¹⁄35

Borrowed Goods

The dio and the figures.

As I made the scene from two pictures of course there was the need for a little groundwork to finish off the base and the display of my scene. I kept it to a minimum as I didn’t want the scene to overrule the story that is shown on the dio itself. The wooden base I got from my parents which they bought at an Art’s and Crafts expo. I first added a layer of Styrofoam which would be the lowest level of ground. Next I made with the same Styrofoam 2 banks on both side of the road. The road runs in a diagonal over the base. And so do the banks. On the roadsurface I applied a layer of wallspackle. You can buy this stuff in the Do It Yourself stores. It is cheap and it comes in a big tube. Make sure though you take the acrylic based version as the others have some stuff in it that eats foam. While the spackle is still wet I sprinkled birdcagesand over it. Before I did the whole spackle thing I measured out the wheelbase of the Jeep and took 2 Jeep wheels from my scrap box and applied a piece of sprue between it that was exactly the same length as the wheelbase of the Jeep. While the spackle was still not cured I rolled the trail of the Jeep wheels. The sand I sprinkled over the spackle prevented the spackle to stick on the wheels. I applied white glue to the Banks and sprinkled long grass from the Bush brand over it. The exact name of the long grass is Kornfeld and is used to simulate cropfields in the railroad hobby. I wanted to give the idea that the roadsides had seen some heavy traffic and the road was trampled. So I only sprinkled it on and painted it later as it lay. The little bush or shrub that is featured on the rightside of the dio is made with Reindeer moss that I first dipped in diluted white glue and then shaked around in a closed container with Crushed dried parsley. And glued that to the base too when it was dry. I then sprayed the whole groundworks in a dark grey as basecoat. With different sand colors I sprayed the roadsurface. The banks got their own treatment with different tones of green and even some sandcolors but I decided to keep the colors of the grass a bit darker to give it a little more depth. Same treatment I gave to the shrubs on the right. But here I decided to keep the lower parts of the bushes darker also to give it more depth. Finally I drybrushed the grass a little with khaki and gave the roadsurface some dusting with dustcolored Pigments. So far the diobase. The figures I took for this dio were partially from the Panzer grenadiers at Arnhem set from DML. Both the standing figure that is leaning on the Jeep and the Kneeling figure fixing the PAK to the towing hook of the Jeep are both not really modified except for the leaning figure as I modified his hand to have a better hold on the Jeep. The standing figure was a mix of several manufacturers. The legs were from the smoking figure on the left of DML`s Ambush at Poteau. The torso and arms were from the Panzer grenadiers at Arnhem set and the head was from Verlinden. All the gun straps were made from Aluminium pie lids. All the figures were painted with various Humbrol colors. All the other extra equipment that is hanging on the gun is all coming out of the scrap box.

Epilogue

Looking back while I wrote all this I have to say that another fun project is behind the back. This were my first steps in, be it small on small scale, the world of vehicle conversion. The research involved in this campaign was quite a joy too. I have learned a ton of information that I never knew about the Operation Market Garden. Also doing the research about the Airborne Jeeps was big fun from Website and finally the book that I bought online. I experimented with new ways and techniques of painting figures and my first large experiment with working with pigments. Got a lot of useful feedback during all the posts I have done about this project and also useful help considering some things on which I didn’t see the solution directly. I want to thank all the participants in this campaign especially those who finished. It was a great time thanks all. Well I hope you guys like the article I wrote and maybe we will see a stream of Airborne Jeeps flushing the forums. Greetz Robert Blokker