The good news is, I've had a ton of practice and I'm actually really okay with re-starting things as long as I learned valuable lessons.
Luckily for me, I've learned so much in the last 7 years that this Carentan diorama has gotten better, though slowly, over time.
I'm retired now and have a lot more time to put towards working on the diorama, which makes me feel excited and happy. I've learned to enjoy the detail work as that is what makes the whole scene shine.
Back in 2011, there wasn't nearly as much information on the Overlord campaign as I needed in order to accurately represent the diorama, and I wasn't as good at doing my research and due diligence. I've learned that the research stage never really stops. Here's the original thread on this project.
I originally based this diorama off the show Band of Brothers. I love that mini-series and overall, I think it's really well done. But it turns out quite a bit of the Carentan scene layout was inaccurate at best, and non-existent in the real Carentan at worst. This made my original research essentially null and void. I have since found a lot more accurate information, photos, and narratives about the battle that took place there since 2011. I feel much more confident in my restart of the base and later on, the buildings.
These inaccuracies were first noticed as I was researching the factory. I popped into Google Earth to check out the town to see if my original layout on my base was even accurate. Of course it wasn't!
There is some elevation that I hadn't considered, so I took that into account when I started the base over. I got lucky and found a perfect piece of wood wrapped in some sort of white paper-like stuff in our basement! It's the perfect size (actually a bit smaller which means a bit more workable, I think) and measured out the roads in Google Earth before drawing them up on the base. Here's some of the research process:
A capture of the overview of the town as it is today - with the German machine gun nest noted inside the Cafe building. There was no Cafe de Normandie, but a Cafe Du Stade, now with a new lower store-front.
Here are some photos I capture from Google Earth of the area I am depicting in the diorama:
This last photo shows the elevation. To the left in the photo is where E Co. entered the town. Behind the pharmacy is a small alleyway that ends with a near direct-view of the Cafe. I can't find any information (yet!) on the original building or store that was here before the pharmacy. Right across the street of the pharmacy (to the right in the photo) is the Cafe.
Here is the new-new-new base of the part of the town I am depicting, which includes most of what is pictured above:
I am cutting the street from foam and "stamping" the cobblestones on and I decided to use cork for the hill.
That's basically all I've gotten done since last week's re-start. I am 'retired' now, so I've got a lot more free time to dedicate to my hobby! I am getting married soon which has been taking up a lot of my energy, but I'm not complaining about that at all!
Thanks for checking out my super slow progress on this project!
