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Cloudy sky

Like most hobbies, there will be traditionalists who don’t want to wonder far from the standard Matrix!
You design will be well outside the box for many people but don’t let that put you off , it is your idea , your tank, your home and your pleasure.
Oh, I completely agree - I thought it easier to close the invite of suggestions on account I didn't feel they were following any theme aside from the absurd.
 
I think I'll withdraw the invite of suggestions or ideas on account my aim is to make this not look like a model railway scene or simply stupid.

If you think the wall looks like this then please just say.

I think people are just having a joke with you and are not criticising the scape

I love the wall, the amount of work that’s gone into it and think it will look even better (if that’s possible) when the plants have grown in

It will lead you eye through the landscape

If you still think you need something on the left
What about a small tree about 1/4 - 1/3 in from the left ?
Either wood or a different single plant to represent a tree ?
small will visually add depth to the scape

Or you could even have a whole area right across the back of a different slightly taller plant ? To represent the field behind has a different crop in it ?

Which plants are you thinking of using ?

Please Remember this is for YOU to look at and enjoy so don’t worry what anyone else thinks


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Please Remember this is for YOU to look at and enjoy so don’t worry what anyone else thinks
I don't worry what everyone else thinks at all dean but it sometimes helps to hear ideas or suggestions from other people, they might give you suggestions that you like ;)

I think I'll just update the thread when I get to another point.
 
I don't worry what everyone else thinks at all dean but it sometimes helps to hear ideas or suggestions from other people, they might give you suggestions that you like ;)

I think I'll just update the thread when I get to another point.

But only you can decide which ones you like or don’t like so stoping the naff ones you will also stop the good ones


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Thinking outside the box is why things move forward, this scape is for you and yours. Where's the line drawn for you in the silly department, how can we know that. So when you say that's a bit to much well what is silly and not is so varied in this hobby just by country never mind style and taste.
This is a forum of many minds and the only 1 you have to please is yours.
You ask you get.
I believe that wall is man made.
Ruins are man made.
The path of squashed green grass troden on by humans passing through a short cut.( idea)
Get your end goal and stick to it. It's all great but may slip below the lines of nature.
I think your looking at it as nature has ravaged man made objects which is thinking outside the box. All for it. Or is it ?
My fish tank had ruins from the Roman's which cost an arm and a leg. This was in the 80,s. This planted tank hobby is 10s of years old and it is advancing very slowly because of these silly rules and stuck minds and repeated crap that people keep blurting out without knowing why and missing out the most important parts,
I'm certainly not a rule advocate in anyway or form, rules are needed for the masses but tend to limit us and squeeze bondarys even tighter. The rules are more of a quick guide in my opinion in that if your imagination or artistic skill is lacking you can rely on the guide lines and rules as a helping hand, they are however very misleading to a new scaper and the styles get blurred because lack of plant skills not to mention algae, then theres the 3rds or and the doubtful golden ratio aspects, sometimes it's best to go back to basics and learn more. ( not you Andrew)
I have to say the lonely tree is my next project and love it, but much less and very simple compared to yours and some will say and think it's because I'm lacking in imagination.This is not ment as as a hose down but you do care what we think and that's also fine. If anything I have learnt as a newbie is that your journal is a way to show off your skills but that's a lonely journal as you dont need help, it can also be a totally different style journal were you need help and members will tell you straightforward answers to help. Many different styles of journal,you carnt please all the people all the time so get on with it and show us your imagination in your project, in the kindest way possible.
Cheers
 
Again very interesting thread,the valley, good stuff.
I think my first attempt at an iwagumi is quite abstractish. Onwards and forward my fellow scapers.
 
I think I'll withdraw the invite of suggestions or ideas on account my aim is to make this not look like a model railway scene or simply stupid.

If you think the wall looks like this then please just say.
I'm sorry if your latest post is (partly or) due to my comment, offence was not intended and if you hate my idea, that's perfectly fine, it just popped in my head.
I love the way this scape is going and it's refreshing to see something from outside the box.
Really like the wall but I don't think I would have put as close to the tree or follow the curve of the hill but it's not my aquarium. The fallen branch is a great idea.
Please try to continue on your path of inspiration. You might not get it right this time but it's a fun project and definitely a good journal.
 
