A 1/35 dio showing Soviet troops fighting in German Town.

I like your effects for the firing MG. I recognize absorbant cotton glued to stretched sprue (or fine brass wire?) for the firing effect, but how did you suspend the ejected shell casings? I can't really see any method of suspension. OIC! From other angles you can see a clear plastic support. I will try this method but with a thinner slice of clear stuff to try and make it even less visible.

You are quite a productive modeler and you make action packed scenes. Normally not my cup of tea but you do a great job at it. I like that you tackle things like surpressor flash and The ejected shellcasings. Something I thought I noticed in another of your dio's with SS soldiers retreating but I couldn't get a clear view on it. That is a quite ingenious idea. I see myself borrowing that sometime in the future maybe modified a bit.

Biggles2

Thank you for the positive comments they are appreciated.

You are quite correct that I use stretched sprue glued to the end of the gun and then I use the teased out cotton from a cotton bud to form the gun smoke.

With regards to the shell casings I use clear plastic shaped to form the ejection path, glue it to the ejection port of the gun and add the spent cases which I make again from stretched sprue.

It takes a bit of trial and error to get right but I think it gives a little extra to the scene.

Cheers

Gerry

Robert

Thank you for the positive comments and appreciate that you like my dios.

I have explained how I do the guns in my other reply.

Cheers

Gerry

To modify your gun-fire effect I think I would form the end of the cotton to a point and have the end of the stretch sprue extend a bit further - just a couple of mm's and paint the tip black. I would paint the cotton with a bit of red and yellow to simulate the muzzle flash.

Biggles2

Thanks for the suggestions it is always good to have another set of eyes look at something.

With regard to painting the smoke I have tried this and found that the effect looked toy like and was not realistic this is why I decided to leave it plain as it looks in my opinion better.

Cheers

Gerry

Actually, guns don't make any smoke when they fire. I think that ended with muskets . But they do make a muzzle flash. Your idea is good, but I would still form the cotton to a sharper tip at the end so that it looks less like smoke. I tried this to simulate gunfire on a 1/350 ship model with promising results. I have used a similar idea with absorbant cotton supported with very thin wire to simulate a flame thrower. I used brass wire instead of stretch sprue because it is stronger and less likely to droop under the weight of the cotton. I airbrushed the cotton yellows and reds for the billowing flames, with black for the soot and smoke at the end. Looks pretty good.

Biggles2

I take on board what you have said.Sounds interesting. Any chance of you posting a pic?

Cheers

Gerry

Nice diorama, Gerry. Very nice layout of the scene. Excellent painting and blending together of the individual objects in the diorama.

The only small comment would be the size of the shells ejecting from the submachinegun. The shells are very large - probably at least 12,7mm size if scaled up. I would use smaller pieces of rod.

It tells a good story and you can almost hear the gunfire by just looking at it.

Thanks for sharing

Jesper

Thanks for the positive comments.

I take on board what you have said about the shells.

Cheers

Gerry

All I want to know is where you got the figures? One looks like he's from the Tamiya kit. It's hard to find good Russians except for in resin kits

Connor

The figures are all Tamiya from various kits. The Officer and guy with the anti tank rifle came with a Tamiya T34 Kit. The guy pulling the heavy machine gun came from the Tamiya GAZ jeep kit. The other two are from Tamiya Russian infantry kits.

Cheers

Gerry

That's really impressive. I've actually got the Tamiya t-34 kit, you brought out a lot more detail than I thought they had. I almost thought these were resin figures