going out for some fun As opposed to you know, a true scale invasion You could even do some fun tricks like really get this blacked out completely And have a scaven emerging from it and blocking it off, right? Or you you could even like chop the back part of the scaven off with a big knife And have him in there. So he's blocking most of it. So it just looks black behind him And it would look like he's emerging from it. Okay So little things like that really helped to sell kind of the drama the narrative of the piece And so that's what I would recommend Overall paint wise again, you know, soften up your osl glow And focus on some more contrast of tone and stuff like bat and hue on the individual figures All right. Next up, uh, Matthew, uh So this is his uh puck bowl He said, what do you think of the size of the base? Um, and You know wanted to make it feel like it was a slice of the action. Do you think he caught that feeling? Uh, yeah, I do. I think this is great putting it on the hockey puck totally works for me. It's a fantastic base I love a base like that when you're set like for this story when you can integrate Kind of the the the nature of what the base is Into the diorama. That's very clever. Um, love it the uh all the little Uh knob lars with their hats and stuff are very funny. And you know the the sort of, um The wagon against the the big ogre is a fun matchup All in all, I think this piece works I think hanging off of the edge of the diorama is fine in the way it is like that is to say you have Upper things hanging off so you can generally like extend like this and that's okay if you've got If it's up and out you can generally get away with that and it's just fine Um And you know overall I think it's uh, it's just really fun to communicate. It's a good story It does feel like it's kind of right in the middle of these two about to collide, which I think works really really well Um, really like the painting on the knob lars love their little pink bellies and pink noses I think that looks really solid really solid The uh ogre I like the armor on him. Um the skin itself for the I like the red inclusions You've got great variation of hue. We don't have quite enough variation of value in some of the shadow areas same with the yellow But that's pretty minimal overall Uh, really fantastic fun piece. I think you did a great job with this from conception to execution I just think it's super fun So well done, uh, matthew. This is uh, this is really great Okay, next up, uh, so madds, uh, his first larger diorama feedback on composition And uh, you know kind of the colors and things like that So yeah, I mean like The you know one of the questions he kind of asked was should I be popping things up for the sake of Visual interest right if it's a snowy landscape and the answer is yes Right like you do need to make it interesting when you're doing a diorama because it has to tell the story Now you can do that in a lot of ways the demon could have like a glowing rune around his feet We could have some small scrub, uh, plants here that are sticking out, right? We could have bits of discarded weapons or something like that the person had thrown away We could have bones where other people had summoned something here before So there's there's lots of options The other thing I'll say is with a diorama you never want to extend it to the bottom like this Like there should always be some kind of base some kind of thing like if you look at The previous pieces that we covered on right each of them there was a separation element between the diorama and the uh, the Table or whatever, you know, right and and that's there for a reason That's there because it separates your world the diorama from the world Uh of you know the the rest of the real world in the same way that you don't just put a poster on the wall You frame it right and that's what makes it look clean and crisp Uh because it separates it from the wall around it Now as far as like painting goes, um, you know, we need to tie together the visual elements here So like he should have some green up on him to bring that together because there's no Uh, there's nothing tying that together and then we have some basic, you know contrast challenges smoothing out painting stuff like that But again, that's not as dioramas can can get by if they're telling a really interesting story with less paint Though you do still need to worry about, you know, overall quality As far as the wings go, I do have a tutorial on detailed wings It's rather old, but it does still hold true and have some simple very simple techniques She used to make detailed wings look popped Uh, and then just focusing on your blending and making sure that we've got enough variation of hue and contrast in the various elements The biggest thing I noticed the overall compositionally is, you know This guy's got a lot of green fire on him and it would be really neat if this guy also had green Or some kind of green fire or a green element as it would visually tie them together, right? Uh, so that's even the if the chains maybe had were black and then had little bits of green energy here In there traveling up and then to his eyes and a rune on his chest or something like that Oh now I you know, that's what now we're seeing the connection that's happening there, right? So that would be my main feedback for you, but overall fun piece Okay, next up Paul Uh, so I'm only going to review the first one because you only get one submission. So you get your first one Paul one one submission Um, so it's fun part of my challenges. I'm not sure what the narrative is It's communicating like you're using a very minimal amount of space, but I don't know exactly what's happening Like he's a wizard and it's in a snowy forest on the edge of a river But one of