Toni Kysenius submitted his figure diorama depicting the Normandy invasion. The scene depicts Rangers assaulting a fortified position. Check it out here:

Omaha '44 Ambush

Comments and conversation can go here in this topic. Thanks.

Jim

Good work.Congrats Toni.I also loved the drawing of the diorama
best regards
Engin

Great looking diorama Toni!
You mention that you used Das, finally a product that I can get over here!!! LOL
Mostly the stuff mentioned is not available to me (even though my hobby shop has a well stocked model RR section). Did you make the wall yourself?
I will really need to start a diorama some time. I have great plans, but have not executed any of them.....

Thanks for the comments!
David, I made the two wall pieces pressing das pronto mass between two wood plates. Then I cut them in to shape and pressed the surface with a piece of sand paper to get some basic texture. After that I made some horizontal lines pressing the wet clay with a wood stick to imitate the board marks on concrete casts. (Don´t know if they used horizontal boarding but it suited me here!) Also the concrete reinforcements are fictional, but the rust stripes made the surface more alive. The bullet hits round the corner were made just by sticking with a sharp knife tip, then bending until a piece cracks off. When sticking from the direction of the gunshot, also the piece falls off in the right way.
This method with concrete looks pretty realistic, but it´s perhaps a bit too hard for buildings...unless you´re not an architect.
The pictures are not too sharp, but when I get my equip organized, maybe then...

Thanks Jim for quick action!

Toni

Toni, good job. I like the barb wire... Keep it up.

Mario M.

Thanks for the info Toni!
I have been wanting to do a dioramabase, so not a full fledged diorama but a dressed up base for an armor model. Maybe for my Tamiya Merkava I. I can do a small section of wall in that.
Great idea to make the wall by squashing it between to pieces of board. How come I never think of those things??? I wonder.....

That is very, very nice. The corner of the wall being pot-marked with bullet holes is a very nice detail.

WOW!
That´s a real good job.
Did you use the movie "Saving Private Ryan" to get the idea? It´s very similar to that movie scene
Keep up the excellent work

Beautiful execution! I love the layout. Nice job Toni! :-)

So that's where the barbed wire went! Looks great!

Well done Toni. And like Paulo said, it does look like something from the movie "Saving Private Ryan". Excellent. Keep up the wonderful work. Chris. :-)

Yes. Maybe it was Ryan and the superb PC game Medal of Honor:Allied Assault that made me pick up those Ranger guys in the shop. There is certainly some effort to display a situation quite similar to one of Ryan´s most memorable moments
In the package cover design these guys were all going in the same direction, nothing was actually happening. As I thought about how to use these guys to make a scene with at least some drama, soon it was easy to tell who these soldiers are, what has just happened, what IS happening at the very moment and what they are going to do.

Maybe scripting a scene would qualify as its own subject?

Thanks!
Toni

That would be nice, have a section for Diorama ideas, complete with some sketches and drawings of that sort. Great idea. Again, keep up the great work. Chris.

Beauty!

That dio is sharp! I guess I should try drawing a scene out some time! Of course, my art skills aren't as good.

Are those figures the same as the Dragon Rangers?
Is DAS Pronto a modelling clay or what?

Excellent work!

Toni, I have one word - EXCELLENT !
I have to ask you , since I just did my first dio.
Do you have the fever now ?
I mean I just finished mine and I'm bringing it to AMPS,
and I can't wait to start my next one !
I was also surprised with the Italeri figures - They
seem to be better then Dragons 1/35's - What's your thoughts ?
GREAT JOB !
-ralph

Andy: The figures are the same as Dragon Rangers. I think I even saw the Dragon logo in the package with Italeri logo. DAS pronto is modelling clay of some kind, cheap and dries quickly in room temperature but not as flexible as real clay. Sometimes the lack of stretching and flexibility is a good thing, especially if you need rough rock surface. You can just tear pieces out of it, and only working the piece needs is paint!
Ralph: Fever indeed. When I realized that it´s possible to have decent results with common materials and common sense, I think I´m gonna need some more shelves pretty soon to carry the next projects...
I couldn´t tell which brands are better than others in figures, I don´t have too many experiences! However, in aircraft model kits the best I´ve had were Hasegawa, Fujimi and Monogram models.

Thx, Toni

Hi Toni, Yes I agree 100%.
You can't beat Hasegawa. There kits might
be a little more expensive then others, but it's
for good reason. There accurracy, detail, and authenticity
to their real life counterpart is what makes their kits so
incredibly nice, and worth every penny.
KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK !
- ralph

I took the same figures and created a scene where they were wading into the beach and they are all around a beach obsticle. Those figures are so dependable and useful, great dio, I love seeing stuff like. GREAT JOB!

cj

That's the way how I like Dio's...Small but well taken care of.

The dio tells the story it's supposed to. I can almost hear good old sarge yelling....

Nice job !!

Now THIS sounds interesting...where are the pics? Where? Where?
It would be wonderful to see another set with the same "hardware"! We all see things in such a different way....
:-)

Toni

BTW I have a few ultra close-ups to add in the Omaha gallery, but it´ll have to wait til I get to a scanner...

I have to make some repairs on the figures, some how two of the heads were knocked off when I moved. So I have that to do before I can post any pictures.

cj

Bravo, Bravo. Great first attempt at a decent diorama. As it was said before, I like the action that the scene portrays. Just as if it were a picture out of a history book. Keep up the good work. Steve

Great Dio,
I was wondering if you could help a young inexperienced modeller (me) by writing a personal message to me at Armorama or just to [email protected] telling me how you made the barbed wire.
Even though you don't like it, I think it looks great just like the rest of the dio.
Please help.
Thanks
Bren

Hi Bren,

First of all - welcome to ArmoramA.

Here we have some threads here at ArmoramA dealing with barbed wire, where you have lots of diferent techniques:

• 1/35 Barb wire ?


• HONEST reviews on this


• new Diorama.

HTH

Hi Bren,
thanks for the nice words!
There is nothing much to tell about the barb wire, I got the tip from the fellow Armorama wizards. But here´s what I did (with good results!):
1. Take two very thin metal wires with equal lenght. Copper electric wire offers very thin strands when you remove the covering plastic and twist it open.
2. Twist the two strands together. I just twisted them between my fingers. Takes a bit practice, though!
3. Once you have twisted the whole lenght of strands together, take one more strand and put it through the "links" of the twisted wire (see picture) to make the spikes.
4. Put a tiny drop of CA glue to each point where the strand goes through.
5. Cut the excesses.
6. Paint using rusty orange enamel for a base, wash with matt black.

Voila.



Hope this helps instead of confusing you!



Toni

Toni,

Your work looks GREAT! I'm a long time modeler recently returned to the hobby and venturing into the world of military figure modeling for the first time. Your work will be an inspiration (as well as that of all you other guys...wow!). By the way, thats the first time I have seen the barbed wire method explained so I could actually understand it!

Ted
Boston,MA