planning on doing a d day dio of 2 lcvp one disgoring troops the other getting ready to drop ramp. Got the italeri one with all the troops and another with just the crew. Found a couple sets of d day figures. found some barricade stuff. Looking for dead and gear to litter around...gear should be simple but dead people.....not oo Going to have to figure out how to do water/wave stuff

All suggestions will be appreciated pix if you have done something like this

Steve, MK35 do a Ranger casualty (with BAR) that is a great pose....Nemrod have some Medics and some great running figures, but not a lot out there in the form of US casualties. You may have to resort to some Dragon US infantry kits and some modifying them to suit.....
Cheers, Jason

These are marines though... http://m.ebay.com/itm/170568858209?_mwBanner=1

Thanks isreal. just what i was looking for and i also found some that were army with different posses. also the marine peleliu set had wounded and a medic. typed in casualties found ton of good stuff

Steve:
For the water, try clear resin tinted with enamel paint. Below is what I did for a Pacific dio. I painted the base under the resin the approximate color I wanted to achieve. I used gloss medium brushed over the cured resin for waves and ripples.

Check the box above the main diorama listings that says "water". There are lots of different ways to go. I used "LiquiTex" with food coloring to make it blue, then matte gel on the top for waves.

Good luck!

thx guys for the tips on the water. one thing i have not tried to do yet.Figuring the water going to be a murky green.. As i recall they were btwn storms that day so the water would have been churned up.
My plan will be to put the lcvp in place add a bit of sand. use styrofaom sheets to build up shore line. sand it down. then work the water with figures and obstacles in it. After that then work all the beach stuff. Well this is a future project, but im collecting stuff for it now. LOL part of my "retirement" activity Along with 100+ kits in stash

In that case, be careful if you use resin as it could melt some plastics. Perhaps a test first?

Toilet paper and oats, that is what you want..

Guide here and sub guides in the article

http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=155661

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TwpB7sVMn8

Seems like the shipmodel guy goes to way too many steps with oats and bulk CA and many layers of paint etc... you can get good effects with using LiquiTex and matte gel. Take a look at the water in my dio of "On the beach, many years later. Ignore the sides as it was my first time and I didn't get the sides square but the effect on the top of the waves and going up the beach works...

As I said previously, when you come to this page, check the tick box for "water effects" then save changes at right and it will direct you to all the threads involving "water". Lots of folks here really helped me out when I had questions. Shoot me a PM if you need any help with resources or ideas! I got a break and now I am paying it forward!

Definitely many options to peruse. Maybe a combination. Like the suggestion about check for comppatability with my resin and styrewne Making waves is where I see a challenge. Maybe pour and ripple the main layer add more in some spots after initial is hard and try to bend it over and shape it when it starts hardening

For the styrene see the link in the original post I posted, see below

http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=157503&p=637868#p637868

LiquiTex will not eat styrene or resin. It is an A and B set that does not produce an exothermic reaction. It is easy to work with and easily colored with simple food coloring. Russ, from here, turned me onto it. It can purchased at Amazon. Then use some matte gel to "tease up" the water effects you like. You can even do the "splats" where bullets hit the water!

The shipmodel forum guy may be good for open water, but I think you are going for a beach diorama. Over on the water effects forum, you can see plenty of people have put styrene tanks and resin figures in LiquiTex with no issue.

Good luck in whatever medium you choose!

To whoever suggested or arranged for the name of this thread to be corrected by adding the proper capitalization - THANK YOU!

To talk about D Day and the deaths of US soldiers and to not capitalize your headline sir, borders on gross insult.

On another related matter; while during any major military action, whether in the Atlantic or Pacific Theaters, the day of the attack and the hour were referred to as D Day, H hour.

However the expression D Day in the context as you are using it almost exclusively refers to June 6th, 1944 in Normandy, France. However you may be doing a Pacific Theater diorama. It is hard to tell precisely.

One of many secondary reasons for this website to exist is to teach proper military history. That being the total reason why I bring this information to your attention. As a graduate of VMI I am sure you know of these matters already.