I apologise if I came across as if I'd thrown my toys out of the pram; this is not the case.

Although I don't really care what other people think of my aquarium it is nice to have some input; something along the lines of 'I think the wall looks too formal and lacks interest, maybe adding a fallen tree branch will help break things up' - this is a suggestion I received through PM as they did not want to post on this thread as felt it had just become a joke.
I think the input from other people can give you ideas or suggestions that you may not have thought of which I did not feel was the case and other people managed to offer constructive suggestions and opinions through PM.
I just felt that the suggested ideas were in my opinion a little stupid as I had made it quite clear that I did not want to create something that looked like a 'model railway scene' so adding things such as cows, a scarecrow, telephone mast, tractor etc to me remind me very much of a model railway scene so found it non constructive.
It could just be the case that the whole wall idea is completely 'model railway scene' which I am unsure will be the case or not and if you thought that then I would have appreciated that input.

I'm all for a joke as much as the next person but when most posts are 'model railway scene' orientated I don't find this constructive or helpful to anyone.
What I am possibly doing doesn't fit into a standard aquascaping category but being a lover of British countryside and looking to try and recreate a scene for me to view along with fish seems attractive.
Do I have a picture of what I'm talking about recreating? - No is the answer but in my head and spread across several different photos I do, all of which would work when put together. Whether they would in a planted aquarium, well that's a different matter.
 
I thind the difference between Amano and the newer diorama's ( railway scene) is size/scale related. He recreates ( the feel) of a piece of nature while the modern diorama types recreate ( the feel) of whole landscapes ( or mountain reaches).
My personal feeling is: smaller is better, hence i prefer Amano over the diorama's ( i prefer even smaller and try to recreate the feeling of the actual biotope).
Maybe adjusting the scale could help.
 
I thind the difference between Amano and the newer diorama's ( railway scene) is size/scale related. He recreates ( the feel) of a piece of nature while the modern diorama types recreate ( the feel) of whole landscapes ( or mountain reaches).
My personal feeling is: smaller is better, hence i prefer Amano over the diorama's ( i prefer even smaller and try to recreate the feeling of the actual biotope).
Maybe adjusting the scale could help.
Thanks for the input; I hope I am understanding you correctly as the word diorama and aquascape has far reaches from what I understand.
I think unless you have a massive tank then any kind of diorama with the addition of fish would prove a challenge to anyone and there is a fine line between tasteful and tactless.
 
Go with it Andrew, and see where it takes you, it's the journey that's important and what you learn from it.
From what I can gather there is often a fine line between model making and aquascaping anyway especially in the diorama style.
At the end of the day it's not a permanent fixture you're going to have to live with for the rest of your life, at some point you'll tear it down and do something different.
But for now just go ahead and execute it to the best of your ability, that way it'll help inform your future scapes.

P.S. for what it's worth, I think it looks great, you just need to get it up and running now :)

P.P.S. you also need an avatar ;)
 
Go with it Andrew, and see where it takes you, it's the journey that's important and what you learn from it.
From what I can gather there is often a fine line between model making and aquascaping anyway especially in the diorama style.
At the end of the day it's not a permanent fixture you're going to have to live with for the rest of your life, at some point you'll tear it down and do something different.
But for now just go ahead and execute it to the best of your ability, that way it'll help inform your future scapes.
Thanks Tim, it's never going to be everyone's cup of tea but they don't have to look at it either.
P.S. for what it's worth, I think it looks great, you just need to get it up and running now :)
Thanks Tim, it will be there in time.
P.P.S. you also need an avatar ;)
done

I'm not down about the comments that in my view were silly or non constructive I just didn't see them as helpful
 
I think it will look completely different once the plants are established
At present all you can focus on is the wall and tree
The wall will soften with the addition of time and especially if some algae or moss grows on it


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Hi Andrew
Maybe you read my post or not who knows but this is obviously no place for humour.

