Hi all,

After more than 15 year break from military scale modeling (mostly armor); I am trying to re-create this WW2 picture into a small diorama :

http://photos.yahoo.com/bc/alspix2099/vwp?.dir=/Cherbourg+Dio&.src=ph&.dnm=Cherbourg.jpg&.view=t&.done=http%3a//photos.yahoo.com/bc/alspix2099/lst%3f%26.dir=/Cherbourg%2bDio%26.src=ph%26.view=t

And I have made a card mock up before going into the actual diorama :
http://photos.yahoo.com/bc/alspix2099/vwp?.dir=/Cherbourg+Dio&.src=ph&.dnm=Cherbourg.jpg&.view=t&.done=http%3a//photos.yahoo.com/bc/alspix2099/lst%3f%26.dir=/Cherbourg%2bDio%26.src=ph%26.view=t

Or if you could not see the pictures, here’s the link :
'http://photos.yahoo.com/alspix2099'

As I am from South East Asia and not familiar with European houses, I hope this group could help me with the following matters :

1) Would it be appropriate to have a walkway leading to the stairs as indicated with light-yellow color ? And some stones as the border (gray dots)?
2) What about grass (green color), I don’t see any indication of grass in the original picture? What would likely to be the groundwork? And how about some flowers on the grass? What kind of flower? The scene was in Cherbourg, is it in France?
3) How about addition of windows (light blue squares)?
4) And what type of door (dark blue area) do they have?
5) How does the roof (brown colored area) look like?

The base boundary will be the black lines, and the colors are for showing the areas only. I am not going to paint the windows and door blue, but I just want to show the area on the diorama.

Well, so far those are my questions, I might come up with more! JJ
Any comments and inputs are welcome!

Thanks in advance,
Aripin
From Indonesia
http://www.isms.150m.com

Looks to my you're doing a red cross dio....can't see the pics.

Hi Zelda,

Welcome to ArmoramA.

About your questions:

Yes Cherbourg is in France, in the same peninsula where the landings of D-Day have been made.

Here at a ArmoramA thread Photos from Normandy you have links for some photos from that area.

At these links you have some photos that can give you some ideas about the area.

• D-Day: Etat des lieux



• D-Day



• Normandy

HTH

I have updated the posting so anyone of you can directly access the pictures at Yahoo.

Cheers,
Zelda

Hello zelda, welcome aboard !

Well, my interpretation of the photo is a bit different than yours ! To me, it looks like a garden wall.
The house in itself would be further away, behind it.
I have 2 reasons for this :
- the plants you can see dangling on top of the wall
- the door, that is typical...
The door looks very much like many steel doors that can still be found all around the country. The bottom half is a panel,
and the top part is made of bars. It's color could be dark green, dark red... well, dark something.

This is not the kind of door that you would find as entrance to a house, but for a garden it's perfect !
Such a garden wall would be placed directly alongside the pavement, and has little chance of being separated from it
by flowers. With this kind of old setting, the sidewalk has little chance of being a large one : probably enough space
for one person...

Cherbourg is in Normandy, in France. I cannot be too certain about style there as I've never been in that city.

I placed a few photos from houses and buildings on my yahoo album :
penpen's album

If you have some more questions or if my answers are not clear enough, go ahead !
That's a nice dio you're preparing !

Ok first I will say welcome to Armorama lol.Second,that pic is just disgusting man,I mean what is it?A dead German?If its not a dead German soldier then dont even make it man,its too mutilated.

JJ - take a look at the article on scratch-building dioramas in the FEATURES/SECTIONS -- Diorama... you may find some good tips for building up the background. Styrofoam board may work far better than cardboard when it comes to painting and surfacing the walls for texture.

As for the walkway -i might suggest more styorfoam board, covered with spackle or concrete patch paste, as this would make a fine walkway. But the photo of the scene looks like it was more likely a house located right on a roadway - not a sidewalk... can't really tell.

The door and windows can be any color you would like, but the most frequent colors for exterior paint in this area was white or dark green. They were readily available and cheap so therefore were used frequently.

The roof could be slate, tile, brick, or cedar shakes.. depends on what you feel most comforable modeling.

Best of luck - look forward to seeing your finished project. Doing a "photo build" is always FUN!

Keith

No... no! This looks like a young woman holding a child or a sack of posessions, hiding int the doorway of a building.... Certainly not a dead mutilated german!
==========================================================
Ok first I will say welcome to Armorama lol.Second,that pic is just disgusting man,I mean what is it?A dead German?If its not a dead German soldier then dont even make it man,its too mutilated.

"Americans love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle." -General George S. Patton, Jr.

This definitely looks like a dead German. His face does look kind of girly though :-) Hey, you can even see the top of the gas mask canister on the right side of the body (left side of the picture).

Cheers
Marty

First of all, I would like to thank all members who have responded. Frankly speaking I like this forum better since it has more colors (especially the flags )

Yes, it is a picture of dead German, I got it from :
http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/cherbourg.htm

The caption to this photo says :
"A dead German soldier who was one of the "last stand" defenders of German-held Cherbourg. Captain Earl Topley, who led one of the first outfits into the fallen city, said he likely killed three of his men."

As you can see there is a blood-trial underneath the German soldier's feet, and he is wearing a Zelthbann.

Is that a (broken) water pump at the back of the Captain?
Since this is a garden, then my "improvisation" of adding a cart will be appropriate, won't it ?

Anybody of you know where to find reference of "European" cart? :-)

Again, thanks guys!

Aripin

If this is the garden to a house, a cart in the garden may be a bit to much ! A wheelbarrpw may
be better... If you intend to place the kart in the street, no problem because anyone could have
left it there.

I actually think its amusing (maybe not the most suitable word) that there is a serious lack of dead figures. I know its morbid, but when you see knocked out tanks or vehicles and ruins, it would be great if there was a suitable supply of dead figures. A the end of the day, it is war. There seems to be a lot of injured figures around at the moment, but when are we going to get a set of 1/35 bodies? Who will be brave enough to release that one?

Verlinden has a few sets with dead soldiers...
but as many people around here I don't realy like to see dead people, so I feel even less
like modeling them...

I have been searching for the closest figure kit for my dio, and found out that (at this moment), Dragon German Grenadiers (East prussia 1945), figure #3 or #4; will be my base of conversion.

A conversion from one of wounded resin figures will be easier, but availability of resin figure is low in Indonesia due to high price.

Cheers,
Aripin