Ed,

you are welcome...

On occasion these decorations are sculpted masonry, on occasion carved stone - both full stone and just as clothing/fineer (like common with marble) - and on occasion shaped plaster. Some of it might even be wood (where possible). Sculpted masonry was often plastered over. The major point was to give the impression of stone-work.

Sometimes buildings were plastered over completely - either to mask irregularities in masonry (for instance relocated windows, doors, or to give the impression of having used natural stone instead of bricks.

Much of its execution was depending on the means available (and the willingness to spend them) of the people having the house built or living in them.


As far as building B goes, I have rarely if ever seen such a decoration - the regularly spaced square blocks - which seem to resemble the beams supporting the floor/forming the ceiling. What is more common is there being what we know as metal 'wall-anchors' (spigots) - 'muurankers' in Dutch - on the outside wall of the house fixing the floor-beams to the outside wall.

They were becoming increasingly rare in houses built shortly before the war, especially in towns and cities.... (although my parents' house, built in the 1920s or 1930s has them - it was built as a farm though))

See this house (late 19th c. it seems, Delft) on the left side of the picture.

http://www.breetvelt.org/intronl.htm


Some are utilitarian, others can be decorative and quite elaborate. Especially on older structures they are used to denote the date of (re-)building, and sometimes even those responsible for it (i.e. showing the initials). On later structures they tend to be more utalitarian/subdued.

http://wapedia.mobi/nl/Jaartelling

http://www.smeedijzer.adviesplaats.nl/muurankers/muurankers

http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bestand:Muuranker_Dordtse_Gevel.JPG

Hope this helps some more...




Harm

Your Dio is moveing along really well. Thanks for shareing the How-To on the use of the cork bricks. Very Nice. milvehfan

Thanks again for the responses. Harm, as far as the decorations on building B are concerned, I only put them on there because I saw either a picture or a piece of film that showed an urban house with similar construction. I'll be darned if I can remember where I saw it or else I'd point you to the source. I intended for them to be purely decorative, since they're too high to be the ends of the floor beams, and they also struck me as a nice alternative to the horizontal sections of masonry I was using on the other buildings. It's probably too late to change things, so hopefully they're not too outlandish. Thanks for pointing that out and keeping me honest.

Well... I guess the maxim of WW II still goes - whenever you say something did not happen, a imagery shows up that proves it did....

Harm

Back with another update. I've finished the basic painting for the bricks and grout work. First up is building A,


then building B,


and last but not least, the Main building.


The darker color was made by mixing one part Vallejo German uniform pale camo brown with two parts terra cotta, while the paler shade was two parts terra cotta with one part of a color called Au Natural, which was actually sort of a grayish khaki. The bricks are still pretty red overall, but I'm pretty sure weathering will tone them down a bit more.
Finally, as I suspected deep down, it looks as though Harm was right about building B's masonry decorations. I went through all the pictures of Dutch architecture that I had collected, as well as rewatch 'A Bridge Too Far,' and didn't find the source of my inspiration. Then I went out to run some errands, and as I stood in the parking lot of my local supermarket, there it was. My hometown's old courthouse building, which was built sometime between 1900 and 1930, appears to have to been designed with a style the borrows heavily from Dutch architecture in terms of combining brickwork and masonry. That's where I saw square decorations similar to ones I chose to use.
So, my use of the squares stands a good chance of not being totally accurate, but I've decided to say damn the wainscotting, full speed ahead. The design helps that building stand out a bit, and it might just have existed (slim chance, but who knows?).
Next up is adding window and door frames, building the balcony, and assembling the structures.

After close to a week and a half of frantic work, I'm back with an update. First up, I assembled the balcony and added some extra masonry work to the windows and trim on the Main building.

The trim around the building and balcony rails are made of cork, while the balcony posts are cut down dollhouse items.
Next up, I assembled building B and fixed up its interior a bit.


Once that was finished, I went into a sort of modelling frenzy and managed to fit out all of the houses with their basic interiors and get them in place, as well as get some weathering done. First up again is building B.


I became so preoccupied with painting and fitting out the structures that I forgot to take any pictures of building A by itself, so here are a couple of pictures of its interior once in place and partially weathered.


Finally, when I got to the Main building, it felt too delicate to mess with photographing it on its own, so I put it into its place on the base as well before taking a pic of the in-progress interior.

