Here is my latest dio. It got a little rushed here at the end since I returned to school to get my masters in mechanical engineering this past monday and have virtually no budget. But here it is in all it's unfinished glory...I would like to add shoulder patches and weapons slings at the least in the future. yea, yea, there are some mold seams on the figs...some stuff is a little sloppy...

The story is a band of 82nd paras and 101st paras have come together and are rooting out some germans in a barn...could be anywhere in the Cotentin on the night of d-day. The building is %100 scratched (my first ever) and everything is painted with spray can or brush since I don't have an airbrush. The figs are a mix of nemrod and DML with some slight modifications. Heads are hornet.











Well, it's time for class, I'd love to hear what you guys think.

Nice work mate nice little dio those figures look great, Only thing i would do is weather the building and doors mate looks to clean for the country side.other wise nice work.

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Thanks for sharing the dio. The figures look really nice. Not to sound overly critical, but how about adding a tree to the bushes. This would break up and fill out the left side of the dio and balance out things with the building on the right. Maybe some added ground detail by putting some mud puddles to break up the groundwork some more.

very nice!

I know, it needs a tree bad, and a little more something to take up the empty space and give it some depth and "lived in" effect.

thanks for the comments!!

Hi Chris,

Really like the layout of you patrol, very good use of the figures. The ground work looks good and I like the setting. Good looking building, just neeeds weather in a bit more when you get time.

Also add a few farm impliments, straw or boxes inside the barn to give it more interest. You could hang some tools, rope or put in shelf with bottles/pots on it. Good possibilities for more detail on the inside.

I like the openness of the scene, but you could add a small barrow of piece of farm machinery to the foreground for interest and leaev the odd bucket, churn around.

This has all the making of a really good dio, I do hope you get the time to complete it and add those finishing touches.

Great stuff and good luck with your studies

Al

Looks good, it could use a tree in there also. The figures could use a little weathering. They look to clean for having jumped in and all the movement they would have done.
Tom

Hey Chris, the figures look great, great detail! So does everything else. Weather the barn (esp. the inside of the doors), add a tree and maybe some farm equipment and while you're at it, some slings to the weapons maybe (can't really tell from the photos if there are any) and you have a really great dio!

Cheerio!

Ever think about enclosing it to make a shadow-box? Then you'd really get a great night effect. Maybe add in a subtle blue-white light to simulate the moon, and a lantern in the barn. It could look really cool!

Chris ,

You've created a great looking scene , the Placement of the Paratroops is really good , however as others have mentioned the space in the forground looks a little empty, at the moment I am up sure whart need to go in to the space , I susepect a little trial and error and you'll slove the problem maybe with some forground grass. a great job far better than anything I could achieve.

Look forward to seeing more work

Regards,

Jerry

Chris, great dio. Ditto what the others have said about weathering the barn. I think Kevin has a great idea!

I agree that to get the feeling that it's night time, you need to go with a shadow box and controlled lighting. It was cloudy when the jumps took place so minimal lighting, possibly some small battery powered black lights availbale near Halloween at craft stores would give a good night time effect.

Unless you're depicting guys who landed in the water, I don't think you need a lot of weathering on the Americans. They'd been in England just a few hours before and didn't jump till around midnight. Dawn comes early, so if you want to depict the time you suggest, the guys would not have had a lot of time to get dirty. Applying blacl camo to their faces might be in order, though.

I just read a very good novelized retellling of D-Day in Jeff Shaara's The Steel Wave, the middle part of his WWII trilogy.

Chris, nice layout. Ditto on the suggestions especially adding some farming equipment to tie the barn to the scene. Looks too sterile for a barn. Some kind of tools, straw scattered around, heck, maybe a prarrie muffin out side on the path to the barn or even a broken wagon wheel. Those old dml paratroop figures are hard to work with, nice job on yours.

Nice layout Chris. I like the scratch made barn. My only question is : what is that going through the pack of the main the cross road?

Nice and lifefull diorama

i like!

Yo Chris,

Very nice setting and a good story...you're goundwork looks good...my only point is that perhaps you could place a phoon pile between the bushes to creat hight in you're diorama.

Nice work.

Greetz Nico

Well done Chrs. I wouldn't change a thing.

Hi Chris. Generally ... I like the dio, but I think theres too much empty space considering its a figure only dio.
Im not military, but think its a bit crazy for so many to run in so many directions coming into a T-junction. IMO, it might have been more effective to have a smaller base, and some of the figure providing cover for those going forward? Id also suggest that everything is happening on the back of the dio or on the half-way line, and theres nothing on the front half except for some simple groundwork. Not putting down your work ... just something to think of for the next dio. Good luck with the studies!

Thanks for all the comments guys...you've got me pretty stoked about actually finishing this thing.

I had some free time yesterday so I added some weathering and straw to the inside of the barn. weapons straps are also on the menu. When I moved, all my good tree making supplies disappeared and I'm trying to find some new stuff...I want to add 2-3 small trees poking out the top of the hedgerow. I had ordered custom dioramics farm tool set, but was told it's out of production. I'm currently pricing out carts (prolly the two-wheeled ones from nemrod or verlinden) and maybe some crates and barrels to add some more visual detail.

The two guys kneeling on the left were placed there since something had to go there and I figured they could be watching the rest of the squad's back...making sure no germans sneak up on them from behind.

I really like the light/shadow box idea, I'll have to play around with that and see if I can create something. a black-light or bluish leds could be really, really sweet.

In the next week or two hopefully I'll have some new pics...though this might be the last you hear from me for a bit.