What the base depicts is France, around July or August 1944.
This scene is based on a story that I read years and years ago and has always stuck in my memory. I am not sure exactly where this event took place but I know it was in the summer of 1944 in France. I always thought it would make a wonderful diorama and when Tamiya released its incredible Dragon Wagon kit I thought that this would be the opportunity to build this scene.
The first photo has a "map" of the diorama. As you can see, there will be a sidewalk on the far side of the wagon with associated burned out buildings. There will be a large amount of debris strewn throughout the scene making it clear that this is indeed a VERY war torn town. The green dots show where the US personal figures will be placed (approximate). The blue dots show the placement of French civilians. Now that I have mapped it out a little for you I will explain the story behind the scene.
The dragon wagon has positioned itself in preparation of picking up an obviously out of commission Sherman. The Sherman will be detailed to clearly show that it has been hit and burned. The hatches have been closed and tied shut.
As the crew begins to pull the draw cables out of the spools on the wagon a pair of young French ladies have rode up on bikes bringing a small child with them. A pair of MP's in a Jeep sit on the bridge, waiting for the road to clear. The child has walked up to one of the recovery crewmen and is being lifted up by him so that she can reach out and lay flowers on the closed hatch of the Sherman. The Sherman already has many different bouquets of flowers laid on it as well as other evidence of reverence, (i.e. scarfs, perhaps a few chalk thank you's written on the sides).
The crew of this Sherman, now incinerated and entombed in their destroyed tank had spent the last few days defending this village and when the crew was killed in battle, the remaining people of the town took the time to memorialize the crew by placing flowers on the tank.
Now this little French girl is taking the time to thank this brave crew for defending her home by placing flowers on their tomb.
So there you go, that is the story behind the scene.
In the first photo in the series you see the overview of the whole scene. Now I realize that it looks as though the wagon is hanging over the edge of the base but it is really not, just an illusion in the shot. The base depicts a canal street, a common site throughout France. In researching the different types of canal walls and edges I discovered that many lacked tall railings or curbs along the edge and some even had nothing at all! This was advantageous to the scene as a tall edge railing or wall would block a great portion of the scene. I chose to edge the canal wall with mooring timber.
I thought that this type of layout brings the wagon and the scene off the table top and gives the whole scene a bigger and better look than just a flat board with a street. (Plus I get to do some water work!)
The entire base so far is scratch built. I created a mold box on the base board itself and build an internal box that would allow me to pour the main section in plaster without have the fill the whole space. If I had not built this internal box the weight of the finished diorama would have gone way past 50 pounds or more! Right now it is about 10 pounds and shouldn't exceed 15 when I am done.
The wall of the canal was sculpted with dental tools after the plaster face of the wall had dried. The paint job on the base is the finished cement color, done in four shades. However it has not yet been weathered or given the final detail touches such as rain stains, moss and basic aging. That is usually the last thing I do when working on something like this.
The bridge is scratch built and is based on several wooden bridges that I had found references for while researching the scene. It is not based on any single bridge but I just incorporated some of the features that I liked in the ones I did find references for. The bridge is also shown in the basic paint job that uses both pre and post shading. It has been dry brushed and is ready for final weathering and a small amount of battle damage.
The base measures 31" inches by 16" inches.
I will post more update photos as the project begins to take shape.
