Hey guys-

This is my first attempt at a "scene" rather than just a vehicle. It is the Tamiya Quad with 25 pounder and ammo trailer (all out of the box). The mutants that are operating the weaponry are also from Tamiya. This is not the best figure set on the market - to be polite (look at that one guy's arm, his hand is HUGE).

Anyway - I thought this was a fun little project, so I plan on doing this again. Let me know what you think, and as always, I'm open to suggestions.

Jeff

Good Dio, JrNelson, I like the setup, My question, is that mud??
if it is, I feel that the vehicles should be muddy too, like the tires
for instance. :-)

Actually, the setting depicts a British gun crew in North Africa - so the groundwork is supposed to be sandy.... I see what you mean though - I could use a little more "terrain" on the equipment. The vehicles and stuff are not attached to the base, so I will go back and add some dust and dirt to the tires and stuff.

Thanks-
Jeff

Jeff,

Very nice dio. I would make the terrain a bit more sandy though.

Impressive first dio !

jrnelson

Looks great... But I agree.. Id give the equipment a dusting of your ground colour to help make it look like its been out in the desert for awhile..

Dave

I agree with eagle,
very nice dio, good idea and good realitation
the car and the gun are very nice
but I have two critics:
1) the ground isn't realistic for the colour, if you want you can glue true sand on the base
2) the figure skin haven't shade
So these are only little critics...my opinion on the dio remains good
regards

Very nice for your first diorama. The layout is good. The construction of the kit is well done. Lots of detail is added Lots of extra touches - dusty windscreen, extra stuff added, nice weathering.
The base is good, nice ruts, you've embedded the run into the ground, attention to the edges (my personal note of attention as others have seen my posts ), casings laying around. Good job.
Now for the 'and you could add'. I agree the base doesn't 'look' sandy. The pictures may not represent sand well so you'll have to judge that for yourself. To add a more sandy look, take some real sand/dirt/cat litter (clean) - anything close to sand you can find. Try to crush it up if its big (ie cat litter) to get a nice fine grain. Add a layer of white glue mixed with water to the base. Sprinkle on the dirt. Repaint.
I would add a layer of pastel dust to it too.
I would also recommend adding some pastel dust to the feet/anckles of the figures to 'connect' them to the ground.
Overall - well done.

Jeff, very nice! The groundwork is great, but I agree a little bit of blending the ground onto the wheels , legs of figures etc would add to the overall look of the scene. Those guns kicked up a ton of dust , so the pastel ideas might give the figures a more convincing look. I REALLY like the ground work though, the color and texture of it isn't what you usually see and I think that's great. There are a million different olor shades of sand/dirt and the sort of "dried up crusty old mud:" look of the ground is cool. Could you give a little info on what the base/groundwork was made of.
Nice job on the quad too, as for the figures.......well its hard to make a silk purse from a sow's ear. I have the same kit (and agree the figures are mutants!) and was thinking of mb using the dragon NW Europe commonwealth figures for a crew. Overall very good effort, even more so being the first try!

bison44

Since I really don't know what I'm doing - I kinda made the groundwork by accident

The base is an old discarded ceiling tile cut to size. I used wallboard filler (spackle) to sculpt the ruts where the vehicles are. When this was dry, I sanded the surface of the spackle pretty smooth - as best I could.

Then came the interesting part.... I sprinkled a heavy layer (1/4") of flour (baking stuff) onto the whole thing. I wanted to show footprints, etc., so I used the figures to make little footprints and such around the gun. Because the flour was dry and holds imprints well - I thought I would seal it with primer. I sprayed the whole thing flat black (krylon) from about 3 feet away. I didn't want to blow the powder every where. I thought it looked great - but as the paint dried it shrank -sort of peeling the top layer of flour with it, in little "clods". Well, I hit it with another coat of paint - again and again.... I think I used up a whole spray can of paint before the thing was finally sealed. The texture you see is the final result - I think it looks pretty cool - by accident I didn't have to really do anything special to form the texture - the paint did all the work. By the way - the ground work is hard as a rock (after 30 coats of paint) so I don't think I'll have any issues with it not being sealed.

I then airbrushed the thing with Tamiya flat earth, washed, drybrushed, etc. to get many different shades and shadows....

Jeff

Looks good mate i like it.
I like the rags and stuff on the quad and it looks like a good job on the window screen with the dust. Maybe as before a bit of dust of the tires to link the vehicle to the base.
Would it be possible to re-arrange the vehicle to have the ammo limber with its back to the gun? They would do this as it saves alot of time and effort getting the ammo. Just an idea, looks fine as it is though.
Cheers
Robbo

YOUR FIRST… man you missed your calling in life. Great job overall. You have heard thought about the sandy effect and “dirtying up your vehicle”. My thought my include:

1. Vehicle positioning… Why is the Quad where it is at. It almost looks like it would be in the way of gun crew movement. But maybe it was a rapid deploy. By historical reference and personal experience, soldier in the combat tend to do things for two reason - Emergency or Personal conveniences (yeah sometimes orders get in the way). I like the compactness of the story. Too many people spread stuff out for, what appears to be, the sake of “spreading things out”. Well done! This does not need to be spread out over a tabletop. But the Quad feels tight to me.
2. Other Terrain Options. You mention the idea of doing another 25 Pounder, consider a emplacement at El Alemian – permanent or a quick deploy with rock embattlements or something of that nature.

Great work. I look forward to seeing you next project.

John
www.johnneill.com

Robbo -

Yea - I gotta agree with you that it would be more realistic to show the limber backed up to the gun for ease of ammo retrieval... I didn't have the space to get all of that into the dio the way I wanted (your idea was my origional intention). I then decided to kinda show a "quick" deploy with only the gun un-hitched. I tried to indicate this by removing those "shell" trays and ammo boxes and place them closer to the rear of the gun - as if the crew hastily grabbed a few round to get of some shots. The doors open on the quad was also done to indicate the crew was in a hurry. No sane arty crew would leave the doors open on their transport vehicle THAT close to the gun - they would be literally shoveling the dust out of the cab when the firing mission was over. :-) The rags on the quad are there to cover up the headlight - I totally botched my attempt to create a lens

John-

Same as I told Robbo - I totally agree that the scene looks tight. I based the dimensions on the size acrylic display cases that I am able to make, with the maximum being about 11X11 inches. That left me with alot of "stuff" to put in a small area... I didn't want to spread every thing out evenly - I think dios look better if there is some open space. You know, space that isn't filled up for the sake of being filled. I do agree that the scene looks less realistic this way.... but more eye pleasing. at least to me :-) LOL

I appreciate all of your comments guys - I'm eager for the trench dio campaign to start so I can try another dio.

Later-
Jeff