Halo Infinite Diorama with Ultra Realistic Scenery

Perfect pines, a dusty road, beautiful mountains… what’s not to love about the scenery in the Halo Infinite trailer from E3 in 2018?

I have been wanting to recreate this for ages and when I needed a step by step on pines for the book I am writing, this was my first thought. It’s stunning scenery that is at home in the Pacific North West or Canada. It is in S-scale (1/64) which is a lovely model railroad scale if you haven’t seen it – half way between HO and O.

Materials

Master Chief by bizarrefog1 https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/halo-infinite-master-chief-rigged-0ad7b1431a6748959d691e9c171c6e2c It’s a lovely model for this scale.

The Amazon links are all items I have either bought or bought something similar for myself. Clicking on any links to Amazon will give me a small affiliate income which I use to produce more videos at absolutely no extra cost to yourself. Every little helps!

Arduino

I used a 5V pro mini https://amzn.to/3t8CmTV and I fed power separately to the LEDs. I have moved to using USB cables to get the power in and this seemed to work well. I added a micro usb port https://amzn.to/3cq1xKS to the back which was easier than soldering a cable in and leaving it hanging if not in use.

The LEDs are programmable neopixels (a cheaper version at least). I used the densest 144 LEDs per metre option. https://amzn.to/38vLWZ7

I used a sketch that I cobbled together from the internet. I know very little about Arduino codes at the moment but I am sharing it in case it helps. You will need to download the FastLED library. If you don’t know how to do that then YouTube has a lot of videos aimed at starting Arduino programming.

#include <FastLED.h>
// How many leds in your strip?
#define NUM_LEDS 24
#define DATA_PIN 6
// Define the array of leds
CRGB leds[NUM_LEDS];
//fade
  int fadeAmount = 5;  // Set the amount to fade I usually do 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 etc even up to 255.
  int brightness = 0;
//end fade
void setup() {
  // sanity check delay - allows reprogramming if accidently blowing power w/leds
    delay(2000);
    
//    FastLED.addLeds<NEOPIXEL, DATA_PIN>(leds, NUM_LEDS);  // GRB ordering is assumed
      FastLED.addLeds<WS2812B, DATA_PIN, GRB>(leds, NUM_LEDS);  // GRB ordering is typical
}
void loop() {
   turn_on();
  delay(1000);
//   turn_off();
   chase();
   delay(200);
   turn_off();
   delay(20000);
} 

//From Basic Blink
void turn_on() {
// Turn the LED on, then pause
  leds[0] = CRGB(0,40,80);
  leds[1] = CRGB(0,40,80);
  leds[2] = CRGB(0,40,80);
  leds[3] = CRGB(0,40,80);
    FastLED.show();
}
void turn_off() {
  // Now turn the LED off, then pause
  leds[0] = CRGB::Black;
     FastLED.show();
  delay(500);
  }
void chase() {
        for(int dot = 0; dot < NUM_LEDS; dot++) { 
            leds[dot] = CRGB(0,40,80);
            FastLED.show();
            // clear this led for the next time around the loop
            leds[dot] = CRGB::Black;
            delay(15);
        }
    }

Paint

I used Alclad lacquers for the building:
Alclad Black Primer & Microfiller ALC-309 https://amzn.to/2I4MYRQ
Alclad Gloss Black ALC-305 https://amzn.to/3g30fXT
Alclad Chrome ALC-107 https://amzn.to/2pK1AJO
Alclad Aqua Gloss ALC-600 https://amzn.to/3ohTioE

Everything else was artists’ acrylics or whatever I had to hand.
For the washes, check out my washes page.

Other Materials

Rocks
Woodland Scenics Facet Rock Mould https://amzn.to/3tcTdF0
Woodland Scenics Shelf Rock Mould C1247

Trees
Balsa dowels – 6mm
28 gauge Florists’ Wire https://amzn.to/3cpWZEi
Brushable Latex Rubber – I bought this from SmoothOn – not an affiliate link https://www.benam.co.uk/products/latex/brushing-latex
WWS/Peco Layering spray https://amzn.to/2BLsB8r
10mm WWS patchy grass https://amzn.to/2TeZGOA
Woodland Scenics Coarse Turf Conifer T1366 or try Coarse Turf Dark Green https://amzn.to/35U0dwo
Woodland Scenics 2mm Static Grass Dark Green https://amzn.to/2OdZvpr

Earth blend fine turf T42 https://amzn.to/2pKaBT6
Green blend fine turf T45 https://amzn.to/2Pl18wx

Grass
Noch Applicator https://amzn.to/35BFmPF
Noch Grass Glue https://amzn.to/33CU2Ma
WWS 2mm spring grass https://amzn.to/2wmIMmJ
Noch 6mm Golden Yellow/Beige https://amzn.to/3kpezuw
WWS/Peco Layering spray https://amzn.to/2BLsB8r

Bushes will be on the Starting Scenery course soon!

HotWheels UNSC Warthog https://amzn.to/3l6CKzJ
Polyfibre https://amzn.to/3ck7UiR

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