the tricks with dioramas is they have to tell me a story okay, and So I need to it's not just like a larger base Right because that's effectively what you've created here You took a miniature and you just made a larger base for him But that's not a diorama a diorama communicates narrative Like there's something going on that's readable and it's not really readable here as to what's going on other than It's a snow wizard in the snow Um, so the other thing I would say is go watch my snow tutorial that like the way you've done the snow on the trees On the ground isn't really how snow collects Um, so if you go watch my realistic snow, I think it's like hobby cheating 91 or something Um, you can you know, I talk about how to do snow texture in there Um, and even you know, you can bring it up onto the figure a little bit like on the bottom of his Uh cloak and stuff like that and that can you know really help sell the illusion that he's been You know walking around in this environment So, uh, yeah, there we go Paul. That's what I'll say Okay, next up family business, uh So, um, sure Yeah, I mean I I like the composite image. I think it's really nice. Um, it's a fun very happy diorama I love, you know them all making cheese for everyone and like this this human and Uh, I don't know she an orc woman. I'm not sure and then their kid Um, but overall super fun Uh, I I quite like that the biggest challenge I have here everything is painted You know nice and cleanly, but we don't really have any contrast. Everything looks rather flat So the wood the cheese their clothes their skin all of that So I I think story wise it's actually really interesting with the little family and the girl playing with the blocks While the parents negotiate for the prices of some cheese. So I think that's good Selling it with what's obviously an upper-class woman who's come into their shop, right? Um, so I think you did a good job there The the issue is we just need to up the the painting level really take it up push that variation of contrast Value stuff like that both tonal very tonal variation through contrast of value and hue So there you go Okay, next up, uh, jonathan. All right, jonathan is a very cool diorama I've looked at all of these this is too much, buddy. It's too much like you can't I this is don't write me a novel Okay So, however, what we get to here is what I'm looking for is critique on the composition placement colors and the working of the values Um, sure Okay Let's take a look So I really like this piece. I think it's fun. I think the background is cool I think overall the way the background is Soft actually does aid the piece Let's get into one of the sort of our close-ups. There we go because we we can tell a lot from here Um, I love the way you tie all the metal together. You kind of have this very similar blue steel running throughout everything Um, you went very clean. Nothing is weathered like no gate. No post. No old rotten fence has any rust Or to try this on it and that's certainly an artistic statement. So that's fine I don't know that's necessary. This feels almost more colorful like it's Uh, something else like it's some other world the image brought to life My biggest challenge here is the Bricks are very flat Uh, and the tree is very flat So one of the challenges when you do a diorama is that every piece of it has to be painted to the same level As the figures themselves and the figures themselves are quite adroitly painted Love the skin that you've got here. I think that came out absolutely marvelous Their cloth and the highlighting on their clothing and armor is subtle but highly effective The gold, uh, really does sell for me. I have no issue with that Each of the vampire stands apart, even though they have a You know a color scheme that draws them together. They still feel very different You did a great job of bringing out the individual elements of the pieces So I think if I were just looking at this and judging it as a unit I would judge it much higher than as a diorama Okay, and the main reason for that is because other than some very big components like the Hourglass is here the roses and the skull a lot of like the tree lacks texture The um barrel wood lacks texture the bricks lack texture and detail and contrast, you know that kind of thing Now that being said, I think overall this is a fantastic piece. I think it really works. It really sells uh, I quite like Uh, a lot of elements of this Their skin, especially I think is is what uh stands out to me as just being really really magnificently done um, so that really I think just sells for me her hair. I also quite love you really captured the reflection point of black hair Uh super well So all in all, uh great stuff, especially on the figures, which are top notch Just make sure you bring the rest of the pieces up to the same level the rest of the parts I should say the diorama Okay Next up scott stir, um So this is a tardigrade scene where they play together with plumps of chlorophyll Tried to recreate the look of the colors under the electron microscopes um, sure What a fun imaginative piece like to to zoom all this in right of the two tardigrades messing around with chlorophyll, uh, which is great Um, yeah, I think overall it's a very cool little fun piece of these weird little, you know microbes that there's just trillions and trillions of on the planet Uh a little insight into their life. I think that's a neat way to you know cool concept to recreate things um Part of my challenge of what I have is them they feel like they could use a little more maybe texturing or something uh They they just feel a little bit flat and and kind of they they are otherworldly alien like creatures like I've I've seen This the images sort of of tardigrade just I've never looked through