Dear friends,
I am pleased to inform you that Scale Model Handbook, Diorama Modelling 1 IS OUT! For more information please visit www.mrblackpublications.com.

The book will be also available through our distributors, dealers and shops in the following days.

PREFACE

Welcome to the first book about modelling dioramas in Mr Black Publications’ series of Scale Model Handbooks. We promised in our first issue that our publications would eventually cover a greater variety of military modelling themes and now our first special issue dedicated to various types of dioramas has come to fruition!

While gathering material for such a special book we soon realized that it wouldn’t be possible to cover everything we wanted to in our standard 52-page format, so a 100-page book became inevitable to provide more coverage and satisfy the requirements of our readers. Different approaches, techniques and step-by-step instructions are covered in more than 400 photographs and associated texts to inspire you, the reader, to make your own creations.

It took us about 18 months of intensive work to gather our material, since we wanted to cover many historical periods, such as Napoleonic, 15th century, WWI, WWII and not forgetting civilian based scenes, as well as considering the many different and popular scales of 1/35 (50mm) and 1/32 (54mm) to the larger 1/24 (75mm) and 1/16 (120mm) scale dioramas, to satisfy our readers’ interests. Our aim was to make this book a necessary and useful handbook for modellers everywhere.

We would like to thank those who contributed to this book, as we couldn’t have produced it without them. Antonio Fdez (“Piqui”), Jesus Gamarra, Javier Gonzalez (“Arsies”), Theodoros Kelesidis, Noel Petroni, Sergey Popovichenko, Costas Rodopoulos, Kazufumi Tomori, Alex Varela (“Iguazzu”), and Dave Youngquist… You are all stars!

Special thanks must go to Luca Marchetti and Pietro Balloni from Pegaso Models who have been there for us right from the start; Alex Vallejo (Vallejo Acrylics), Alexey Lucanev (Irbis Miniatures) and John Page (Sphere Products) whose support is highly appreciated. Last, but not least, we would like to thank Ken Jones for his valuable help in editing texts, his advice and lending a unique final touch to all our publications.

It is with much excitement and satisfaction that we present you with this first book in our new “Diorama Modelling Series” - it’s one in which we are placing great hope towards it being a new and successful regular edition to our series of modelling books!

CONTENTS DIORAMA MODELLING 1

4 Bailén, July 1808 - 54mm (1/32)
20 Back to the Front - 120mm (1/16)
28 US M3 Stuart “Honey” - 50mm (1/35)
40 Die Ostfront 1945 - 120mm (1/16)
60 Conquistadors - 75mm (1/24)
66 “The Cannon” - 50mm (1/35)
72 Kings of the Road - 54mm (1/32)
80 Making Pine Trees - 50mm(1/35) /54mm(1/32)
88 Near Moscow, December 1941 - 50mm(1/35)/ 54mm(1/32)


CONTRIBUTORS
ANTONIO FDEZ (PIQUI) • JESUS GAMARRA • JAVIER GONZALEZ (ARSIES) • THEODOROS KELESIDIS • NOEL PETRONI • SERGEY POPOVICHENKO • COSTAS RODOPOULOS KAZUFUMI TOMORI • ALEX VARELA (IGUAZZU) • DAVE YOUNGQUIST

I hope that you like it!

Fantastic! Congratulations Stelios, it looks great

Stelios this is an amazing additon to the -already- succesful series.I wil definitely buy it!Hope to see more of these books coming!
Many thanks for your effort!
Fokion

Αwesome job Mr .Black..
a must have for all figure enthusiasts..

Dear friends,
thank you very much for your comments and nice words. I hope that you will like this book as much as all the other or much much better!!! I would like to share some more inner pages to show that all of the articles have a lot of SBS photos and detailed text.

Definitely a must have book. I'll have to pick up a copy. Does anyone in the States have this available yet?
Tom

Not in stock yet but I have it on pre-order!

Thanks Dave, order placed

Dear friends,
Thank you all! The first books are on the way!!

Stelios

Hi Stelios,

This is a great book and it begins a new series for Diorama Modelling. I will certainly order this one and future issues in this series.

A quick question if you don't mind. Will the original Figure Modelling series continue or has it been replaced with this new Diorama Modelling series? I have all the current 9 issues in the Figure Modelling series and will continue to buy more if you continue to publish that series.

I hope you can run both series in parallel and each of them has its primary focus on the content

Very nice !!!!! Iam sure i will get a copy.

Dear Jason,
Thank you for asking this. Maybe some other friends have the same question. The Figure Modelling Series will continue as it is (4 books per year) so the 10th Figure Modelling Book will be in the market till the end of March. Our intention for the Diorama Modelling Series is to fill a small gap there presenting remarkable works and artists having in mind the modelers' view. The circulation of the Diorama Modelling Series we hope to be 2 books per year.

Dear George,
Thank you. I hope that you will like it a lot!

Thank you for the confirmation, Stelios. Glad to hear that!

Hello friends,
I am pleased to inform you that my distributor Historex Agents has received the Scale Model Handbook, Diorama Modelling 1. Of course you can find also all the previous 9 books in Figure Modelling Series and a lot of new STUFF in figures and products!

Keep up the Modelling Work!!
Stelios

Had a quick flick through a copy today and it looks very impressive; looking forward to spending some time reading it this evening.

Great book, highly recommended.

Jon, I notice a couple of new products in your ad at the end of the book; palette holder and railway track. Any idea when these might be released?

Geoff

They are available now Geoff.

The palette holder is on our ebay shop (£5 for the holder and £7.50 with the palette ) ;

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/spherehobbyproducts

The rail tracks comprise 2 off 75mm lengths of 3D printed rail and 3 laser cut ply sleepers which can be cut to fit your base. I don't have any other pictures apart from the painted up one as yet so I haven't listed it; they are £5 a set.
I will hopefully be adding an all resin rail section single figure base once I get the time.

Thanks

Jon

It looks a great book and a must have for me,

Brian