To finish things off for now, here are a few pictures of the base as a whole so far. First is a sort of bird's eye view of the main viewing angle.

Next is a shot from more or less the opposite direction.

Lastly, here's closer to a street level view of the scene's focal view.

There's still a lot of construction and painting to do on the exterior of the Main building, not to mention fixing up its interior, and all three buildings need some blending with the sidewalks before I begin laying on the first layers of rubble. I also hope to get building B's yard done soon and place a couple of street accessories. In only a short time I should have enough done on the base to be able to jump back into fixing up the figures and get ready to enter the home stretch. I know that's still a way's off, but it seems a lot closer now that my section of Arnhem is standing.

love the corkwork bricks. This is something i simply must try. Great looking work so far - big footprint though where will you display this beast ?

Count me as a fan.

Adamskii

Thanks Adam. This is my first time with the cork bricks. It's been a good experience and I'll definitely use them again. The base is 14 by 18 inches, but I do have enough storage space on a shelf in my basement where my other dios go. I also hope to have it done by early June so I can take it to my local IPMS show. Now where the next one I make will go, that's another question, since this one will take up the last of the available space.
I should have posted on your thread, but I absolutely love you Aussies in Iraq diorama. Now THAT is a great piece of work, and you can consider me a fan of yours.

Looking good!

It's been a while, but I finally got enough done (in my opinion at least) to warrant an update. First of all, I got much of the basic interior for the first floor of the Main building finished. I assembled and painted/papered the interior walls, installed the baseboards, and glued down the wall on the right in the pictures. By the way, sorry if some of the pictures are a bit blurry. I guess I was a little shaky while running back and forth between construction and photographing.


I left the module around the doors loose for now to make it easier to weather the interior and install accessories.
I also assembled and painted the the floors. The second story floor is shown loose in place in the next picture.

I added a few details to the exterior of the Main building as well. I built and installed two faux pillars underneath the balcony and cobbled together a damaged drain pipe, which isn't yet painted or glued in place in the picture.

Finally, as can be seen in some of the other pictures, I roughed in the locations for the piles of rubble with styrofoam. The following pictures show a few different angles of the planned rubble.






I might tweak the piles a bit, but I'm pretty happy with the layout so far. I need to put the grass in place next to building B before I can finish laying out the rubble there. Up next I'll paint the cobblestones and sidewalks where it looks like they'll be visible, put in the grass next to building B, and lay in the rubble.

Just a brief update. I added the yard to building B, but due to damage from the shell impact and rubble, there won't be any grass visible and only two of the shrubs still standing. I also added some of the larger pieces of wood debris to the planned piles of rubble and a battered street light.




The next step is fleshing out all that styrofoam and beginning the process of making it look like mountains of rubble.

Back with another update. It took about five hours, but I managed to cover the styrofoam with tinted celluclay.







As the pictures show, I also pressed some larger pieces of debris into the wet celluclay and added address numbers to building A and the Main building. Once the celluclay is fully dried I'll give it some dark washes to make its color a bit more vivid before adding more debris. In the meantime I'll be scratchbuilding a few pieces of furniture to pile up against the windows in the Main building, finishing up the doors and windows, and working on the figures.

Here's a brief update. I gave all the areas of celluclay a terra cotta colored acrylic wash to give everything a more brick-like tint.




Now it's back to adding lots of little bits of debris to cover the celluclay and working on the figures.

Here's another brief update. I added a whole bunch of debris of various sizes to cover up the celluclay and give things a suitably rubble-strewn look.




The rubble inside the footprints of the buildings is a bit lighter than the rest of the rubble because I gave the debris in those areas a dusting of white weathering powder to simulate plaster dust. Much of the rest of the debris is a little too dark and red for my liking, so I plan on giving everything a dusting of light colored weathering powders to simulate masonry dust to lighten the overall tone. I also need to give things a coat of clear flat to kill any shine left over from the hairspray I used to attach the debris.
Next up is finishing the windows, doors, and furniture, and finally getting my figures completed.

Its looking really sweet Ed.

Any chance of a closer picture so we can see the types of stuff you used for the debris?

Cheers, John

Hi Ed,

I definitely do like where you are so far. And I also agree with your assessment of toning down the 'redness' of the rubble.

