Hey everyone,
Recently I've been lucky enough to acquire a cabinet to display my models, instead of them being hidden away in the cupboard. Therefore they're always in view, and so decided to begin to improve some of the older dioramas I'd done afew years ago. There is some sort of nostalgic factor in keeping early models, to see how much we (hopefully) improve with techniques, painting etc..., but it was time to give a couple of them abit of a face lift! What do most of you do with old models, dio's etc?, keep them, scrap them and use again, obviously finding room is a big problem....and somewhere dust free

So I thought I'd share with you the 2 that I'd worked on, and ask for any advice you could give me for the 3rd one at the bottom....
This one was obvious...a time of pre airbrush purchase. I needed to totally repaint the tank, add some stowage to the back to add some interest, one of the infantry fell off the back, and was posted to a diorama in Eastern Europe. I added more leaves to the tree to get rid of the bright harsh green colour, got rid of the scattered equipment at the front on the grass, and replaced that with a bush and a local signpost. I wanted to add a tank commander for the Panzer 4, lose afew of the oil drums and cans, and repainted the groundwork.









One thing I didn't do was repaint the original 6 figures as I was reasonably happy with them, apart from the faces which I do now paint with oils, but just didn't have the heart to do these 6. The new tank commander did have a face done, and it wasn't till he was added did I realize how anaemic he looked compared to the others. So I just put it down to the stress of commanding a tank in such hazardous conditions!!




This next one was based on Omaha beach on D-Day. It was one of those dioramas that when you've originally finished you feel you could do so much more. That it just lacked something (or everything!!) The main change to this one was adding the second set of figures form 'Masterbox', redoing the sand with MIG pigments instead of real sand form the beach, making a hole in the sand dune, adding tufts of long grass, and embedding the figures and equipment into the sand, instead of it all just 'sitting on top'. This time ALL the figures were given a new coat of paint to blend them all together, and the faces painted in oils. I tried to get footprints in the sand, and marked out the positions of where it all went before the addition of the pigments. The pigments I used were 'Beach Sand and Gulf War Sand' These looked a million times more realistic then the out of scale grains of the real thing that I'd originally used.













The problem with this one was having to compress the length of beach into a shorter distance, even to scale. Next cabinet will have to be around another 6 meters longer



Now for the new one, I've already made Tamiya's Universal Carrier to go on the side street, along with the 3 figures that come with it. I wasn't going to move the building initally, but for the purpose of improving the scene I will have to angle it. I wasn't going to play around too much with the interior either, but again for the enhancement of the dio I'm going to scratch build a bed, table and bookcase to furnish it, along with a chest of drawers from the spares.The floor and walls will be redecorated too, nice and clean ready for demolition. I was also considering adding a small corner of grass, perhaps with railings and a small drinks fountain? I wasn't going to do too much work on the Churchill, although I'm sure there's alot that could be!! I'll add some chips and scratches, some sowage to the back, and repaint the figures and faces, The guy pointing at the front has already been reposted to the bin!! I may get a civilian child just watching the goings on, the idea is to keep the scene relaxed after the towns liberation in July 1944. The brick wall on the right I was going to keep in some form, again reangle it though. All comments and critques more than welcome.!!!





Thanks again for reading, to be honest I wasn't really looking forward to going over the same projects again to improve afew things, but I actually enjoyed it all as much as I would've doing something brand new!! Please leave me any advice you may have on the above Churchill dio, all comments appreciated! Cheers again,

SIMON.

Nice work Simon. Just one thought about the Bulge dio: the Ardennes were snow covered pretty heavily during the offensive. Not to mention it was in December, so there were no leaves on the trees.

Simon, I do like a dio. They are really good stoies, these that you show. Only thing I would change is on the first, Battle of the buldge, get rid of the leaves on the tree. Dead of winter and they should not be there, maybe a few straglers here and there. Other than that, I like them.

Thanks for the replies Ales & Bob...
You're both right about the tree, I've got photo's on the Battle of the Bulge showing mostly bare trees, although not all trees lose their leaves during winter. However a pine/fir tree would've been a much better choice to replicate the vast forests that were fought in at the time. I did toy with the idea of adding a light sprinkling of snow, but it didn't snow throughout the battle, initally I think it was just cold and wet.....
Thanks again for the input,

SIMON.

Hello again ,
Just finished the first stage of the re-build of the above diorama set in Normandy shortly after D-day. Have pretty much decided to start it all agin from scratch, instead of just adding the odd new figure and vehicle which had been the original plan.
Here's afew pics of the interior of the building. Initially it had very little attention paid to it, so chose to give it some interior decor. The bed, bookcase, doors & desk were all added, scratch built from plastic. Wallpaper put on the downstairs room, the floor was rebuilt with floor boards and then the rubble was added. Didn't really touch the exterior, except for the pavement which has been redone with plastic card. Not too happy with the colour though, thinks it needs to be lighter in colour, & the paving slabs picked out better.



Not sure about the size of the cart infont. There's going to be a figure by the doors cleaning up alittle, having just looted the 'good stuff' from the German Headquarters.







The gap to the right of the building is going to be filled with this scratch built 'Boulangerie'. The shutters came from spares, but the rest was made form plastic card. Once it's painted, weathered and detailed it should blend in pretty well, and cheap too!!



Thanks for looking, any advice on the above much welcomed......
SIMON.