I'm starting this blog as a record of a diorama I am currently working on entitled "Occupation and Resistance". The idea for the diorama came after watching the movie "Flame and Citron" about the Danish resistance. I decided to do a diorama about the more well-known French Resistance with a real cloak and dagger feel. I want the viewer of the diorama to get a sense of how great it must have felt for those German officers to be sitting in a Paris cafe in 1940, but also to honor those brave French men and women resisted throughout the occupation.

So to that end, the diorama will be a German officer and a friend having a good time in a Paris cafe about to get their due. The diorama will be circular with a rotating base so that one side will say, "Occupation" and show the Germans having a good time, and the other side will say, "Resistance" and show the defiant waiter.

Some reference pics below





My first problem was the waiter. I searched and searched for a waiter figure but just could not find one. So I ended up sculpting one. He's nothing special, but given my incompetence at sculpting, he'll have to serve (no pun intended). I have yet to add his arms, but you get the idea. He will be holding platter with glasses over his shoulder and a surprise with the other hand.

Pics of my waiter in progress







Here is the officer that I plan to use. He is from the excellent Miniart set.



I will put a Hornet head on him, but as far as capturing the mood is pretty much perfect.

So that's it for now. Hope there's interest in my small build. Please feel free to post questions, comments, encouragement, or constructive criticism.

Thanks

Cool idea for a Dio.....

Nice sculpting too....

Paul

great concept. You might want to check out MK35 for your French figures (wait staff, resistancem etc).

Thanks for looking.

Matthew, I have checked out MK35 but haven't seen a walking waiter so was forced to sculpt one. I love the MK35 civilians and resistance. In fact, I may be using some of them for an upcoming Spanish Civil War diorama I have in mind.

I do have to start fishing out some tables, chairs, and bottles. I know I've seen them online countless times but have never bookmarked them so now I need to do the search all over. I remember seeing some nice wrought iron cafe furniture but can't seem to find it now.

Matthew is right they are pretty good, you could try looking at Nemrod to they do a lot of french stuff and I think masterbox do a set to.

paul

Raul- the concept you described is very intriguing and I think you've made the right choice with the seated German and the waiter sculpt is excellent (definetly not 'incompetent' in any way)- I'm really looking forward to seeing this come together. Good luck with it!

Raul, congratulations on what has been done so far.
I quite liked the waiter who is sculpting. Very good!

Regarding tables, I found these pictures below within my references, but do not remember where did I download them.

I do a search here and then you notice. good luck in your assembly!

I think the first would be perfect for your plot.

Rodrigo,
Thanks for the posts on the chairs. I've seen those, and they look really good and very much like the ones in the cafe pictures. I also like the fact that I can give them a worn wood look.

I've also been looking at these wrought iron chairs. I really like these so don't know which I'll go for. I'll probably get both and see which one finally makes it into the diorama.



I also need to find bottles and cups and all other kinds of cafe stuff.

I did a little more work on the waiter this week. There's still some puttying and filling in the gaps but with these pics you get the idea of what I'm going for. As noted earlier, the vignette will first show the waiter approaching as the first for pics--he should look innocent enough, and only when the vignette spins do you see what is really about to happen. *Don't be too distracted by the awkward tray he's holding; that's just a mock-up. I'll replace that with a real tray and putty a hand to hold it.

I added some collars to his vest and a chain to the breast pocket. I just thought he needed some texture or something on that side. It could be a chain to a pocket watch or perhaps a bottle opener. Now all I need to find is a proper head-- preferably with a snobby waiter look.











Hopefully the effect is that the initial viewer of the diorama will ignore the waiter and focus on the sharply dressed German officers and only at the end realize that the waiter is the main focus. So in a sense, two vignettes in one.

As always, comments, criticisms, advice, and encouragement are welcomed.

Really different idea and it is coming along nicely. You don't need to be modest about your sculpting skills as they are just fine. If you can find a hornet head with the eye lids dropping a little all you would need to do is tilt the head back and he will appear haughty.
J
J

HI,

Nice idea and execution

The tables posted before are from MONROE PERDU Stdios; one of them Bistro Tables and Chairs.


HTH

Raul- the waiter sculpt is a real work of art, really great stuff.

Yo Raul,

Nice subject, damn good sculpting work on the figies!

Greetz Nico

Great story. Looking forward to seeing more progress shots. An alternative to the haughty face on the French waiter might be to find a head with a big s**t eating grin as if to say enjoy your last meal.

