I want to do a diorama with a crashed aircraft but not sure how to make the crashed aircraft look. HELP!!!

hey firemann

i guess it depends on how it crashed...shot down by flak? dogfight? did it belly land, skid, explode etc? did its nose bury into the ground? which aircraft? fighter? bomber? a larger aircraft might not break up so much whereas a smaller fighter might....did it flip onto its roof? if you think about how it was brought down, you might consider how it landed, therefore you have a rough idea of the look?! if you know what i mean lol

just a cpl of suggestions for you there, hope they help.

alpha :-)

Building a crashed aircraft is quite a bit of work to make it look good. I'd suggest you get the book "How to Build Dioramas," 2nd Edition, by Shepherd Paine (from Kalmback Books -- the same people who do FineScale Modeler). Paine has several crashed a/c dios in the book and gives lots of hints and tips, as well as step-by-step how-to articles.

IMHO, this book is a must-have for anyone who wants to build dioramas.

fireman1208 - I done a couple of those myself and I have to agree with both alpha-1-7-0
and Hollowpoint. Research is the key, Paine's book is a great start, then any photos you may be able to find of the particular aircraft down (so as to see what burns,what bends, and what falls off). Also research the aircraft structure what's metal, what's fabric or wood. When you've done some research use your minds eye, no two birds are going to fall the same, but use your background info and dent, bend, and blacken to meet your expectations. (Then post the pics here so we can all learn from your experience)

Hey Fireman

First off welcome to the site. Now as far as a downed aircraft dio goes, I'm going to have to agree with the others on this one. First research, the book Hollowpoint spoke of by Shep Paine " How to Build Dioramas" is great not just for this dio idea but for many many more. He has a article about doing a dio of a downed, I think it was a B-17[ its been awhile since I look at it ]
As Alpa 170 mentioned you want to first decide how the aircraft got there, i.e. was it shot down crash landed etc. Then what did that kind of aircraft look like with that kind of damage. To give you a better example I normally build armor. If I would want to do a tank thats been hit by an antitank weapon. I would first want to know what kind of damage that weapon could do to the tank I building. Not all AT weapons can take out all tanks.
I hope I didn't over simplfy thinks for you, good luck.

Happy Holidays
Wolfsix

Fireman, welcome. I can think of a couple books that might be of help to you. One is called "Snakes in the cockpit" another is "Bent and battered wings" and just about any squadron signal book has crashed aircraft in it. You could model a plane that belly landed not much damage to model verses a true crash.

Brian

i am sure you will be able to find many pictures on the internet of crashed aircraft that you can use for ideas.

---------------------------------------------------Grave Doubt-----------------------------------------------
‘The Grim Reaper speaks out about hand grenades and horseshoes’
Dioramas give the modeler a chance to put their build in an interesting format that will invite the viewer to stop and look, much like a painting. ‘How to build Dioramas’ by Shep Payne was my first real stretch to build a better model. Its still available and should be in every modeler’s reference library. The well known aviation artist Jim Dietz says, ‘... the process of creating a realistic painting is like describing how a magic trick is done. Once the process is understood the viewer is apt to say,”Oh is that all there is to it?”... “They are to fulfill my own desires.” Someone once said that ‘...aircraft dioramas are limited to maintenance or standing. The dioramas that have worked well for me are; in flight, taxi, factory assembly, field assembly , type test, acceptance tests, crashes & salvage. Of these there are usually the two types of dioramas that can have great impacts but are easily spoiled in their manifestation. Here I would like to discuss crashes and salvage dioramas. These deal with the delicate subject that is at the focal point of war. There are two things that can kill a diorama’s chance to compete successfully. Too much blood and too little planning. When recreating a crash scene ask yourself, ‘...what is my purpose for doing this?’ Monster figures with distorted and twisted features are one thing as I’ll discuss later. Recreating the morbid death of a realistic historic figure is another thing altogether. Sympathy for your subject matter is engendered by most people and their own experiences with death. If your treatment of the subject is perceived to be ham-fisted, clumsy or insensitive, your work will be unacceptable to most viewers including contest judges.
Here is what does not work;
1. I remember a fantasy diorama done with skeletons, dragons and warriors from small scale metal figures. While intriguing and the multiple heads that were lopped off simulating blood oozing from their open wounds was colourful, it detracted from the overall idea. With wounded figures a little goes a long way. Why would skeletons bleed anyway?
2. I have also seen a WWI trench scene with portions of a cadaver sticking out of the ground. While very realistic judges past it by because the artistic appeal was nullified on the idea that a modeler would attempt to recreate a rotting human corpse.
3. There was a Napoleonic vignette where the soldiers were freezing to death and eating the carcass of a horse. Fortunately the pink snow covered up most of the horse. It did not win anything but distain.

