Hi all!

So I'll try this Blog function for once, even if it might be slow going...

I had this Dragon M1A1 painted on the shelf for a while and thought it's time to put it in a Dio. The M1A1 needs some weathering of course and the stowage is not attached yet. this is the basic layout of the Dio. Figures are (you guessed) Alpine and CMK. Any Comments welcome!









Cheers!
Stef

looks pretty good so far & i like the idea of the dio

Well, it's been a while, but I'm a slow builder... Or rather, my wife won't let me go to my cave enough...

Dio is ready for some small details now, I finished the basic building and street and now it's time for some rubble...

Some more pics of the basic idea:



Progress on the Dio:



Thanks for looking!
Cheerio!

Really cool dio
i hope to see more of your work.
Cheers
Seb

the ruin looks very good so far....

Cheers,
Sean

Lots of promise - so far all is well done. Keep the blog going.

Great dio idea, i will keep my eye on this one as i have my own iraq dio going on using a british land rover on patrol, but i am still on with the kit (absolute pig of a kit - suspension wise that is).

Great progress.

Very cool. I like the idea.

I like the concept and the execution so far Stefan. What is the manufacture of the building ruin? Also, the street surface appears to be styrofoam, is that correct?

Keith

Hi all!

Thanks for the thumbs up on this one!

My approach is to use styrofoam (the packaging type that comes with most Ikea-furniture kits) for the basic levels. then I add the sides from plastic card (might have to find an alternative for that though since it uses up a lot of it...). Since I wanted a smooth surface I decided to try something new and added some scrap carton for the road and sidewalk. Another idea I was thinking about was to use sandpaper. The curb was added with Moltofill filler (don't know it that is known in the english speaking world...).

The ruin is part of a Verlinden middle east ruin. Used the main wall, the stairs and the leftover roof. The smaller wall I added with styrofoam and Moltofill.

Just experimenting here, I'm by no means an expert on dios...

I'll try to update soon!
Cheers
Stef

Added some rubble to the building:




And I'm thinking about repositioning the guy in the middle of this pic...



...to here (sorry for the bad focus, but I think you get the idea...):



Any comments greatly appreciated!

Cheers
Stef

Nice work Stef, coming along nicely!

Stefan,

One thing (okay two) bug me about the dio.
The visual flow looks like the crew leader is pointing the enemy's position out to the rest of the crew conducting a brief, issuing orders, normal stuff. This is good leadership.

A wise leader, however, would do this on the other side of the tank, ie., Enemy > Tank > Crew and not Enemy > crew > tank.

Also, someone is manning the weapon systems at all times and it is very unwise to stand between the weapons and any targets.

Technically beautiful work. Cheers and good luck.

Nice rubble pile, hope to see more pics as you get it further along. Kudos!

Martyn Warren, thanks for the kudos!

Jeremy, I know what you mean, as you can see from my own repositioning i'm not that happy with the positioning of figures either... Especially the commander standing in front of th coax-mg... I always told myself that the situation is not that hot and it's something like a discussion before the action. I don't have any room behind the tank and the commander wouldn't see around the corner from his hatch.

How about positioning the commander right behind the corner looking around it, the Inf next to him and either leave the second tanker away copletely or position him in the loader's hatch (without the cigarette...)?

Thanks for any feedback!
Cheers
Stef

Stefan,

Very cool dio. The rubble is a nice touch.

Tony

Thanks for the heads up Tony!

Back with a small update:

Base is preshaded and the parts below the surface in black with a coat of future. These parts will be covered before work continues.



The figures are primed, attached to old paint jar lids and ready for some paint. That will be the hard part in this whoe mess as I'm not very good at figures... Although I have improved since I bought Valejo acryllics and prime my figures.



Thanks for looking!

Cheers!
Stef

Looks good so far!

The kneeling soldier figure is stunning. I cant wait until you put some paint on it. Are you going to paint ACU or DCU camo?
Evan

I know the tankers are Alpine Figures who makes the middle figure.

Cookie

Philip, Evan, thanks for the heads up.

As for the figure, it is a CMK figure, slightly converted (new right arm). Great details, although there was a problem with the right foot, had to add a new sole for the shoe. comes in a set of 2 but both are missing the rifle barrel (also on the picture provided with the kit), which is a shame.

ACU and DCU... Sorry, it's enough for me to keep all the swiss army acronyms... The tankers will have nomex suits and woodland pattern vests (as on the alpine box). The inf will have the desert scheme as used in OIF and woodland pattern vest, I think those were still in use around 2005. Does that make any sense?? But like I said, it will be a long way to get there, I have no experience painting modern camo patterns...

Cheers and thanks for looking!
Stef

Hi all! Been a while since my last update on this one, so here we go:

Did some painting on the base:




And on to the figures; my first try with a modern camo uniform:



Just noticed, that it's not really visible in the pic...

Next update might be a while as I'm off to my 3.5-week yearly military service this week. Might post some pics of Swiss M109 KAWEST in alpine training if anyone is interested.

Cheerio!
Stef

Good dio, what colour did you use for the groundwork?

Stef,


Is it me or does the kneeling figure appear to be a larger scale than the Tank Crewmen?
Or is this the old saying that tankers are all short? (I'm 5'-6", so I can say this!)

Otherwise, STUNNING work so far! I like the rubble and the re-bar!

That's looking awesome. Your rubble looks the part.