As part of a build for another site, I've put together a dio depicting a group of GI's that are stopped near a winery (some where in Germany), that have taken the liberty to "sample" some of the winery's inventory. I wanted to share the pics with members here for comment.

The Jeep is Tamiya's with a pe set, and the Quad 50 is from Dragon. The figures are a mix of Warrior and Custom Diroramics. The brick wall is from Custom Dioramics also. The dio took me about four months from start to finish, ie the jeep with pe, the quad, seven figs, the wall, the strip wood wine crates, and the final dio placement and scenery completion.

This first pic presents the original placement/general layout of the vehicles and figures in front of the wall for the dio. The wine crates are made from strip wood, and the wine bottles are Verlinden. .


This pic presents an over head view of the shape of the dio base. The base is pink construction grade styrofoam painted with brown acrylic to provide a color starting color prior to scenery application. As can be seen, the over all base shape is irregular and shaved around the perimeter to reduce the blockly look of the base edge.


Scenery behind the wall is started here, with a sign frame made of strip wood and a label off a German wine bottle, (supposedly the signage is outside the winery building itself, which would be off some where in the back ground).


Just another pic showing a bit more scenery added.


I want the dio to be viewed from any side, so the next pics present the scenery completed so far from the side and rear of the dio.


A bit of a fuzzy shot, but primarily to show the reverse of the winery sign, made from strip wood and then weathered. .


The balance of the pics show various views of the completed dio.






















There are some problems with the scene, especially with my weak figure painting skills, but in all honesty, I'm glad its done.
Thanks for looking.
Steve

I think this is not so bad as you may think. The figure painting obviously , but for the rest. it's pretty ok .

You only need to repaint those red bottles ! They look awful. If you can't get some clear bottles, just paint them a bit less standing out.
Maybe replace the brown plant as it does not match colorwise.
The sign behind the wall is an original addition.

Not bad

Claude

This is not the first time the red bottles have been negatively commented on. This is a change that I'll make.

To be honest I should have stuck with my first thought of just presenting the jeep and quad on a simple base, without any figure, etc. Live and learn I guess.

Thanks for posting.
Steve

Figures layout and action is good IMO, no problem with that.

Claude

Hey....you did justice to this. We all pick out the little things is all. You shouldn't second guess this dio. I love it!!! A simple base wouldn't have given us something that you shared and had fun building as much. Keep building, Bro!

Hi Steve, I really like your dio and I think your figures look fine. Like others have said the wine bottle colors don't look right. The ground work,trees, wall and factory sign are great. The attention to detail and scratch built item really make this dio stand out..........Vince

I like it - the only (minor) thing is, yep, the color of the wine bottles

It's a well-used application of very limited space. A couple of technical points though, the Dodge WC would have been used as the towing vehicle more likely than the Jeep although BOTH can be seen as towing vehicles. The other thing is that while being towed, the barrels of the Quad 50 would have probably have had dust-covers of some description on them..

That said, It takes nothing away from what's a REALLY nice dio

Hi Steve,

I think the layout and placement of the figures is really good. This is an interesting scene. Repaint the red bottles and sort out the head and arm of the standing figure reaching for the bottle and you've got a grand little dio,

You might like to add the idea of a track where vehicles have passed.

Nice work.

Al

Thank you all for the helpful comments, (and for taking the time to post).

Jim---interesting point noted regarding the Dodge, thanks.

I admit to taking a bit of license here as I had read (some where) that the quad, (sans the front shield), was a lighter version of the weapon that could be used by airborne outfits and towed by a jeep. So I left the shield off just for something different, and hooked it up to just a regular GI outfit. Probably not proto typical, but these were my intentions

I'll definitely change the bottles, and snoop for some actual pics of 50 cal dust covers as this is something I should be able to add (and it's a good suggestion for authenticity.

Thank you.

Steve

Yo Steve,

Very nice job, good groundwork and layout...vegetation is good...storyline is lovely.





Hey friend! Don't be to hard on your self...it looks good

Greetz Nico

great looking dio, what did you use for the road?

Paul

The road material is from the Rust All Weathering System kit.

Rust All comes with four bottles of material, a rust wash, an ink wash, a clear liquid fixer, and a bottle of very very fine dirt. The intent of the fine dirt is to apply it to a model and then dab the rust wash over the top (to the modeler's choice), for a finished "flaked rust" look on a vehicle. However, the Rust All fine dirt makes a great ground cover for militrary dio's and also for scenicing model railroads.

Steve

I agree. This is a great little scene, with a good layout, nice groundwork, fun details and an interesting story. Aside from the wine bottles, the only real bugaboo is the visible seam and placement of the arm of the figure reaching for the bottle (most noticeable in the second to last photo). Other than these two nitpicks, you have a very well done vignette.

Thanks for sharing it.

-YL

Of course, there's another aspect to the color of the bottles - they look pretty similar to those of some brands of Dutch Gin (which come in a green opaque bottle )