Hey Boys,

Well its finally done. They're not the best pics, but then again its the first time for that as well.
Set in Poland on the retreat home, this Tiger experienced an unprecedented break- down. The colmn has stop for this sole surviver to get bandgaed up at the closest "garage". The men take a much needed rest (except for the "forward" scouts) while the discussion goes on to well the hell they are anyway.

Its my first dio so there are numerous flaws. It was always a work in progress, with techniques that i learned from you boys on this site.
Its really a better looking piece, but the camera thing needs work.

I need all the good/bad comments i can get.
Thanks!
-Ziggy

To view pics click on my photos...



or...
http://www.slide.com/r/LJwLUkoKxz-pdBBiLpKkgjiIu0LqgabN?previous_view=mscd_embedded_url&view=original

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Erik

try it now

WOw, thats your FIRST dio, looks great, what kits did you use? And did you scratchbuild the building or buy a kit for it. THe rubble looks great to.
Keep it up,
David

Thanks. I was real nervous about posting this.
The Tiger is Tamiya, the Opel and Maurder are ltilaia.
Figs are a combo of tamiya, dragon, and academy. Building is verlinden.
The only thing airbrushed is the Opel. The rest is hand painted. (the damn thing broke after the first use.)
-ziggy

If that is your first diorama, congratulations. It is excellent for a first effort; heck, it is excellent for a second, third or tenth effort !

The craftsmanship is very good. The snow, mud, rubble - all look convincing. The way you have your figures grouped in little sub-groups is logical and makes good sense. The best thing is, you have a story and you've arranged the pieces to tell it. That is the hardest part of a good diorama. I've seen some dios with really incredible craftsmanship (beautifully-painted figures, great buildings, great vehicles) with no evident story at all, and it causes them to do poorly in competitions.

If I may offer some constructive criticism, one way to think about composing a diorama scene is to keep in mind what the jazz musicians say - think of what you really need and take away everything else. Some musicians play only the notes that need to be played and leave everything else out. In your dio, only put in what you need to tell the story you want to tell.

For example, imagine if your broken-down Tiger and it's crew, in the building, were the only elements here and the base were smaller. That would give you a tighter presentation of your main idea. The guys taking a break by their truck could be a second dio, and the vehicles moving down the muddy road while some officers or NCOs look at a map is a third dio. When you put all three in one scene it sort of waters-down your main story.

That's merely one way to think about it and I'm not saying it is the best way or the only way. It's just food for thought. You've got a very nice dio there and I'd love to see more of it.

Regards,

Danny Egan
President
AMPS

Thats excatly what im lookin for. honest comments. whos got more?

Danny,
Thank you for the kind words.
This is REALLY my first dio, I have just kept it under wraps until I was finished. (off and on for 2 years) And after seeing the great works of art that everyone else has, well it humbles you.
I will be starting on my next big project soon. Im thinkin of street fighting in Hungary in late '45. I gotta do my dios big. I cant do a tank with 3 men and a building on a 12x12 piece of wood. That bores me. I want mine to tell a story and have the audince gaze at it for 20 mins rather than a judge tear it up in 20 secs.

I need a beer...

-ZIGGY

Well done first attempt. Shows a lot of details with plenty of excellent views on what is happening. I have to agree with you about the scope of dioramas. There's always more going on then what is in the camera view. And it may look spread out when look down from a bird's eye view, but when you look at the ground level view it looks pretty busy.
But if you want to enter it in a show…………..and maybe WIN, remember about blowing a horn or something like that.
Only points that need addressing that I can see,
Figures, all are well done, just need some more details on the faces.
The netting on the Mauder looks a bit large to me, just my opinion.
The one thing that I don't understand is the building; it seems as if it should be extended out past the door entrance further towards the Opel. Almost as if that room just disappeared again just my opinion
Very nicely done congratulations
Bob

i think it looks great. does anybody have a good source for accesory buying. i mean like just a big bag of stuff for dioramas. kithen, books, etc for ruined buildings?
thanks alot for putting up with newbies.

Ziggy, brilliant piece of work! I'm no expert but the groundwork, weathering and positioning of the pieces are spot-on and tell a great story.


I'm with you on that. I can't help myself and make my dio's big. So much happens in war and to compess it into one vehicle and a couple of men can leave the viewer thinking "what's this all about" Don't get me wrong, some small dio's pull it off fantastically without saying a word but I like to tell as much of the story as possible even though my base boards measure 6' x 3'. But then again, I'm lucky enough to have the area to display them.
Definately no offence to Mr Danny Egan, but I dispise Jazz. Always sounds to me like a bunch of muso's sitting together, all playing something different.

Verlinden makes some great stuff like books, shelves, chairs and so forth. But really, if a multi-story building has blown up there isn't going to be much of that visible. What will be visible is mountains of rubble. If you look carefully at enough photos you might notice piles of rubble that are much taller than a large tank.

So, a cheap and very realistic means of showing an urban scene is to just go very heavy on the rubble. An occasional recognizable object adds to it but the shelves, chairs etc belong in intact or nearly-intact buildings in my opinion. Those are much harder to model.

An easy way to make brick debris is to buy a sheet of cork at a craft or art store - you can get a 12" X 12" roll of about 1/8" thick cork for a few bucks. Unroll it, cut strips off, then cut the strips into individual bricks. In a half-hour you can make hundreds of bricks. If you break a few, so much the better. Throw these into your rubble piles.

Likewise with the streets themselves, if you're modeling a city scene with rubbled buildings, there's not much need to model any pavement. The streets could be filled with rubble, and it will just be crushed flatter where the tanks have gone by. It looks terribly unrealistic to see clean cobblestones next to a large blown-down building.

Hope this helps a bit.

Danny Egan
President
AMPS
http://www.amps-armor.org

I see you're from Texas. You know there is an AMPS contest in Austin in October - details at: http://www.amps-armor.org/ampssite/conventions/showInfo.aspx?Page=Annouce&ShowID=22

If you enter you can get some nice feedback from the judges. At AMPS shows every model is judged and every model gets a feedback sheet back at the end of the show, so you know exactly what each judge thought about the model.

Danny Egan
President
AMPS
http://www.amps-armor.org

i appreciate all the info danny.
kenny

what scale railroad would be closest to 1/35th? have found many acc for railroad models.

Composition is pretty good, there's a lot going on, but the actio nis internally consistent. It's pretty clear that even in these guys ar e in retreat, there is no hot pursuit. The several groupings work okay for me.

The weak points for me are the guys on the back of the tank do n't really give the impression (to me) that the tank has broken down. If you had opened the engione compartment, there'd be more of that feel.

The tank itself is the first tamiya tank, is it not? The air cleaners are called Feifel, IIRC and were developed for use in the desert or other very dusty climates. I doesn't seem lilkely that they'd still be in use this late in the war. (I'm just guessing here and could be way off the mark, so take this comment wit a big grain of salt.)

Lasly, the positioning of the two guys at the front of the tank looks awkward. The guy in green seems to be leaning into the tanker in an angry manner, head forward, hands on hips. The tanker, for his part looks to be in a very casual position with his legs crossed and hands in his pockets.

Despite my criticisms, you have a pretty good piece of work going there. Not perfect, buit still pretty good.

Great work Ziggy , im no expert so carnt really critisise but this looks superb ! im working on my first dio - hope it turns out half as good