an electron microscope I've seen images of them And they always feel like they've got some bumpiness to them or something like there's there's some you know sort of microscopic super microscopic texture there And I think bringing that out when we zoom way in could be an interesting way to go right Where you actually have that kind of uh Texturing to them to give them more of an animalistic like feel like they wouldn't have fur or something like that Obviously, but if they just had little stippled texture or something it would still make them we tend to Recognize that kind of thing as animalistic even if it's not completely realistic It could be a nice artistic license to to sell the Image of what you're saying that they're kind of these microscopic bears playing around in in plant chlorophyll, right? So There you go Okay Next up gen The quality goal is an army centerpiece. That's otherwise a few steps above Looking for you backs on composition base cloth and the weathered metal so Yeah, let's talk about it. So Composition wise Nagash or the central figure certainly stands out in a big way You've hit him with a lot of the greens and stuff like that. I actually quite like the piece from this angle with just the Banshee circling That sells for me. Um, the weathered cloth doesn't really sell as much. It doesn't have the sort of texture I would expect. Um, I have a video coming out In a while about textured cloth. So, you know, look forward to that They kind of really talk about how to add that texture to the cloth Getting it around the edge and having it show in highlights and things like that But the short story is we really need to see where that texture is The dark elf assassin kind of coming to jump in the mix Uh, and I assume try to kill Nagash Sort of feels strange Because it doesn't feel distinct enough from the rest of the piece the fact that So much of the color of the figure is shared with the ghosts and the environment around it Uh, I think it makes it hard to distinguish like the first couple of times I looked I thought this was just a ghost with a different color cloak Right and and that's not what we want So I think it would be neat if they had a very different look to the scene to show that they are something A foreign element that isn't part of the composition that all of these are um now The other thing you asked about was the weathered metal I think it could be weathered a little more with more interesting color usage I don't that the the vertigris looks a little bit stronger though I'd love it if there was a little bit of variation in the vertigris So some darker parts more like deep green black integrated in Versus light sort of nylic color And then at the same time with some of the Other chains and bibliboops and stuff that are that are Weathered, you know more different colors of brown orange and red rust kind of mixing together That sort of feel I think is is what's there. I'm missing again the spot texture of rust and weathering, right? I don't feel like we got we quite all of that captured Uh, so there you go, uh, I think I hit all of them weathered metal cloth. Oh, yeah the base. Sorry Uh, so yeah, I think the base is fine. I like the the feels like older dead kind of earth I think the base looks really nice I I don't have anything to say there other than I think you did a good job And I like the the sort of sticks going through the ghosts. I think that's fun. Um, that's a fun Uh, sort of conversion you did there where kind of have her, you know, she's obviously just passing through it Okay Next up james, uh diorama based on some diablo 2 art Um, yeah So one of the challenges we have here is we've got a little too much space with not enough stuff going on So I appreciate that you went like all the way with the walls like boy. Oh boy. Did you build a heck of a wall here? But it doesn't need to be that big that wall should be cut like probably at sigmar's head Like it should be about this big and it actually the reason for that is because you don't want to create too much negative space Your your figs then feel way too small and as a point of reference, let's go over to the art. Okay Um There he is notice where the the image cuts The like cuts off Right now there's a ceiling up here. This column assumingly runs a big way up Right, but we don't when the artist was laying out the composition for their picture. They didn't Zoom it in Right and have eight feet of ceiling Above the image because then the figures would feel smaller and less relevant, right? So there's a the the reason that the the lines happen like they do here This is interesting composition on this art piece And and I suspect the reason it strikes you is it uses a lot of very classical elements So it's using a well one third two thirds break on the horizontal line So in other words, there's a line here and this is a third of the picture And this is two thirds where the action is very standard framing device You see it a lot in television and stuff like that Movies we use this all the time now at the same time we have crossing lines Okay, so when you've got a one third two third, then we have our sharp angle down Which is created here by this door by him by the tail sticking through So here's our first line coming down to her and then we have our second line Which is him the angle of the demon the way his bend going up into the skeleton and the chains So, you know when they when they the artist for this who laid it out is obviously understand So these kinds of compositional elements well Now when we go back to your your image, right? We lose that because here we just have this kind of melee And we don't have those same lines being created, right? Um, and that's one of the tricks of the diorama like this. You need to shrink it way down So it's smaller