This is my segment 4 of 10 now completed, while being a single diorama, this will also be added to the others to complete the whole 10 segments when finished, if possible I would like both good and bad comments please.

Hello Alec,

If you want my thought about it. And these are applicable to the dio you submit here for 2 weeks or so.
My first advice is : Focus on this great idea. I'm always happy to see WWI modelling. That's great to do a huge 1/72 trench dio, and that's a fresh idea to do it in segments.
But segments have a primary use IMO : managing to focus on details, paintwork, groundwork, whatever you want, when you're engaged in an ambitious project. The matter is not here, posting more and more projects. You're not a dio factory.
Don't take it bad, but it could be great to look around, taking time to see other people's work. You'll not see JBA, or Claude Joachim or Guygantic posting a lot, but when they post, you'll see progress in their work. You'll see the will to improve and to share.
I'm on a dio for 3 months now, and on the GROUNDWORK only for more than 2 weeks. And I don't expect to finish it before 2 months. You can not do 10 great groundworks in a week.
My second advice is to share "in progress" pics.
If you had post WIP pics on this Trench segment, I could have tell you :
Try to uniformize your ground, in 1/72 it seems a bit out of scale in terms of color range.
Even a damp trench isn't shiny everywhere. Maybe you could repaint it and remove this huge piece of mud to rescale them.
Try to work the composition. A main point, a second one etc... In your 10 segments, things will be hierarchized so.

Please don't take it bad. Keep being so enthusiast i diorama, but slow your rythm and share your new work with us.
I'll be pleased to see a great trench dio in the diorama forum.

G'bye.
Alexandre.

Alexandre D. firstly, thank you for a good write up and advise is what I can't get enough of, the ground work according to my research is more or less spot on, smashed up by shell fire and constant mud up-lifting stone and boulders to the surface, the barbwire that was once stretched out tight, now limp and basically doing little else other than trapping people within its barb, the explosions wrapped in smoke and tattered bits of shell, people and mud could obviously use some serious work, considering this is only my second attempt, its not that bad, mobbing this web-site for information has been hard going, the respose good, but in view of how many people stopped, looked and couldn't be bothered to leave comments, very poor, and strangely enough without knowing it, I am slowly becoming a bit of an expert in the field (excuse the pun) of WW1, segments 1,2,3 and 5 are all very close to being finished, I will of course post in single segments, and for the first time, completed diorama as far as 5 segments will go, thank you very much for the advise and help, and please, where I am concerned anyway, be as harsh as you like so long as its constructive which your reply was, thank you again.

Alec,

On this and other threads you have asked for comments, good and bad, and at times have complained that you have not gotten any response. In this thread then Alexandre replies with comments on how to improve your work in general and more specifically he mentions possibly reworking the groundwork. Your response to his comments is to say that your groundwork is "spot on", thereby implying that Alexandre's opinion is wrong. I would suggest that this is not the best way to encourage people to help and offer comments. Please don't take this the wrong way, I am bringing this up to try and help, and maybe reduce some of your frustration.

As for my thoughts about this segment, I do like the activity of it, there is a lot going on, and the chaos of trench fighting is captured well. I especially like the use of the airplane(Sopwith Camel?). The airplane might be more effective, though, if you mounted it on something less obtrusive, I have seen clear styrene rods in the LHS, maybe something like that, if it had the strength to hold it up, would be less noticeable. Another thing to think about is scale, in 1/72 barb wire would be very thin wire and the barbs would be practically invisible. Curious about what might work to represent this I made this:


All I did was take very thing copper wire, 1 strand from some old speaker cable, and make successive loops over another piece of wire. Each small loop was then pulled out to form a crink in the wire and the whole wire was wrapped around a dowel. It wasn't hard to do, and it might make a big difference to the overall impression of this or future dios.

Finally, I just want to second something Alexandre said, slow down! Take your time, it isn't a race.

Matt

Hi Matt, I'm British therefore love a good old moan, seriously though I hear what you're saying and reading my own comments it does sound as if on hand I'm asking for comments both good and bad and on the other hand re-buffing the advise I've asked for, I have found that I'm repeating what I normally do when building 1-350's, and that's start one model, while that's either drying or awaiting parts or paint, I'll begin another one, before long I have 2 maybe 3 completed models whereas most people will stick to one and see it through to the end, me and Mr patience really don't get on, and I am normally 100mph or nothing at all, it might not seem like I don't listen, I do, it just takes me a little longer to get there then most, your barbwire 1st class, my stuff yes thick and not really the stuff correct for the job, then again, this is my first big dio, and yes, I will do my best to slow down. Thanks for the advise that's always more than welcome.