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The Battle of Debecka Pass

Building the Diorama:

After reading the story I began collecting vehicle and figure kits, details, paints, and raw materials. The concept behind the diorama is to represent the resupply mission. I really lucked out – I purchased the M1083 and trailer at a big discount, and the GMVs are based on an older Academy kit which I found on sale for $11USD each! The figures and accessories represent many manufacturers and materials. While it might have been nice to use all, new well-crafted resin figures, the reality is with 15 or more of them, it would have cost a fortune, so I kept my eyes open for era-appropriate figures that were inexpensive or on sale, and adapted them to work.

Building the M1083 began with a conversion kit – but I decided this kit wasn’t right for me, so I used many of the cargo/storage items, but scratchbuilt the actual conversion. I used a Voyager etch kit and a variety of Live Resin accessories, which helped bring the kit to life. The conversion of the cab required cutting the roof and half of the side walls off, then making a roll cage and various related elements like the split windshield and weapons stations. The communications gear is a mix of Pro Arts, Black Dog, Legend and scratchbuilt parts.

The GMVs followed a similar build sequence, starting with some pieces from a couple of IDF HMMWV conversion kits (CMK), Live Resin, scratchbuilt and junk box parts. Funny enough, once you’ve built one then two… the next few come together pretty quickly, using fewer and fewer aftermarket conversion parts, and instead just scratchbuilding them.

Most figures required some degree of modification. The goal was to avoid the look of poorly camouflaged mannequins. I suppose that’s an implicit goal of anyone building model figures, but if you’re as generally not good at it as I am, it’s a big deal. I must say, along the way I thought of our old friend Romain - without getting into all sorts of specific critiques he offered, he stressed the fundamental need for the pose to look “real”, and not what you, as the builder, in your mind’s eye “thinks” looks real. Also to be considered is the gear being used, and I traveled way out of my area of knowledge on this one, but concluded that the purpose of the project is to represent an event, rather than a detailed study of personal gear, so hopefully my representation is at least reasonable. I looked at pictures of people, people all around, and tried to think if an actual living person would ever look as my posed figure does. Easier said than done!

In regard to painting, most of the body/uniform paints are from Vallejo, and the skin, Scale 75 acrylics. The pin washes are from various AK products. The biggest breakthrough for me this time came from using Vallejo Thinner Medium with the Scale 75 paints – wow! The paint flows from the brush with ease – unbelievable! No more chunky, textured blobs of semi dried acrylic in just the wrong places. I still don’t paint eyes – I just can’t do that in a remotely convincing way. Romain offered advice on this too – don’t paint them – simple as that, just shadow and wash the eye socket, edge of the nose etc. His point being that at any significant distance in real life, it’s tough to actually see the detail of an eye, and instead you see the place where you “know” an eye is, and your eye does the rest to interpret what you’re looking at. I’m sticking with that approach.