A couple from the Hornet headset HH29 may be good candidates

http://www.greenwichgateway.com/hornetandwolf/hornet/headsets/PAGES/hh29.htm


Jim

Raul fantastic work on the waiter. Especially nice work on the watch chain. Where did you get it from??

paul

Hey, just checking in. Apologies for the late response to some questions, but unfortunately that awful thing called work is keeping me from modeling.

Hofpig, the gold chain is actually a small PE rope from a Dragon Gen 2 kit-- I think it was the rope handle on an ammo crate. Sometimes it pays to be a pack rat.

Jim, I think you're instincts are right about the "smiling" head. I'm looking at a few Hornet heads and I'll probably add a skinny mustache.

Meanwhile I've started priming one of the German officers and looking at wine bottles and plates.

I recently got this:


The platters are especially nice and I will probably be using them. I have to look for wine bottles and decide whether I want to use clear ones or resin ones I paint. I always thought the clear ones look a bit too clear and shiny for the scale.

More to follow.

OK, so it's been a while since my last post. I've been busy with work and life, but finally this week I got some time to sit down and do some very quick work on one of my doomed German officers. I primed him in black as a nice pre-shading and even added one two PE medals from an old DML set. I gave our officer a close combat badge and an Infantry Assault badge which means he is probably a veteran of the invasion of Poland. As you can see in the picture below, I started dry brushing the highlights in white.



I also picked out the Hornet head for the officer.



I primed him in gray. Started with an undercoat of tan and then added some sepia wash over the shadows of the face.

More pics as I get to painting later...

Just put some pictures of the freshly painted Officer 1 up. He is mostly finished. I need to finish his head and a few more details on the insignia but you get the idea.

Let me know what you think. Note my inside joke with the tour book. I tried-- I don't know how successfully to draw an Eiffel tower in his tour book.








Let me know what you think. Now it's to the head and ordering some chairs, bottles, etc. After some research I've decided to go with the fantastic wooded chairs put up here.

Great work, it's looking fantastic.


Paul

Nice additions to the german figgie. I agree about the wooden table and chairs,they really look the biz.
The Eifel tower was inspired!

J

Hi Raul,

Nice work so far.

Al

Raul- great detail on the uniform and the figure in general, it looks great. I agree that the Eiffel tower drawing is a nice touch- have you considered maybe trying to do it with some oil paints? I only ask because I once did a bust with a pair of goggles on and I always paint in acrylic but I wanted to create a kind of muted reflection in the goggles and I tried to paint in a small mountain-scape with oils. For the scale I think it turned out okay- you could always practice a bit on some scrap plastic. The thing I found good is that if I didn't like my attempt I could just wipe it off the acrylic base. I also reckon the blending propertioes of oils might lend the detail in the book a nice diffuse and 'almost out of focus' scale effect. Then the goggles I was working on were bigger than a 1/35 book so it might not be ideal.

Anyway, good luck with the build- its coming along real nice.

great original idea for a different diorama , bravo

And now for this week's episode....
I recently order these two accessories. I opted for the round table of Monroe Perdue



I'm not in love with the square flat chairs...they look kind of dinky to me but I like the round table and I figure the officers will be sitting on the chairs anyway.

Then I opted for this wine/glass set from Diopark



I'll probably discard the chairs and table but the bottles and clear resin glasses look really good. I'll augment with some of the forks and spoons I bought earlier and we are set. I haven't spent so much time picking out China and cutlery since I got married but there it is.

I finished one of the officers and will post pics later this week.

Now I have to pick a sitting figure for a second officer, preferably leaning forward. So does anyone know any figures of sitting German soldiers? The head doesn't matter as much cause I can replace it but sitting up, relaxing. I've looked but no good figures yet.

Also, I'd like to have that figure feeding a kitten. Does anyone know where to kitten/cat figure?

OK so believe it or not, it's been almost a year since I updated this. I put this project in the back-burner because life got kind of busy but also because I have the attention span of a gnat and other projects distracted me. But this diorama was always there in the back of my mind. My mind kept coming back to those two officers having lunch in Paris about to be gunned down by the resistance fighter. So, I got out the work in progress and got to work.

I found a new figure to compliment the first, and I figured it'd be great if he was really seen to be relaxing. My memories of my own visit to Rome made me think of the stray cats that hang around cafes looking to mooch a meal so I thought cats would be a great addition. I modified one of the arms by positioning it raised and adding a replacement hand, added a few cats, and here we are. Now one officer is reading a guide book to his disinterested pal, who is amusing himself with the local cats.

I'll be posting more pics/updates soon since I want this diorama done by the April 6 Mosquiticon show so if you've managed to stick it out with me this far, thank you! As always, any and all comments are appreciated.