Hi Everyone, I know this may be a bit off topic here, I posted this diorama on Aeroscale, but being an armored vehicles modeler in the first place I wanted to share this with you.
It was so far my hardest diorama every and took a looooong time to realize, I have learned a lot making it and it came out just the way I imagined it. Its my fourth Diorama project.
Let me know your comments and suggestions
If you want to see the youtube video is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJjPWS18rTQ
HERE ARE Some BUILDING STEPS:
The Kit 1/35 Apache Ah64-D from IMEX


Priming and painting the cockpit



Assembling and fixing the body


The Painted pilot


Priming and Paining the Body






Painting the Hellfire missiles




Creating Lettering and Numbering




The rocket launcher




The Front radar & Sighting device

I cut the tires to create the weight effect for the statice helicopter

Creating the open latches and hydraulic system



I used coffee wood sticks to create crates and ladder





The Jeep and Trailer Kit



The Chassis

The Engine







The Battery

The engine




The Dashboard




The kit figures


CREATING THE DIORAMA BASE










The Briefing map is inkjet printed


AND THIS IS THE FINISHED DIORAMA

Salaam Hussein,

quite impressive diorama if you ask me!!!! Wow! You have come a loooong way in a very short time!

I managed to learn a lot about the egyptian forces.....didn't know you had D Longbows ...and I didn't know you were still running the old Jeeps!!!

Thanks for that!!

I love the pic showing the cockpit interior. I think you've done a brilliant job there!!

Also the weathering on the Jeep+trailer is really well rendered!! Bravo there as well!

You got rid of the sheen on the uniforms! Great!!

The lettering technique is absolutely top notch!!!

The overall composition of the scene is well balanced. Well done!!


But you know me: where there is praise, there might also be (small) criticism!

Well, I still think your camo uniforms look too "painted on"

If you are using acrylics, I cannot help you much, but I normally paint (with enamels) the camo spots on the base colour while this is still not completely dry. So the colour sinks in a little, and the constrast is not too harsh. If you combine the spots with the dark shadow areas, (not always possible I know) you generate more depth. Line the features (collar, pocket flaps, etc) with a dark colour, not black, leave that for the odd "special" spot.

And let them squint!! I remember the egyptian sun very well! Without sunglasses, I was squinting all the time!!
And then try to find a white spot in the eyes!!

Generally, I find this dio really impressive!!

In order to take the next step up, you must gain in patience and treat ALL the elements in your dio with the same amount of care!

Congratulations Sir!! Great show!

Cheers

Romain

Thanks Romain i applied a lot of your previous advices on that one

Looks great! I knew Egypt had Apaches but pics are hard to find. Is it the Egyptian army that flies these, or the air force?

Looks very good.
Scrolling down I wondered why you were using a jeep with a Longbow.I'm not familiar with Egyptian forces.
Where did you find a Longbow in 1/35?Do the figures for it come with it?

Tom

You cut those stencils out by hand?!? You're either a lunatic or a god! Can't tell which, but judging by the outcome I'm leaning towards god--maybe mad god!

Nice Dio, Hussein. Thanks for sharing it with us.

Very sweet bird excellent

Hussein the dio looks really good and something different for a change.

But there are a few things that stick out like a sore thumb to me. First the hellfires are shipped in metal containers that we called coffins and not wooden crates.



I’m an ex OH-58D KW armament dog and have ran plenty of FARP operations. Second we would never stack the missile on top of the containers to where they could fall off. Their heavy and the motors are fragile. Third missiles, either hellfire or Hydra shipping contains would never be so close to the bird and always point down range. All armaments stay in their containers until we were ready to up load the bird. It doesn’t take much to set a rocket off by accident. We had a kid in Iraq that forgot to do a stray voltage check on the rocket pod and so as he slid the rocket into the tube, it fired and went down range. Luckily if did not go far enough to arm itself. That brings me to the last important thing, your team brief next to the bird would never happen. I know you are limited on space, but it’s just some insight on how these helicopters would have been fuel and rearmed.

Beyond that I love it, love the old Willy’s jeep next to a 21st century technology. Something else that you could add to really make you longbow stand out I some remove before flight tails to the launcher. A red colored FOD cover for the engines would also help break up the overall green. Another simple thing to add is the yellow grounding cable always seen on helicopter parked.

Another good job, Hussein.. I personally shy away from doing any Egyptian vehicles because of the lack of info or pics.. Of course, this lack of info can work both ways

By the way, where did you find the 1/35 scale by IMEX.. don't believe I seen this before at any of the usual online stores

Hisham

Hussein, I only have a message for you:
"Get out from the beginners forum just right now! It's an order!"
Extraordinary job my friend.
Well done and keep the modeling passion you have.

Good Morning All

@ Jphillips -> thanks, the air forces fly them and the army control their operations

@ Tom -> Thanks, Longbow in 1/35 scale is indeed rare, I found the IMEX kit by luck

@Namabiiru -> heheheh, I can confirm mad only. I had to cut them by hand what else could I do to obtain Arabic decals?
@ Rogi01 -> Thanks

@ Kruppw -> thanks for the very useful info, indeed I don't have first hand experience with the loading process so I improvised a little. too late to change the crates though. I am very interested about the yellow ground cable you mentioned, I would like to add it. Do you have any photos of it? I need some reference. thanks

@Hisham -> Thanks Hisham, The IMEX kit is indeed hard to find and is huge in size, all other kits are 1/72 scale but I only work 1/35. I was lucky to land on one on Ebay.

@Dimitris -> Thanks my friend, order well received that means a lot to me

How did you manage to get a PayPal account so you can buy stuff from e-bay? Anything related to PayPal doesn't even have Egypt in their country list

Hisham

A Friend is US helps me order them

This is one of the rare Egyptian Apache photos I based my dio on:

Hi Kruppwr

I am very interested about the modifications you suggested, do you have photos or references for the grounding and cables you mentioned. I would like to add them thanks
Hussein

That's a beautiful pic - thanks for posting it!

Excellent dio Salaam, great SBS pictorial. I like it, great composition and layout, action is realistic, beautiful work buddy!!

Cheers, Ski.

P.S. That's one beast of an egg beater, beauty!

Just amazing. What figures did you use for the diorama as Egyptian soldiers.

Thanks Steven

Sorry it took me so long to post these pictures for you, been busy with family and school.

Here is the grounding cable, I'm not 100% familiar with the Longbow, but most of the pictures I have seen show the cable clipping onto either the sway brace or the bomb lug on the ejector rack.



Here are also the FOB covers I talked about, their just covers the get shoved into the exhaust and intake ports.




One more thing you could add that is simple to make is the ICS (internal communication system) cable and head phones. There is a port on the wing stub just aft of the APR-39 sensor. This allows the ground crew to talk to the pilots when the APU and engines are running.

Thanks William
I used two of the original figures that came with the jeep and i used two from a German tank loading crew by Tamiya and finally i used the meeting crew from Tamiya as well, applied uniform conversion to Egyptian camouflage and modified a lot of their postures to suit the theme

Thanks Kruppw
I also see some cables coming off the rotors do you have any idea what these are?
Thanks
Hussein