Hi guys,
Finished my 1st ever dio today and im over the moon with it. I couldnt wait to post the pics for some feedback from you all.
Its set on the "Ost Front" and depicts an area away from the front line, although not to far.
I was going to call it "All quiet on the Ost Front" but when i put the black card behind it for the photos ( to cut out my keyboard and junk!) I thought maybe i'd call it "Silent Night, actually i think i'll call it
"leise Nacht" (silent night in german).
Anyway feedback on both the dio and the name is welcome.
http://groups.msn.com/armorama/finisheddiorama.msnw?Page=1

Thanks

P.S,
Thanks to every one on this site, for your help and advice, wouldn't have been able to do it with out you all.
These beers are for you!!!!

Whoa...very nice. Great job on the snow...looks good. I wish my first diorama looked this good. Actually...I wish most of my dioramas looked this good

And thanks for the beer!

Greg B.

GREAT DIO - EXCELLENT WORK - CONGRATULATIONS

Howdy Martin: First off, excellent work. I really liked your series of posts on this dio from picture frame all the way to the end. The snow looks real and the ruined building is very nice. I can almost feel the cold. You were worried about the sand bags, but with the coat of snow and the figures placed in it doesn't look out of place. How did you make the snow ? And finally just 1 small thing..the figures without the winter camo, maybe they could use a little dusting of frost or snow (maybe it just doesn't show in the pics), they sort of seem to stick out from the very cold little scence you have created. VERY NICE WORK!!!

Thanks guys,
I agree that the figures could do with a little more dusting of snow. The snow is Bicarbonate of soda which i put through a sieve. I sprayed a craft glue over it then sieved it on , left it to dry for an hour or so then turned it upside down. It catches the light like frost.
Not sure wether or not to get a case for it though, bicarbonate of soda being afood stuff.

Excallent Job. Very nice diorama. There is good progression for the viewer, lots of interest points and a story in each. Good composition.
A bit more dusing on the guys wouldn't hurt. I'm half and half on more rubble, the snow can cover a lot, so it's not that big a deal.
Gun straps would be where I would have you practice. Try a couple on a few practice figures and add in straps on the weapons on the guys backs. Small detail and one I didn't add to diroamas untill the third one.

Really nice. I like it a lot you should be excited and proud. You challenged yourself and met the challenge well!!!

Martin

I totally agree with the boys it looks very good. It has made me want to do a winter dio in the future.

Great work!

Hasty

Good dio and cool name, Martin. The snow is excellent...... really well done and realistic. I thought you were going to add a vehicle when i saw the tracks in an earlier thread. It doesnt matter .... good figure painting as well ...... maybe a light weathering would be beneficial, especially on the guys with the snow camo.

One thing you should maybe keep in mind ....... is all the empty space that is hard to fill up, will take up a lot of space in a few years time. When I started 2 years ago all my dios were this size and i filled them up with everything available ........ although good for learning new tricks ....... but now these take up so much space on shelves. It might be an idea the next time, to lay out your dio first, then almost go as far as making the base as small as possible. It means everything then in the dio is there for a reason and is all "action" rather than big chunks of flat terrain. Just something that i wish somebody had said to me a while back. I have a billy bookcase with doors from IKEA and 2 of these take up a whole shelf!

Martin

That dio surely turned out really nice dude I have followed the progress every time and you sure did a good job on this one congrats for that.

There are a couple of small points that I should look at or keep in mind for your next dio. In some of the pics the soldiers in the white wintercamo seem to be a bit shiny. But that can be the pics that I`m mis-judging and I surely should give soldiers with wintercamo a drybrush to tone down the white and make them dirty.. (white is one of themost vulnerable colors as you see everything on it) The gunstraps pointed out by slodder is also a point to look for and testing on old figures can be very learnfull. But gunstraps is also something I started just in my last couple of dio`s with..

No you can be very proud on this dio Don`t change anything if you are satisfied with it but keep in mind for your next one... I wish my first dio would looked that good and it only contained a motorbike and an ordnance (with the eyes of an Owl) :-) :-)

Martin,

this looks very very good, and it will take me a lot of practice to get it up to your standard. IMHO the idea behind the dio is very good...

I have a number of figurines at home, so I am going to practice a lot on them how to paint and improve things...

Now just my € 0.02

Like some of the previous posters, the Germans looked very clean to me, maybe a bit too clean... I have found an article by Mrk Bannerman about painting whites, which I am going to test upon a duo of DML snipers... You might find it usefull

Bannerman article

Another one is that, IMHO the metal on your rifles looks quite dark, almost black (which might be the pics though). I have read from several posters that they paint their weapons black/black-grey, and then drybrush with gunmetal... that will be something I am going to try...

But then again, congrats with a great-looking model....

Harm

thanks harm,
The link doesnt work could you try it again please,
Martin

Okay, here is a new try:

http://www.track-link.net/

Go to articles (a tab on top), then figure modelling (link in the column on the left side).

I hope this works.

Thanks for the link.
Theres lots of good articles on there thanks again.

i'm a little late, but nice dio, very nice dio. i like the snow cvery much and everithinkg cool for first one. cya around