Parthenon

Steven Van Dyck
I was planning to have lots of figures in this diorama, but the guy who uploaded this kit to Scalemates had guessed the scale as 1/100 and it is rather 1/250. Therefore my HO scale Greeks are completely overscale and will not be used.

Rui S
Interesting 👍

Steven Van Dyck
I started with changes to the access steps, I had to saw these flush with the base as can be seen on reference pictures. Also I had to remove a terrible warp, I did this without a base plank by connecting the corners with thick wire and bending that. I found out that Italeri reconstructed the inner naos columns like on old drawings with both colonnades equal in length. Most of the modern day reconstructions show the top row smaller, so I sawed of the first row and used this as a lengthening part. I also made the architraves thinner, these are really ugly from the box with a slanting side.

Ben M
👀 perhaps 1/250 Greeks can be resin printed.

gorby
Looks interesting. 🙂
If some bloke called Elgin turns up you may have to tell him to bugger off. 😉

Thomas Espe
👀

Ben M
I bet you could get some z scale figures (1:220) and paint them however you like

Steven Van Dyck
Thanks for the tip, Ben, but I will solve the problem with some 1/200modern figures I got yesterday. I'll slice them and add 1mm, then cover it with a stola. I also had to perform lots of changes to the interior structure of the temple, using a floor plan I rescaled to 1/250. It appears Italeri has moved the pronaos and opisthodomos colonnades to the inside, to make up for the walls they made much thinner. I sawed out these floor parts and moved the colonnades to the outside. I thickened or replaced these walls with styrene. That meant engraving the outside of the styrene walls with block patterns. I also reversed some entrance walls because only one side of the gate part got a stone texture. I made the textureless side to go inside the wall. I moved the first two Ionic columns to fill the new space. I don't understand why Italeri is messing with the proportions of this building, just to be able to minimize the sprue variety to two shapes and as little wall surface as they could, while wanting to show off the inside. They also added the arm support to the statue, though that existed only on marble copies.

Steven Van Dyck
The increase in length of the sidewalls is compensated with the unused inner wall parts. The four cutouts are made but I changed the sizes by recutting each part. The inside of the walls is covered with the cutout parts, taking care to continue the masonry. Between the layers I will add another sheet of the same thickness to get to 4.5mm. I will have to use styrene for the plinths, all of these were used for the gates.

Steven Van Dyck
The inner walls are now connected to the outside with spacers. The plinths are machined from styrene plate so the walls fit to them. Four antes are added to the front walls. The inner tympanons are connected to the colonnade, that will fit in newly drilled postholes. I will remove the triglyphs there, they should only go on the outside and not be inclined. This colonnade isn't lined up with the outside anymore, the architrave will have to be skewed. More than 40 columns are now prepared.

Steven Van Dyck
The outside colonnads are completed with the different architrave lengths connected At first I tried to connect these in series but there is an inconsistency in the triglyph bases (guttae). This disappears when the parts are connected in parallel. I also removed th middle triglyph because this was split, I exchanged with a complete one. I cut the moved tympanons of the interior colonnades to make fit the roof parts. I also shifted the outside tympanons a few millimeter outward, so they would extend like on the pictures.

Ben M
I feel like I need a degree in classics and one in architecture to follow this build. The corrections you are doing are fantastic. This will be something special when you are done. How will you paint it? Seems hard to get in all the nooks and crannies.

Steven Van Dyck
Thanks! I'll be using a Rustoleum Ivory spray can for primer. Then the usual modulating. It helps to have a degree in archaeology, there was even a small copy of that statue near my classroom.

Robert Podkoński
Truly impressive!

Steven Van Dyck
I leveled the front walls with the middle structure and joined the ceiling parts after removing a small strip, so the pattern would match. Then I compared the 2 kit figures with some Schulcz figures I had. The kit figures are larger than 1 cm, so these are over 2 m 50 long in reality. They can only be used as statues. My added 1/200 figures are about 9mm to 7mm, so these are more realistic. To make them look like ancient Greeks, they are dressed in alu foil.

Steven Van Dyck
A small change was done to the front wall to improve symmetry. The base was filled in where I had changed components. One of the interior pillars was straightened and now the colonnade and the temple inner walls could be connected to the ceiling, that was only held up by the thin outside Italeri wall. For this a series of strips was cut out in thin styrene so all ceiling beams could get postholes in the outer walls. Then these strips were split in half so you get copies for each side. The same was done for the colonnades, but with a piece of sprue in between two strip halves. That creatded an architrave that could rest on the colonnade near the goddess statue. A smaller version was made for the rear room. Now the ceiling was completely closing up and I could create a link between the inner portals, that at this point were still two loose colonnades with a roof triangle on them. I closed up the ceiling on top of these with thicker styrene plate and then connected the portals with a 21 cm long sturdy strip. Like that, you can lift the two portals as a whole and dry-fit it on top of the inner walls. Now the only thing left was to finish the roof. I connected the four roof sections with a styrene plate and left some room for the distance that I had moved the outer tympanons. That gap was filled in with styrene and then the tile layers were sawn out of that, which took some time to do thoroughly. One last omission from Italeri are the imbrices on the roof, you only get the tegulae as continuous tile rows without the capping tiles between each of the two cover tiles. I currently have no solution for this IMO unnecessary omission; Italeri could simply have cast these vertical tile rows on the parts. I finished with adding the acroterions. Maybe I can look for an existing N-scale roof, because adding styrene tile profiles would be madness with about 10 meters needed.

Steven Van Dyck
The ancient Greeks are primered grey and the building is primered in marble colour. For the roof I have found a solution in Redutex stickers. These have the approximate dimensions of the roof, but will have to be cut up to fit exactly. Then they will also be repainted.

gorby
I'm amazed how much work you've done to correct this kit.

Steven Van Dyck
"Meden agan" is an ancient concept that doesn't apply to me... Today the painted figures have provided a sacrifice of animals, but the difference in scale means that they caught some aurochses in stead of regular oxen. I also covered the empty roof with Redutex tiles and painted these in marble color.

Ben M
They sure toga'd up nicely.

Steven Van Dyck
Thanks, Ben. The stone parts are now shadowed with Tamiya Dark Yellow 2 and then highlighted with white. The ceiling, doors and portals are masked to paint with Gunze Wood H37 and Tamiya Fieldgrey for bronze. The goddess statue was painted white too, then masked with gum and sprayed gold with a small rattle can.

Steven Van Dyck
I painted the stars on the ceiling in AK True Metal gold and started on the decorative elements with Vallejo paints.

Steven Van Dyck
The statues in the tympanon are painted according to some websources. Light blue is added to the frieze. I also bought more Redutex products to embed the temple in its surroundings.

Steven Van Dyck
A base is made from a picture frame, some foamboard, a cardboard wall and two Redutex 3D-floor decals. I used some topographical charts to get the right surroundings for this dio. The temple is anchored in the base with some tailored sprues and it will fit level with the foamboard. Some Joefix basic nuts will be used for some foliage.

Steven Van Dyck
A dark wash is applied to the masonry and then a drybrushing with Vallejo Offwhite results in the desired effect. Where it is too heavy, it's scratched away with a knife.