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Hello there, with fingers and toes crossed, I'll be using this thread to post my 1-72 WW1 trench dio in the coming weeks. Deep deep breath, ever heard the expression bitten off more then you can chew ? Segment 1 and 3 are almost finished (errr not really still a long way off) so far I've managed to map out the 10 segments, each seg is 12"x6" and like I said before, I will try and finish each seg as an indivual but also able to join them together to form one large dio, I've never seen this before, and to be blunt, I wished I never started, what seems like a great idea for myself has turned out to be a nightmare. The funny thing is, because I have very little room, I have also convinced my to allow me to build a cabinet to house the dio as well as my scale warships, so I'm going to be very busy and as always, please leave your comments both good and not so good.

Hi,

Linked the photos

Many, many thanks for the help with my photo's.

I suppose in many ways, this is part 3, the long long long boring bit about waiting for the base to dry out before I can continue with this WW1 dio, at the moment just to speed things a long, I've decided to build 2 segments at a time, with a maximum of 3, as each segment will or should be able to be seen as a completed diorama, the idea is simply for the top 3 segments to form 1 large dio from the 3 smaller one, confused ? I am and I'm the bloke building this thing, once I get things going, I'll post a few up date photo's and then with a bit of luck, things will become a lot more clear.

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Mapping out the segments to this dio has proven a lot harder than I realised, seg 2,3 and 9 are almost complete, just requiring a good clean up, the possible locations for British and German troops, well that's on hold because I'm back to having to hand paint more of them, also seg 4,5, and 10 I am not happy with, and might change this later, and of course I've still to add the mustard gas and barbed wire, plus a few craters, this is my first up-date on my segmented diorama date 18-4-2009.

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This is my German WW1 side, 60% now complete, there are obviously doubles and if you view, you'll see some completed and some due to be painted, the question I must ask myself is - will I actually use them all ? Plus of course, the British side has still to be completed, and all this is happening while I'm waiting for grass, trees, bushes, paints, so although not a vast project, this is proving to be large enough.

Direct links:













Hope this helps Alec,

Cheers,
Charles

Charles Reading, many many thanks, your help in posting my pix is very much appreciated.

And finally, WW1 Tommy also complete - more slow news (yep I could have said good news but as this is taking far longer then I thought) segments 2,3 and 9 are almost finished and more delay as I am waiting for grass, trees, and hedges.
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While building this diorama, I have used 3 types of soliders, and in my opinion will place them in order of what I found to be best - so using the Alec straight in with both feet -
Emhar - slightly on the large size comparing with other 1-72, great details and hold paint and glue very well, the German's I found slightly better moulded then the British.
Caesar miniatures - slightly on the small size against the above Emhar, but wonderfully detailed and yet sadly let down by its overall size.
Airfix - these use to be great, what ever happened ? These are rubbish and I would avoid these at all times, soft plastic full of flash, weather this is an old or new set is neither here nor there, does not hold paint very well, and what detail there are is often covered by the amount of paint (obviously all plastic figures would have been washed before anyone writes - wash them first !) glue is about the only good thing, and once again, obviously there are the same moulds made by other companies that don't have bright green or light brown plastic, Airfix, almost the worse.
Hat - These must be the same as Airfix because they are just, no sorry, worse than Airfix, flash, and soft plastic, poor detrails, and for the same price as Emhar you've been robbed if like myself you've brought Hat 1-72 German and British figures.
In conclusion - if someone can give me a price in the same range for the same amount of figures as the British and German 1-72 Emhar then please let me know, if you mix these with the slightly smaller Caesar's you're onto a winner. Look forward to your reply.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3614/3465960223_d18086c364.jpg This being the first completed segment of 10, and oddly enough this is number 2 -

Back to the drawing board for me, I am actually waiting for trees and grass, and as you do when you've time on your hands, you view your work, I decided there and then several of the segments could be better, and now 4 have undergone slight changes, segments 2, 3, 6 and 9 are complete, now zero segments are finished, I know I should have walked away, but then again, I wasn't happy with the overall appearence so I've now changed everything slightly, 2 and 3 have more troops with 6 finding woodland and a mine, and barbwire fencing, while number 9 is basically untouched with the exception of extra troops (German), a major problem with segment 10 in the guise that I am completely stumpped as what to do with it. As always, good and bad comments are most welcome.

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More up-date, and finally beginning to take shape, the tent will probably be saved for another dio elsewhere, so far I have used 5 boxes of 1-72 figures, 3 aircraft, 2 tanks, a number of buildings, trees, plants, even a lake, barb wire, and a goblin, yep a goblin just for a laugh hidden away within the final subject, at one stage I had 3 segments completed, then a moment of unused time saw me stripping them back, and so back to the beginning once again. The problem as I sated somwehere in this thread, is that I've never done anything like this before, and can't find anyone that has done this segmental joining of completed dioramas to make a single dio or a single 2 foot square dio, so mistakes are bound to be made, especially by me lol, but at long last, I can now see where this is going and slowly its taking shape.

Looking good, Alec. It's good to see some WWI stuff being done. I'm interested to see how you're going to join all the sections.

Are you going to incorporate the aircraft into the diorama as well?

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sweaver

Samuel Weaver - many thanks with the help posting my pix, although you'll never meet me, if you did, you could say hand on heart Alec is the most impatient man I have ever met, I generally can't wait until tomorrow therefore I'll build something using whatever I have at hand, and seriously regreting it afterward, the segments were all originally going to be flat, the bases are all made of MDF so it's never a problem joining one straight edge against another, then as you do, I decided I'll use no nails just to get rid of the stuff, then plaster, then silcon, before I knew where I was, I had hills of different hights, and due to everything | used each segment dried differently, so now the brains I'm clearly not have to wait weather I like it or not to dry out, this is what I am saying about 'impatient' originally everything should have been in plaster, I should have mapped the battle ground first, ohhhhh well straight in with both feet - and it doesn't look to bad at the moment, the aircraft, I am targetting 1917 and have 2 German and 2 British, the chances are I'll have at lease 1 sopwith camel coming over from the British side as the whole diorama is a mass armoured push by the British poring everything into this all or die system, in truth as we all know WW1 was that you were ordered into machine gun fire, I know the only person I would have shot.