"Why, it's a henge!" I said delighted. "A miniature henge." exclaims Claire Randall Fraser, the female protagonist in the wildly popular Outlander book series (and now TV series too!) by Diana Gabaldon. This is her first of several visits throughout the series by her to the stone henge called Craigh na Dun, as well as other important characters later on. Referred to as the standing stones, these rocks play a key role as they are how Claire time travels from 1945 Scotland to 1745 Scotland, where she meets and falls in love with James Fraser, a Scottish Highlander. When she leaves 1945, she leaves behind her husband Frank Randall who can find no trace of how she vanished or where she vanished to despite searching the entire country side where they were visiting, the same area that Craigh na Dun is found. 
   
​ As an avid Outlander fan you want to display your collection of books by as well as any other trinkets that pertain to the books. Postcards and pictures of the historical buildings and landmarks come to mind but sometimes feel flat and 2-D. Now there are several important places that are a focal point that the characters center around. The first of these would have to be Craigh na Dun. Others include James' family home in Scotland and Claire and James' home in back country of North Carolina pre-Revolutionary War. Outlander trinkets are nice and all, but I thought to myself why not have a miniature henge, a miniature Craigh na Dun to display alongside some of my favorite books. So that's what we did, we created our own set of standing stones. Up next might just be Lallybroch or Fraser's Ridge, but we might need more book shelves! I will just have to be careful around the stones when dusting and rearranging books so I won't accidentally travel back 200 years and find myself my own red-headed Scottish Highlander. 


See how I built this mini diorama by watching THIS VIDEO

I got the bug to build a diorama and one thing lead to another when I got some inspiration from this picture.

So I began to watch a few tutorials in hopes to gain some knowledge about how to go about tackling something like this.  I new I wanted to start small, something that I could display on my desk and be interesting (and a conversation starter) but also not take up a lot of room.  So I began with these materials.  Pretty modest I know, well that was the idea.

I also wanted to share my journey so I LIVE STREAMED the build and you can watch all the archived streams in the playlist below.  The pictures show the progress made after each live stream.

                                                               Watch all 5 parts in the PLAYLIST below

Check out my complete build and application of some heavy weathering techniques to this Revell 1/24 scale Datsun 720 off road pickup truck. I call it "The Mighty Nissan" Sometimes known as a Nissan Hardbody. This is a low piece count model kit, but still provides some great opportunities for detailing.  In this project I take it off the rails and add a ton of detail work and heavy weathering (rust, dirt, mud, ect...) to replicate my memory of the real vehicle as seen below.  Read on and don't forget to watch the video documenting the process of building this fantastic kit!

Below is some screen shots and links to the actual video of the REAL pickup I am replicating for this kit.  It is a beat and battered 1985ish, the ish is because the pickup is a Datsun 720 with a later pickup box from the D21 (Hardbody), but anyways I digress.  Here is a reference picture which will help describe the scope of this build.

As you can see, this little pickup has taken a beating.  Below is more progress pictures and the video documenting how I went about building this replica of the little Nissan/Datsun pickup we affectionately named "The Mighty Nissan"  Stay tuned, in the next post will be an udpate with another project that goes with this one as an accessory that goes in the bed of the pickup.

Now to go along with the story this little model tells, it needs a motorcycle, a dirt bike to be exact.  Now this is a model kit of a somewhat "generic" 70's dirtbike, but it looks an awful lot like a 1968 Yamaha DT1 ;) .  Anyways there does not exist a 1/24 scale model of a 1984 Husqrvarna CR250 which is the exact motorcycle that relates to this pickup in memories.  This will do just fine however.  This is why I didn't fill in the obvious "Yamaha" badges, besides the story behind all this, those badges would have been gone anyways from neglect.

Shift shaft and counter-shaft seals are leaking, as they do on old bikes like these.

Watch the customization of this late 70's NyLint Overnight Express Semi truck toy (black color) by adding a custom paint job and LED lights so it can be driven at night!