and there's more Focus on moving exactly like how is my eye moving through the piece? Right like I wouldn't have any figure with its back to me I would have the demon very close to one of them Like it had the way it had the wizard in the in the picture and then three others kind of moving in But they were all facing toward us Right in the picture Uh, either being sort of contra posto or whatever they were all kind of facing toward us And so, you know those kinds of compositional things really make a diorama saying Now that you know, I'd say obviously painting wise we need to work on sort of cleanliness and and the overall contrast of value and hue But again, it's you know, when you're reviewing a diorama, it's more about the overall impact in the narrative The story does sell like you can tell what's going on here. It's they are all getting together to fight this demon The ground cover doesn't super work for me part of it is because we don't have enough texture We can still see a lot of like brushstrokes and paint on stuff like the rock here Um, we don't have enough variation of of there's not enough texture to the stone There's not a variation of hue for what's going on Again, let's go back to the picture here Okay Notice how the the artist used light to create a bunch of variants But at the same time they've got this orange fireplace here to create variants The bricks go from cream colored all the way into this dark black brown Then we have orange light coming from a fire back here, right? We've got some bright white, but then also shadows So like even in the the the ground cover here We see a lot of different elements going on and you want to make sure that that's brought here, right? So that's kind of the thing that jumps out of me. Uh, hope that helps james Okay, next up we've got christopher For finished both gorezag and nicot and uh So, yeah Looking for kind of general feedback. So one of the things that this is kind of the This goes right to us saying again too much space Also, when you're going to have a base like this you can have a little kind of uneven Stuff going on, but you want to solidly base it on something that's clean and crisp Again a picture frame. It's you know, very very straight and and even for that reason So you want to have a solid base on under it like you saw some of them earlier Part of my issue with this is there's way too much space for the figures And so if you're trying to create a lot of difference between them, um, it doesn't really show me their life difference, right? Like What is what are you telling me? Like yes, little guy's got a big bag to carry around and it looks not fun And big guy gets to shoot his gun But like their life isn't tangibly different on either side of this divide this metaphorical slash real divide You've cut into the piece, right? So if you had him looking more dirty or downtrodden or like Really like dragging something behind him in a big way where he was like carrying some oversized stuff Like a big bag of bullets behind him and he had you know, maybe some he's holding something in his arms Then there's also a chain strap behind him with you know, another big ammo case on it And you shrunk the whole thing down Whereas then the orc was fighting and had a bunch of skulls or bones or human weapons around him That would tell me the narrative that I think you're trying to do of like this guy's the fighter and this guy's the servant, right? And that would really communicate that more through the elements that are happening So that's what jumps out at me there chris. Uh, hope that helps Okay, next up matt So Three questions does the theme cell so the the idea is that the four seasons didn't just in the garden fight Around the tree and the winter sets the season outside Does the theme cell how is the color balance composition between the bits and what parts stand out? Yeah, my honest answer is it doesn't I wouldn't have got that if you hadn't told me because Winter doesn't feel winter enough. I assume this is spring. This is summer and this is fall But they I think we need to lean more into those seasons And have the areas of the tree more closely match them like there's not an immediate obvious difference of what's going on there The other problem is the figures are all very hard to distinguish Right now, they're very dynamic and I like kind of how you've posed everyone I do very much get the sense that these people are in like a ninja fight that comes through The challenge is because of the multi-hued tree and the colors that are there It actually is really hard from a distance to get a read on the piece of exactly what's happening Like when you look at this image right here What is going on right and the golden viewing angle is probably this When you're doing a diorama you always need to make sure you have one golden angle Set where I can look at it from this one angle and see the whole sweep of the story And it's probably this like but you you told me it's this because you cut out this whole side of the thing Right and generally when you do that that's because you're trying to get like You don't just do this because it's fun You do this because you're creating angular lines that draw the eye and create the viewing angle like my eyes look out like this right so that's But this doesn't show me the whole story right lots of things are blocked Like I can't see her face the winter's back is to me fall is basically covered by the tree That sort of thing right so the tree needs to be kind of up more and out of their way And the colors of it all need to be desaturated versions of them You know part of the challenge here is we don't like the autumnal part of the tree is very hard to see and they all all the tree elements are basically As saturated as them and so it ends up