Since today is the 66th anniversary of the start of Operation Market Garden, I thought it would be an appropriate time to kick of the build log of my latest diorama of the subject. I've previously built dios of the early stages of fighting in Oosterbeek as well as the 82nd Airborne's crossing of the Waal at Nijmegen, so this time I've decided to depict the stand of 2 PARA on the northern end of the bridge at Arnhem. Actually, I did make a dio of this about 25 years ago (man, does that make me feel old ) with a bunch of ESCI figures and a Testors/Italeri Panzer IV, so it's about time to have another go at it.

These are the main kits I've collected for the dio. I also have some Hornet heads, a Verlinden PIAT team, and if necessary some Miniart building details to spruce up the structures for my scene. My working title is "Whoa Mohammed," which was a battle cry often used by 2 PARA. The scene will be taking place on September 19 and show a group of Red Devils making a charge through rubble filled streets of Arnhem to drive off the latest German attack.
This is my first build log on the site, so I'm almost as eager to see how this turns out as I am about my dio. I'll post more updates as they become available.

Looking foward to following your progress. It is an interesting area. Good luck and looking foward to your updates.
Tom

A Very Interesting Dio that you have planned. I am looking forward to following it as I have been following some Arnhem builds over on another site. Its actually a Dio Contest called: A Very dad Day in Arnhem. You picked some Very Cool figures and Vehicle for your project. Happy Modeling, milvehfan

Nice selection of figures, Ed. I'm sure this will turn out to be an excellent dio.

I'm very interested 'cause it's my home country. If you need some translation i'll be of service

keep going

Here's my first update. First of all, thanks to everyone for their well wishes, and a special thanks to Johan. One can never tell when translation services will come in handy.
As far as the build is concerned, I'm almost done with three figures.

I built the Verlinden PIAT team for my Oosterbeek diorama, which is why their Denison smocks are undercoated, but they lost their place as that build progressed. When I decided to use them for this build, I realized that the loader's arms were positioned all wrong and wouldn't allow him to sit naturally. I removed them, but in the process they were damaged, so I cut down and fixed his left arm with wire from a paper clip. His left hand isn't flat on the ground because I plan on putting his rifle at least part way under it. The right arm was just glued back in place. Both had generous amounts of Milliput applied to fill the gaps and resculpt the uniform. I also removed his field pack and its cast on straps, which I'll replace with plastic strip. The gunner only needed a couple of gaps around his arms cleaned up and once the PIAT is in place appears good to go.

The third figure is from Platoon, and I plan on him being the focal point for the charging paras as the NCO in command yelling orders to his men. To do this I had to swap the kit's head with one from Hornet topped off by a helmet from my spares with gauze camo netting and a plastic strip chinstrap.

I still need to add a sling to his Sten and foliage to his helmet, but otherwise he's more or less done. While it's a good figure, it had an unusually high number of air bubbles to fill as well as some oversized gaps at the arms. Nothing too difficult to deal with, just kind of annoying. I'll be back with another update as soon as I get more done.

Since an Arnhem scene was my first dio using DML's Red Devils. This was fun to read and I will watch your progress. Have fun! Warren

So Far, So Good. milvehfan

It's been a while, but I'm back with a big update to make up for it. I decided to figure out what size base I'd need, so I started sketching things out to finalize my layout.


In the process I discovered that there really wasn't room for the 250, so I've dropped it from the project, which is kind of disappointing to me since I had put some time into sprucing it up. Oh well, I'm sure it will find a home in another project.
Once I was happy with a layout, I made a template for the crossroads out of two 4 inch wide strips of sketching paper and moved them around until I found a set up that I liked. I made scale drawings of the main building, which I then adjusted to make the scene more compact and better able to hold the eye. Once I had the dimensions down, I made a rough mock-up using heavy card stock paper normally used as backing boards for shipping and storing comic books.




The last one has some figures in front of it to give it a sense of scale.
Speaking of figures, I made a good deal of progress on that front too. I've added some camoflage material to the NCO's helmet.


I also sanded down and added clothing folds to the putty I used to rebuild the upper arms on the PIAT assistant. I also added web gear straps made from plastic strip.