In dealing with death or near death experiences the modeler needs to understand the impact that you will be having on the average viewer. The idea of leaving the viewer to come to his or her own conclusion is a time tested means of finding acceptance for the piece you have built. This means that you give them all the information that they need to draw their own conclusion. Since WWI aircraft are my forte here's my take on the subject of crash dioramas. Such as;
4.In my treatment of the fatal crash of Ltn. Wegener in ‘The Order of the Wooden Cross’ I left the body figure out altogether. The post crash view showed such destruction of the aircraft especially around the cockpit area the first response by most viewers was, ‘...Well the pilot could not have survived that...’ See Posted Feature on the Albatros types and my gallery here on site for visual guides.
5. In my diorama of ‘The Rittmeister is missing’ I used historic evidence to cover the ‘deceased Baron’ figure with a ground tarp. This again allows the viewer to get the idea without having to be assaulted by the images of an exposed corpse. See my gallery here on site for visual guides.
6.In my diorama entitled ‘I regret to inform you’ I had the aircrew of an Albatros C.III getting ready for what was to be their last flight. The title alone suggested that this crew did not return from their mission. See;
http://www.darkmatterinc.tv/rmipms/images/gallery/lawson_s/albatrosciii_19.jpg
7. With the diorama ‘463/17' I took various aspects of several Fokker Triplane crashes due to top wing failure and applied them to a Fokker Dr.I that had one too many flights. The overall appearance of the aircraft says that the pilot may have survived but the lone mechanic figure and the general wreck detail draws the viewer into the technical aspects of the crash. See my gallery here for reference.
8. In the diorama, ‘Nice landing Herr Leutnant,,,’ we see a recently repaired Albatros D.Va in Palestine 1918. based on a true occurrence, the pilot had taken the machine up for a test flight. At about 300m he heard a loud bang! Looking over his top main plane he saw that the left wing tip had over stressed. He was able to safely land the aircraft. My version shows the pilot still in the cockpit holding his head in his hands. On the ground a German mechanic is surveying the damage. At least it was an area of the aircraft that had not been worked on. See the posted feature on Albatros types.

If something is preposterous then we tend to overlook any of the macabre images and laugh it off as harmless. In the ‘That can’t possibly happen’ category we have model companies like Aurora or Polar Lights putting out images of our favorite Monsters and their habitats. Monogram was famous for putting 1/24 scale skeletons with some of their hot rods. ‘Lil Coffin’, ‘Boot Hill Express’ and ‘Rommel’s Rod ‘were big sellers. When I developed the idea that modeling clubs are populated by Die hard, AMS afflicted, techno-weenies the words die hard stuck. (I belong to two of them so I am pointing the finger at myself here too.} I asked myself what would happen if the members refused to go home one night. My answer was;
9. ‘The Last meeting of IPMS Ragwing.’ Here we have five die hard modelers in their club house / garage stacked with various kits, doing what they, ah...er, did best. One re-enacter is wearing his coalscuttle and hob nails working on the club transportation. They need after all something to get back and forth to the hobby store, right? One fellow seems to have ‘bought it’ putting the finishing touches on a spiral striped Fokker Dr.I. The fellow I call ‘the stone cutter’ will for ever admire his last bit of work on his partially completed ‘John Phillip Law’ sculpture. If you look closely you’ll even see his masonic ring. In the cockpit of the Sport Flyer Fokker Dr.I we see the club President ‘da Baron’ making those last minute flight checks before he takes off on his final mission. Then lastly we see the boney knees and boots of the R/C enthusiast of the club. Seems the poodle was locked in there for a longgggg time. While immensely funny to many this was just too close to being the truth for others. Having won several awards the real prize was just out of reach. Yes, sadly this diorama has never been given the coveted ‘Lopez Demente’ award by the Albuquerque chapter of the IPMS. (What in the world were they thinking when they gave it to that ‘Toe-Tractor?’) Yeah, you read it right, ‘Toe-Tractor.’ It just proves how subjective judging can really be.