being this sort of clash this cavalcade of colors That's kind of hard to keep an eye on and that your eye just doesn't have anywhere to move Logically around the piece right The other thing I noticed is that like the wood and stuff like that doesn't just doesn't look finished enough The paper for the the door doesn't look finished enough a lot of the dioramic elements of the building They don't look like they were painted Really any at all They just kind of look like they have their natural wood texture But you know, I feel like that needs a lot more attention to really detail in scale detail to bring all that to life so Very cool concept Neat figures. I do like your positioning on like especially summer, you know jumping down. That's super cool I think that's really fun. I just think we need to work on our composition Okay, finally Matthew little With the triumph of st. Catherine feedback on the faces any other feedback would be appreciated Thank you both everybody who's talking about rain and hell. By the way, it's very nice of you. That's why this one is a little late Because I had to deal with all the Stuff around the you know around our launch anyways Any other recommendations from war game bolt or drive through rpg? Yeah, if you like rain and hell and you've already bought it rain and hell is the new skirmish game We just launched. Thank you to everybody who's already picked it up. I hope to see some cabals maybe in some future unit submissions but The other games you're looking for planet 28. It's a cool game five parsecs from home is great if you like solo games space weirdos A super cool short simple like low cost, but just a fun boiled down with a really really kind of Renegade attitude that I really enjoy. So you know, all of those are worth looking at and many more. So check them out Okay, let's get to this piece though With your depth of field go watch a youtube video on extending your depth of field and your camera Your camera can do it. You just have to set up the right. You have to get the right settings on your iso and stuff Anyways, um Yeah, so let's let's get through the faces definitely still need some work I would watch my video on painting female faces But what I really notice here is we need to work on our paint cleanliness So part of the challenge I see is that some of the paint is still going on too thick here with the white Like it's not smooth in its application. So we need to build that up A little more smoothly But there's places where I notice that the paint isn't quite like it looks kind of dusty and you could see that You see this like dust and stuff like this around We've got to watch stuff like that Um, you want to make sure you keep the figure clean throughout the painting process Otherwise you get that dust and stuff build up. It just it happens um The we don't have quite the tonal variation in either metals But but really my thing would be I would focus on two things one getting down a solid Clean coat of paint and having dark lines separate all of the elements Whether you paint up from black and leave the line there or whether you're zenithaling and then you build the black lines back in There needs to be more um There needs to be more separation of some of these elements as far as the faces go I would go watch my video on painting female faces and that will set you off in the right direction there And then your next challenge is just you know pushing up that tonal contrast, especially on things like the metals And uh, and that sort of thing Overall fun piece. Uh, thanks for submitting matthew. Appreciate it Um, I just as we come to the end There were some pieces I removed because they were basically just single figure So if you submitted something, but you don't see it here, it's because I looked at it and decided it was just a single figure Uh, and that's not the month for this a diorama has to tell a story It has to be be bigger than that I left kind of one in the did it just to use it as a quick example Of that kind of thing it's still more dioramic than those. I understand this is all soft But the reality is I need to be able to look at it and see if there's some kind of narrative something like that going on Um, a story now some of these big pieces like this is a like the triumph st. Catherine It's effectively a narrative in a box. It's one miniature in the game But at the same time it's certainly telling a story as to what's going on right in this Sort of funeral slash Reliquary procession So I'm okay with things like that, but I need but you know, we have a month for single figures So I do hope you'll resubmit them then at any rate. Thank you all very much appreciate everybody's submissions this month It was really great. I love diorama. I'm so excited about this as a concept. I really love people telling stories with miniatures It's one of my favorite things So with that I will say thank you very much. Don't forget the link is down in the description if you want to Join up or remember you do need to answer all three questions. Thank you to everybody who submitted And as always I very much appreciate you all With the pmp. Please do remember to stay positive We are here as a community staying positive because we all choose to be so we don't bring others down. We do not You know, we don't Critique anybody in a harsh or negative way that they don't ask for we build up. We answer questions. We extend a hand That's what the point of this community is All of us are at different points on our hobby journey And the best thing we can ever do is look behind us and extend a hand to help somebody take the step forward Just as others in the past Turned around and did so to you. So with that I will say thank you Everybody have a wonderful rest of your day rest of your month. We'll see you next time