The yellow paint was to check for flaws. Once I was happy with its overall appearance I added seams for the sleeve-shoulder joint.
I've also finished preliminary work on six more figures.

I've been freely swapping body parts among the three sets of British troops I bought for this project, as well as arms from the spares box.
The first two guys have had parts pretty even swapped between the kneeling Red Devil firing a Bren and the standing figure firing a rifle from the Monte Casino set.

The now standing Bren gun has arms from the prone Bren gunner in the Normandy British infantry set.
Speaking of the prone Bren gun team, I've converted them into a pair of riflemen picking out targets.

I'm still not sure about the arms on the righthand side figure firing left handed. I'll have to wait and see how thing look after I've added some putty to flesh out his arms.
The last two figures both come from the Red Devils set.


The running figure on the left is about as close to stock as any of the plastic figures as I've only adjusted the position of his legs to make him appear more unbalanced, which helps give a better impression of motion. The kneeling figure is going to be firing a Sten, and I ended up only using the very end of the left arm of the soldier holding a Sten from the Normandy British infantry set. It took a few tries before I was happy with the pose of the left arm.
Next up is more figure construction, followed by lots of epoxy putty fills, fixes, and details. Hopefully it won't be quite so long until I have another update ready.

Very interesting project, Ed. Good progress on the figures so far.

Looking forward to see more.

Looks nice so far.

helmuths Strongholds has some very nice 1/35 buildings for the Arnhem battle.

Hey Ed
Some great progress on your scene and figures...
The one thing I have found that could be a little 'off' is the positioning of the left arm on the loader? It seems to sit bent unnaturally. The elbow could point further back behind for this degree of bend at the elbow, or the arm could straighten more. Looking front-on, the shoulder seems to sit quite low, whereas if it was load bearing (ie. taking some bodyweight) it would push higher a little...
The bubbles in the resin figure is poor. Shows little to no QC in my opinion, but the original sculpt looks to be a good one!
Brad

Another day, another update for once . First of all, thanks for the replies. Thanks for supplying the link Maurice. I'd seen those before, but couldn't remember where and was trying to find them. Bradley, as far as the left arm on the PIAT loader is concerned, it has also been kind of nagging at me too for a while, so I might redo that figure as well.
Speaking of redoing figures, I mentioned in my last update that I was thinking about redoing the arms on the prone trooper firing left handed. After re-examining it, I decided that the left arm had to go.

I recut the arm just below the elbow and replaced the missing section with wire. The hand was repositioned as well for a more natural appearance. I'm much happier with that guy now.
Next up was one of the more complex conversion jobs, and I have to admit to being a bit unsure about pulling this one off. I'd envisioned having a trooper pulling a wounded comrade to cover by one his web gear straps. I know Verlinden makes a pair like this, but I wanted something a bit more unique, not to mention less expensive. After a few stops and starts I managed to get the basic poses mostly laid out.


The standing figure started out as the standing soldier with a Sten in the Normandy British infantry set. His arms came from the kneeling soldier in the same set with a new left hand.


The wounded trooper was made from the prone Red Devil holding a PIAT. I still need to do more reshaping of his lower body before fleshing out the legs.
Hopefully I'm over the hump as far as extensive conversions go and only have a few more fairly straightforward figure modifications to go. More updates as they become available.

this is looking really nice
i like the huge selection of figures youve chosen
and i see some scratchbuilding on the wounded para and his rescuer
i will be following this with alot of interest.
how is the resin para?
hes done by wee friends? yes?

tony

Thanks for the comments Anthony. The standing resin para is from Platoon, which is essentially Pegasso, with a Hornet head. The overall sculpting is quite good, but my example had an unusually large number of air bubbles to deal with. It came with a nice head which will be used elsewhere in the diorama. I only used the Hornet head because I wanted to show the figure barking orders. As for the rest of the figures, I have even more on the way, so stay tuned.

Great work. Can't wait to see more.

Just a small update to end the week. After re-examining the PIAT loader, I decided to change his left arm because it just didn't look right and, as it turned out, was a bit too long in the upper arm.

