Hello all! Been a long time post on any forums so hopefully this works right.

Anyway I've started working on a dio for Takom's 42cm beast of a kit. I usually stick to WWII or modern stuff but I like big artillery pieces and Big Bertha is a classic. I'm not going to focus on the building of the kit so much but more on the construction of the base and scene.

First, some layout pics:

The Mercedes is a stand-in for a munitions truck or wagon. I'm honestly having trouble finding WW1 era German trucks or accessory equipment. The Mr. Thinner is a stand-in for an evergreen.

Going to keep an eye on this Devin.
Strange to see an American using Metric measurements.I'm old school Canadian and still go by inches.So how big is it?Sorry to lazy to look it up.

Tom

I know they're hard to find,but they're out there.Tanks and trucks.Try MiniArt.

Tom,

The base will be about 12 inches by 19 inches. The Big Bertha is about 13 x 7 and about 9 inches tall as I have the barrel positioned.
I'll do a comparison shot of it with my other "in-progress" artillery pieces.

Got the actual base framed out and ready for groundwork

Next step is to "fill in" the frame with "terrain". In this case I'm using 3/4" insulation foam. I use this stuff to cut plywood on since you can run your circular saw right through it and it even supports the plywood.



My little helper is the reason one of the legs on the Gun is scratch built. Apparently a cat snuck in and played it off the work bench, later to be consumed by the "middle child".

After some trial and error I basically came to the shape I was looking for.




Some white glue and toothpicks to hold it in and left to dry over night.

This is going to be awesome. I love the concept. I know ICM makes a WWI US Ambulance and I know there are resin versions of WWI German trucks out there. I hope you find the kits you need to complete this. I'll be following your work. Good luck.

Did Scale Link have any German WW II trucks in their line? Perhaps a search run would be fruitful

Hi Devin ,

nice project you've started to build , wish you a lot of succes and a happy New Year .

Kurt

I've used scale link in the past, great source for obscure subjects. But, alas, no luck on German trucks.(or I'm completely overlooking something) Lots of British, Italian, and French options in resin though. I've found a lot of options in 1:76. I may just have to breakdown and get something and scale up to 1:35th. The search continues...

Aviattic makes a German Marienfelde Lorry. It's in 1/32 scale, but given the size of the gun, the scale difference might not be too noticeable.

Looking great Devin,
I use Bank pins,Should be able to find them at a fabric store.
Quite large almost the size of a finishing nail,but much longer.Nice thing,once the glue sets you can can pull them out and reuse. A box will last for years.

Tom

I actually was looking at that as an option. I found one on everyone's favorite auction site but it quickly became to rich for my blood. I still may breakdown and order one from Aviattic though.

Looks great so far! This is going to be a great diorama.

Thanks for sharing

Today's Progress: CelluClay!



The recesses were made by pressing Bertha in sloppy CelluClay with a grocery bag in between the model and the paper mache. Unfortunately I didn't get any progress pics of that as it was quite messy.

Today we get muddy!
at least in the sense I'll be making some mud for the dio.
I have found that acrylic texture gel is a wonderful base material for making mud.
While the texture gel I have has sand in it, I wanted a more fibrous and grainy mud to make things more interesting.
Fortunately the 2 things I have in abundance are dog and cat hair, and sawdust.
Firstly I cut the dog hair into short bits.




Next I gather a copious amount of sawdust and prepare to mix with texture gel and coloring.

Mix the ingredients and finally add coloring

Voila! Mud!

For the colorant I used a secret recipe of ancient Testors paint and turpentine. Even though the paint is enamel and texture is water-based, everythign mixes well and is very workable.

I probably won't get around to putting any on the dio today as the celluclay is still a little damp.

Your mud looks awesome. I was just surfing looking for ways to make good mud and dirt. Great post.

1st application of mud today. The lighter stuff is just the mud color mixed with fine texture gel. Everything will eventually get airbrushed anyways to even out color and to highlight dryer areas.

Thanks Mark. If I had to do over I'd add a little more coarse texture - maybe less fine sawdust, more chunky stuff.

Close up shot of the various textures.

Hi Devin - this is looking really good - nice work. I use the acrylic gel too - I like the type with various sizes of pumice mixed in - it's a remarkable product. Seems once you get comfortable with it you can use it for all sorts of purposes - though, I still haven't been brave enough to sling it onto a vehicle for mud!

Looking forward to your next post -
Cheers
Nick

The challenge for any WW1 gun emplacement is the MOUNTAIN of spent shells. If there was a cost-effective way to replicate them, I would be all over this model because of its role at Verdun.

I hear you Bill. I have a shell casing from an old RPM kit, however, it is only 1. I have been waiting to do some resin casting until I have enough other things to make a bunch of molds for.