¹⁄35

Marsch zur Front - Belgien 1944

Snow

The snow was made by sprinkling baby powder on the base. I also applied snow to the center of the road. Snow clinging to the trees was made possible by coating the branches with white glue before sprinkling them with baby powder.

I was careful not to add a lot of snow. I wanted an early snowfall where the ground can still be seen. I thought I have overdone it but I'm happy with the results.

Everything was sealed with hairspray. Now the dio smells like a baby.

After this time, the vehicles, figures and bases were installed using pins and CA glue. I wanted to put on more accessories and I thought of casting the kit supplied ammo boxes for the anti-aircraft halftrack. However, the idea of being a sparsely supplied German army came to mind, and I left it as it is.

Ground unity

I mixed up thin mud made of sifted garden soil, white glue and water. I applied this to the tracks and wheels of the vehicles. When it dried, I mixed a little white glue and baby powder. I applied this thinly to the wheels and tracks of the 7/2 and the 223, but not on the Panzer IV. I dry brushed the whole thing with a little tan, followedb by white.

A little more snow

The diorama is now complete but there is still something lacking. It's snowing but the figures do not have snow on them.

I didn't want to add more snow, so I decided not to use the baby powder. To simulate minute snowfall that accumulated on crevices, I used the property of paint itself. You see; paint is colored pigment powder mixed with a liquid vehicle. What if I can somehow use this pigment powder for color effects?

What I did was to make a wash or approximately 75% rubbing alcohol and 25% acrylic white. I stirred them in the jar and let it sit for a minute. If you look at it closely, you can see the white powder bubbling on the surface, much like powdered milk mixed with water in a dish (Cat lovers know this).

I applied this wash on the vehicles, figures, the emplacement and accessories, concentrating on nooks and crevices. When the rubbing alcohol carrier evaporated, the pigments were left behind, dotting everything with little specks of white. They look really great and adds realism.

Final weathering was done with pastels.

Word of thanks:

I want to thank Blade48mrd for supplying me with some of the things that I used in this dio.

I'd also like to thank Engin (Graywolf) for sending me the ration boxes and propaganda posters. Some of the groundwork materials came from Major_Goose and I'd like to thank him, too. I'd also like to thank Warthog for his advice on my base problem and his suggestion of using wood putty, Logansdad for sending me a PDF copy of an article about painting German uniforms, Skipper for his advice on working with resin figures, Faust, Beachbum, Henk, KFMagee and Art for ideas in fixing my snow problem, Tankysgal and Jackhammer for encouragement and support and slodder for fixing my computer and gallery problems and encouraging me to submit this on the site.

And a big thank you to all, who gave criticisms, suggestions, facts and praises, for this diorama. For this, I am greatly indebted, and this dio is dedicated to you.