I used a much shorter pin this time, and now it looks a lot better to me.
While looking at yesterday's photos, I couldn't help but think that something was off with the wounded para getting dragged to safety. Upon comparing it to the other figures I discovered that I'd created a figure more suited to a basketball court than the airborne, so I fixed him up too.


I shortened the legs by about 5mm, and am much happier with how tall the figure looks in comparison to the others.
I also managed to finish most of the preliminary construction of a new figure.

I used the body of the figure running with a Bren from the Monte Cassino figure set with arms from the spares box. I think this guy will look best running up a pile of rubble, so that's probably how he'll end up.
I'll post more as soon as I get something done.

Yo Ed,

Great start! Nice how you plan the hole project.

Nice work so far.

Greetz Nico

Arnhem dios are my favourites; I'm following this one with great interest, particularly the figure conversions.

Here's a quick update on how things are going. I haven't gotten a ton of model work done this week since my attention has been drawn to toying with the possibility printing up a decal sheet of insignias for the figures. I'm not sure if I'll do it or not, but the idea does interest me. I've also been playing around with the design of the main building, especially the top floor and roof. One way or another the building will keep the same dimensions, but it might look a bit different in the end than it does now.
On the figure building front, I decided that I needed a few deceased Germans to help round out my scene. With that in mind I started modifying some old figures I had worked on for some forgotten project in the distant past.

I plan on outfitting the soldier on his back in an earlier version SS camo smock, and all three of them are getting new heads and equipment from my spares.
I hope to get more done and have more updates posted soon.

It's been a while since my last update, so I hope to make up for it with lots of pics in this one. First of all, I went back to the drawing pad to further map out the final scene and make some thumbnails of the supporting buildings.

While looking things over, I decided that I could use a few more paras to flesh things out, so I cruised eBay and, finding a good deal, picked up this set.

Once the kit arrived, I jumped back into construction/conversion mode and got to work. The first couple of figures are pretty much stock for now.

This guy standing firing a Bren only needed the bottom of his leather jerkin shortened for now.

This kneeling sten gunner didn't need any changes at all yet.
The next few figures were all a bit more involved.

This figure shows one of the attacking paras as he's getting hit by German fire and was made up mostly of spare parts.

Insteading of standing on guard, I gave this figure a set of arms from an old American airborne soldier figure so he could provide cover fire for the attackers.

The 'on guard' arms from the previous figure could well end up on this sprinting para.

Another walking infantryman turned into a running para.

Here's another walker turned runner.

And another. I'm starting to sense a pattern here.

One more runner, but this guy was doing that in the first place, but instead of carrying a rifle he'll get a Bren. I kind of picture this guy as the one at the front of the group of attackers.

I think this guy will end up on the roof of the main building providing cover fire.

Here's a group portrait of all the figures I've collected to take part in the scene. All of them have received paperclip wire pins. There's always a chance I'll add a few more, but I'm happy with how many I have to populate my dio for the time being. Next up is eliminating uniform details that I don't need and replacing them with ones that I do. I'll post more pics when I have more work done.

After months away due to camera issues and, even worse, loss of inspiration, I'm back to begin a big push to get this diorama finished in the next few months. To get things rolling again, I started by fixing up the base.

I'm using a 14"x18" picture frame backed up by a sheet of plywood because I just don't want to take a chance with building on the glass. First up, I added the sidewalks.

I'm using half inch cork tiles for these, and you can probably see where I moved one after laying it down. This is because my initial layout called for four inch wide streets, but they looked too cramped, so I spaced them out to five inches instead. That way the streets are still pretty narrow but not too narrow for comfort.

I put the mock-up of the main building on the base to give some idea of how things will shape up. The next step is cutting a whole mess of cobblestones from quarter inch cork tiles before moving on to the structures, as well as tackling all those figures.

This is shaping up nicely Ed! It's been years since I read the After the Battle (Arnhem) Publication, but regards the cobblestones you're about to work on, IIRC there was a brick works across the lower Rhine that provided bricks in lieu of cobblestones for the town of Arnhem, presumably long before the actual battle. I think there is much photographic evidence to support bricks as opposed to cobblestones. Something I've noticed in many Arnhem based dio's 'Grey Cobblestones. ' Keep up the great work. James.

Yo Ed,

Good this one is back on the tracks!

Greetz Nico