some cats litter here and there...

and some yellowish grass made with plumber linen and seaweed is added in large tufts, glued down with vinyl glue





then vertically cut to size and made irregular

having used a pre-colored terrain material, a raw umber wash is everything needed to add depht to a wintery evnironment





adding grass before the wash, adds further depht under the tufts

no matter if some wash stains the street, it's a muddy environment we are doing !

Now i've added a pair trees, soaked in the same umber wash used for terrain, and spread some brownish leafs on the earthground ( taken directly from the bushes, in a wintery mountain trip, and crakled with fingers. I don't know which tree they are from, i just chose the noisiest cracking ones... ).

then it is time for roof's structure, made with beech profiles for ship modelling.
I'm not an architect, just been looking at some bombed house picts. I hope i've made no unforgivable errors

slate tiles...
i just was wondering how evil to do them in the easiest way (i don't like repetitive jobs...)

Than came an idea, sometime it happens me too

I stretched a transparent film (search into your kitchen...) on the back of a flat wooden base.
Than i spread over a thin layer of "READY TERRAIN - stone and concrete", smoothed down with a wet metal liner, and let dry (keep it far from sandwich hungry people ! :mrgreen: ). Despite smoothing, the surface will remain thinely rough.







The film will than remains glued onto the underside, but thats no matter. (Indeed, i discovered it helps to keep the thin layer steady, a sort of flexible film useful per ex. for rounded corner stones)

Now remove the whole from the base, and easily cut in strips, superimpose them, than cut in squares.

Scraping a bit the lower side of every tile, with a knife, helps for the true irregular appearance.

... and these are tiles in place. Since already into a grey color , just a bit drybrush for highlight

This is beautiful and I recognize what an effort this is and the end result shows.

I have a little 1/16 dio I will be adding to. The grass and rock are what I will be shooting for. Your scratch building to make things is quite a talent and hope you save this for a long time to reflect on later.

Thanks for showing your work!








~ Jeff

excellent terrain and paint effects

Hi Giuseppe,

Its coming together beautifly. The building and ground work are fantastic.

Gary

Giuseppe: Wow. I just discovered this thread and I'm glad I did. Thanks for the SBS. Great work and products.

Happy Modeling, -zon

Hi Vitali

Very good work you have done here! I like it.

LOL, i just wanted to tell you that you could get the earth cheaper by using real earth or sand , when i followed your link and saw that you are the owner of the shop.
So let me say nothing about getting the earth cheaper by doing your own :-)

Is your shop new? Very courageous of you to start ofefring us diorama products. I hope you will be successfull.

I think your thread would be better in the diorama section as the potential customers are more present there. I at least nearly missed this.

Oh, another thing, in your shop, the english section, your entry button to the Shop is called "Buy to task".
I have no idea what this means so you may better call that "Online Shop" (same as in your italian section). Just to help you a little bit.

Greets

Claude

@Jeff
@Thomo
@Gary
@Zon

Thank you very much Guys !

@Claude :
Hi Claude, i very appreciated your diorama Clervaux.

About earth, once upon a time i was of the "do it yourself" party too. Than i discovered that the cheap way was not so cheap or easy, once collected the whole material i needed.

And i often saw that, for the average modeller, the cheap way is often the most tricky, longest, and with uncertain results.
That's the reason why i've formulated this product.

I think it is like going a city to an other : to go walking is cheap, but time consuming and tiring.
Going by car is surely less cheap, but fast and comfortable.

Than anyone is free to choose the way he likes.

Thank you much for your greetings, i'm on the market from some years, although not still so popular in foreign countries, and things are going remarkably well.

Now it' time for details.
Fence and door are made in a 2 mm forex sheet, and painted into a blueish gray. (source from contemporary picts of Ardennes farms)

Than irregularly airbrushed dots, with some filters :
left to right
paint fading 3
acid filter
paint fadind 1 and 2

for aged wooden veins, just spread some Dark Aging filter, wait a minute, than 1 passage streak with a large irregular brush.

a plastic sheet for broken door's glass

figures... as previously told , i wanted to show U.S. Paratroopers entering into Bastogne.
Easier to say than to do

Looks like you can find one-and-a-thousand german tanker boxes, but don't try to find British or American figures... Almost forgotten on the market. (but, who won the war...?)

Lucky enough, speaking with a fellow of my club, he was bulding a dragon sherman jumbo, and he didn't know what to do of the American figures with overcoat....

Only minimal work was asked, to show them hurriedly walking. A bit more tricky was to adapt the American driver (mastebox drivers... really useful), to the dodge side door. Repositioning left foot, both arms and hands. Head is turned back, looking at those brave guys charged of saving the city...

As a sculpting putty, i find really comfortable with apoxie clay.

Base paint with acryls, than all job done with oils.
Adding a bit light grey to the highest lights of paratrooper overcoats, seemed me to better add to a wintery, cold athmosphere. What your thought about ?

As in previous pict, the road sign is a little but needful detail, to tell the story of Paras entering the city, and ambulance going out.

Since i had no idea of how ww2 roadsings were, i found some examples into an old number of the french magazine STEEL MASTERS. Than redone it with photoshop with the correct location, printed and glued onto a forex sheet. Obviously conveniently weathered....


Snow yes, snow no...

In my imaginary, there was a lot of snow in Ardennes area. Well ,not so true. Lucky enough the Parker's book speaks about weather too.
And he says there was only a bit of melted snow the 19th of december, expecially into the Bastogne area. More snow came later in the days.
Thing confirmed, if carefully looking at original pictures of Para's entering the city.
This way i added only a bit snow here and there.

Just some True Earth - fresh snow, spread over vinyl glue dots.

And finally that's all !

dodge plates still to be corrected...









Hope i didn't get you bored ....
Thank you much for yous support Guys !!!
Beppe

Hi Giuseppe,

You have done a brilliant job on this project. From top to bottom, it is a first rate job and very inspireing for me. Your SBS has been most informative and im very interested in the products that you used to create this wonderful dio. Whats next up on the work bench for you? You build, ill follow it.

Gary

Very nice Giuseppe. Love the house and gate. As well as looking the part, it provides a perfect background for the dodge and trailer. Very well painted and weathered. the figures look great also.

Hello Beppe,
great job! A diorama very well balanced and very pleasant.
You were really able both not to overloading it of unnecessary things, and both to guide the attention to those details that characterize the story that you wanted to tell.
Congratulations! Really good!
... and we have not talked about modeling technique ... Here you're already at the top!
Gianfranco

@Gary
@Frank
@Gianfranco

Thank you much Guys, i must say that, with little or no modesty , your words are really kind and pleasant...

@Gary : something really tasty, i hope, is coming...

Hey Giuseppe, first of all, very well done. Good story and skills showing. The painting brings it all together. And I mean very good painting and weathering of everything. Just love the figures. The only thing I noticed right away was your slate. For future jobs, a piece of slate that measures 22"X11" would have an approximet overlap of 13 1/2 inchs. Almost 2/3rd's of the top slate will overhang the one below. Small thing and most will never know, but I've been re-slating roofs for the last two months. Also, it might be different in Europe for all I know. But a well done dio in my opinion, I really like it. Hope that one day my painting will be on par with yours.