I'm not going to jump on the morally correct gravy train but why not look towards model making items and ideas if that's your thing, the scale for the models will help you The wall needs to be bigger I think as plants will cover it and also it will be hard to scale plants that small. My very humble and inexperienced suggestion
 
Hi Andrew, as you know I'm not an aquascaper so take what you want from my comments.

First I'd decide if this was loosely based on nature or trying to replicate it closer. By that I mean, I'd expect the wall to be bigger if it was natural, simply going by the size of the tree.

I've also spend a lot of time in the lake district and although agree with you that wall are different throughout the country, they don't tend to be as uniform as yours, at least in my head. What you have is a very skillfully built wall but natural walls are built with whatever rocks are around, therefore not as uniform.

The last point is where the coping stones have been dislodged by the tree limb, I think there should be more damage that's less uniform. I'd try a larger bite out of the main wall with angled damage a bit like you could imagine where sheep jump from field to field.
 
Guys
The wall size will depend on the season
Obviously in winter it would look bigger as there would be no crops etc
In the summer the wall could be completely obscured by tall crops
So the current size maybe right it all depends on if Andrew wants the wall to be prominent in his design or just a way to separate different planting areas

Also as it’s removable it can always be tweaked by adding extra rows to the bottom if required

Because the wall is made from slate the thickness of each piece is going to be the same, I don’t think this matters as I believe Andrew is aiming to capture the feel of the English countryside near him and not to replicate it with a full scale model


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Thanks for the input; I hope I am understanding you correctly as the word diorama and aquascape has far reaches from what I understand.
I think unless you have a massive tank then any kind of diorama with the addition of fish would prove a challenge to anyone and there is a fine line between tasteful and tactless.

I've said this before a long time ago but I think what EdVet is saying is similar to what I have said. Amano made natural scapes that let you decide what they were. Vague if you like. They suggest something. The Diorama which tend to dominate the competitions now try to replicate. They remove the ambiguity and thus what you see is what it is.

With that in mind your direction will take the scape in one direction or another. Yes there is no getting away from "that is a wall" but a wall doing what? A wall where? What is behind, to the left. You can have things like your wall that cannot be anything but a wall but that doesn't mean that you then have to continue this (direct instruction) across the scape.

I argued this before in terms of "art or craft" where I argued that if you remove the element of interpretation then you move too close to instructing the viewer that "this is X, no argument. In my opinion."

The counter to my argument was/is photography is art, lifelike sculpture is art.

For me personally I like to be able to use my own imagination rather than what is put in front of me saying "you are viewing X. It is X. There is no argument other than this is X."
 
Hi Andrew
Maybe you read my post or not who knows but this is obviously no place for humour.

I'm not going to jump on the morally correct gravy train but why not look towards model making items and ideas if that's your thing, the scale for the models will help you The wall needs to be bigger I think as plants will cover it and also it will be hard to scale plants that small. My very humble and inexperienced suggestion
I'm all for humour but when your initial posts were suggestions of cows and a Christmas scene after me saying the likes of a scarecrow and mobile telephone mast were too far for me, and of course the comment good old British humour I didn't see as constructive or helpful at all.
Some would and did see this as offensive so chose to PM me instead of comment on the thread.
The fact you offended others by your comments is the reason I chose to not respond to you.
 
I'm all for humour but when your initial posts were suggestions of cows and a Christmas scene after me saying the likes of a scarecrow and mobile telephone mast were too far for me, and of course the comment good old British humour I didn't see as constructive or helpful at all.
Some would and did see this as offensive so chose to PM me instead of comment on the thread.
The fact you offended others by your comments is the reason I chose to not respond to you.
Hi Andrew,
Have you any photos of updates , I think it’s productive to as much as possible try out as much ideas.One thought though always best to make as natural as possible/ blend into nature. My daughter try to persuade me to add a sponge bob square pants into my current nature style aqua 600 scape - its not going to be happening ;)
 
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