Steve,
Here's what I recommend-- start with a sheet of ply or finish wood to fit the project you have in mind-- it doesn't need to be thick, just enough to support the successive steps- they'll even cut it for you if you buy it at Home Depot or Lowes. Then, using either the green florist styrofoam (large pore type, not the really soft fine florist foam), or extruded foam insulation board from Home Depot or Lowes, cover the wood board to whatever depth you want with the Styrofoam, you can glue sheets together to get the depth you want--the best glue I've found for Styrofoam products is Liquid Nails, which comes in a caulking type tube. Glue it up, let it dry overnight, then use a forming tool (it looks like a small cheese grater with a handle) to carve any shapes you want in the foam-- technically you can shape the whole thing, from the rock shingle to the beach to the waves out of several pieces of foam glued to the wood. Then cover the foam with a thin coat of Spackle or plaster (I prefer Durham's Water Putty for maximum hardness). You can add sand or ground foam for texture. You can "tint" Durham's with acrylic paints to get the shade you want (it comes in a round can as a powder-- you add water to mix). Once you have the foam/plaster base in the shape you want, paint it to suit-- water is darker in the depths, working to a lighter shade on the wave tops--finally to white for whitecaps or engine wakes. The beauty of this method is you can use the forming tool to carve out "troughs" for the LCVP hulls and other objects before adding the plaster. once you have your base finished, you can coat the water part with Liquitex (found at Michaels or Hobby Lobby) clear gloss as Patrick indicated, and for really rough water, you can use clear quick drying silicone caulk teased up while drying--you can also use this to seal in the LCVP to the surrounding water (it should be available at any hardware store-- I like the GE brand-- you can clean it up with water if need be) You can paint this too, especially to get the white cap look.
This should get you started. For those that don't know-- Steve and I went to Armor Officer Basic together in 1976-- its a really small world! It's amazing that two guys with the same modeling interests would cross paths again 40 years later in their 60's!
VR, Russ

To Michael. I dont know what your issue is. I didnt touch anything nor did anyone make a suggestion. And nothing I would ever do would or should ever be considered a gross insult to those who served.If you note throughout this thread i dont capitalize very much.. Just a quirk i guess

Russ thanks for the durham water putty tip. I imagine i will be using quite a bit and look to simplify. I figured to put a layer of quarter inch styrofoam down so i could get a bit of depth removed from lcvp...that and no props or rudders. Found a new set of figures that gor recently got released. So other than dead and wounded i have ample

Steve,
Durham's Water Putty comes in two sizes of cans, 1lb or 2 lbs, It's a powder, and you mix it with water like plaster, in any consistency you want. The 1lb can will go a long way depending on how you mix it. I've had mine what seems like forever, and have made probably 6-8 dios ranging from about 6"x6" up to 12"X12" with about 1/4" coating on each, and I still have half of a can left. It dries within a couple of hours, and is rock hard overnight, much harder than spackle or plaster.
VR Russ

Steve

I'll be following this, thanks for starting it annnd...

Thanks to all who've given tips on "doing" water, fascinating stuff for me, as I've never done water but wish too!!!

Sincerely
Dave

There are considerable figure sets out there right now. A few have been mentioned earlier. Master box has 2 interesting sets US Infantry July 44. and Move Move Move Us Soldiers Operation Overlord. LOL most of the figures carry M-1's

Already mentioned Master box D-day and Dragon 29th Infantry I also have the old European Theater by Tamiya and i picked up a Dragon Pelilu as it had a medic treating a wounded. Dead soldiers are available from Verlinden A marine and a European soldier set/. Figure rearange and swap out some equipment and how you paint them oughta meet your needs I have purchased an Italerie Telegraph pole set so i can build the long wooden obstacles. The Tamiya barricade set logs are for smaller ones...though will probably use the pieces for supports

Steve, just remember that the Dragon Peleliu figures are USMC, their utilities differ from the Army's and IIRC the canteen covers in the kit have the crisscrossed flaps which were unique to the Marines. Gonna have to keep an eye on this one.

Thx John i will be sure to replace them

Steve, let it roll, dude. There are those that get hung up on spelling (me) and proper use of grammar (me again) and I never thought that you meant any disrespect to anyone!

Hope you do well with the water. Russ Bucy helped me a lot. The worst part is the 72 hour wait between pours because you don't want to pour more than 1/4" at a time. The best part is using the LiquiTex gel to make waves. As it is setting, you can "tease" it up into shapes. After this dio, I am going to set aside a day and a jar just to see what effects I can do.

Hmmmm... I just had a thought about my next project... I am sure it has been done before but I will need to see...

Anyway, great idea for a dio and I hope you get it to work. Let me know if I can be of any help!

Steve, if someone mentions D Day to me I automatically think 6th June so don't sweat it. It' the only operation universally referred to as D-Day so pas de probleme. Have you thought about creating your own corpses using a bit of surgery? I started an Omaha dio years ago which went on the back burner (and still is) and had the same problem. I modified some of the DML figures by swapping arms and legs about, sawing then pinning arms and legs in positions that looked realistic then obviously rebuilt the gaps in between with putty/filler. A quick internet search of "dead soldiers" brings up a rather morbid collection of photos but very useful for getting dead figures in lifelike positions. It is quite frustrating sometimes that nobody manufactures dead or wounded figures but we have to be grateful for the choices we have I suppose, especially Allied figures as there seems to be five German sets for every Allied one if not more.