Just one question? Have you taken out the remains of the wooden floors of some of the buildings. In general, I am missing the remains of the roofs in the diorama, also in the rubble.

Also, I would like to see how you will finish the biggest house in the corner, because as it is now, it just looks off, since it seems to be missing parts of its internal structure as well as the roof.

I'll try and clarify my point later... with images, maybe tomorrow, probably thursday...

Cheers, and looking forward to the next update,

Harm

This is a fantastic build, it has been fun to watch your build.
Have fun.
Warren

Thanks for the comments. I'll post some clearer close up pictures of the rubble in the next day or two. As far as the floors in buildings A and B are concerned, I wanted to show them as having collapsed after burning for a day or so. There is some wood debris from the floors visible both in the buildings' footprints as well as scattered around, at least there would if I took better pics, but i intended to show most of that debris buried under other wreckage. There is some roofing in the rubble as well, but most of it seems to have been buried by subsequent rubble applications. I do need to add a little more rubble here and there, so I might still add some more beams to the debris.
As for the Main building, I still have quite a lot of construction to go. I need to add two floors/ceilings, two or three walls on the second floor, and roofing for two different areas. Hopefully the method to my madness will come clearer in the next week or two. Thanks again and keep the comments coming.

Here at last is the long rumored/promised/threatened next update. First of all, here are a few overall views of the scene. I gave the rubble a couple of light oversprays of very thin Tamiya Deck Tan to give everything a dusty look that also blends the rubble together a bit as well as tone down its redness. I also drifted the overspray up the buildings a little to blend them in as well.




Also visible in one of the pics is the additional interior work I did on the Main building. After adding doors, windows, rubble, and ruined furniture to the ground floor, I glued the next floor in place as well as one of the three interior walls. I then added rubble, furniture, windows, and lots of white weathering powder to simulate plaster dust. I also put some furniture out on the balcony to protect the bren gunner I'll eventually station there. Last for now I added a ruined light to fixture to the building's exterior with the blown off lamp added to the rubble. All in all, things are progressing pretty nicely with the construction of the Main building.
Next I have a few pictures that I hope give a better idea of the composition of the rubble. The first is looking out of the ruins of building A towards building B.

Here is a view of bulding B looking towards the Main building.

This the the street between the Main building and building A.

Last up is the view over the rubble of building C looking towards the Main building and building A.

As the pictures show, I added more collapsed and burned beams and rafters, as well as black weathering powder soot, to the interiors of buildings A and B, and smoke stains to both of their exteriors. I think the flash makes the smoke stains look a lot darker in the pictures than they do in natural light.
I've also been doing a fair deal of work on the figures. Hopefully I'll have enough done to show them in the next update as well as the continuing construction of the Main building.

Ed your diorama is taking real good shape.
I like it! Excellent work!

Look forward to seeing this progress.

Excellent thread, it's taking form very nicely.
To be honnest, I didn't think at the beginning it could come in such a nice way.
Keep on !
Julien

Nice technics. Nice dio. Grats. Following the thread with enjoy.
Volkan

Here's the latest on the diorama. First of all, I did some more work on the Main building.


I originally planned on making the small third floor out of brick, but I didn't put anything into the structure that would be able to support that sort of weight in real life, so I went with a brick facade-wooden building instead. I still need to do some more weathering to give things a properly scorched appearance as well as add some more debris.
I also need to add a wall on the left side of the second floor, but that has to wait until after I've put a couple of figures in the room. Here's a close up of the damage on the second floor as well as some furniture used for extra protection.

Here's a similar picture of the first floor.

Speaking of the figures, at long last I've managed to finish construction of my paras. First up is a group picture.

Next up are a pair of pictures just of the shooters.


Here are a couple of pictures of the chargers. The one getting shot does have a full chinstrip setup normally, but I didn't see that one side was knocked off before taking these pictures. I fixed things up as soon as I noticed.


Finally, here are pictures of the rest of the guys.


The three dead Germans I plan on including in the scene aren't quite ready to go before the camera yet, but should be very soon. Next up is finishing construction of those Germans, painting all the figures, and maybe working on the roof of the Main building.

These figures look very promising already!!!

Looking forward to seeing more of this great thread!!!

Keep them coming!!

Cheers

Romain