Hey guys..... Just finishing up this model and starting on a small display base and I'm totally lost right now. I for the life of me can not think about what to add to the display so I come to the professionals to get input.

So give me your ideas, I'm totally open. I did this little subject to test out some new products and techniques so I'm just wanting to keep it somewhat simple and not looking to spend a ton of hours on the build

Untitled by Jeff, on Flickr

Untitled by Jeff, on Flickr

ok; i'll take one for the team here. is it in mud or snow?

Nice job Jeff and I thought I was the only guy in the entire world who’d ever built the C7P! Here’s what I did with it (re-purposed by Russian arty at Kursk)...



But yours looks like it’s lost its tracks in what I’m guessing must be snow. It’s a Polish artillery tractor but your replacement precludes putting a howitzer nearby & I’m not sure finding a Polish field piece is that easy anyway. It was obviously used by Polish forces in Sept/Oct 1939 (so your summer camo scheme is perfect)…maybe a couple of over-coated German infantry could be looking at this derelict a few months later during the winter – maybe they’ve just driven up in a white-washed Kubelwagen?

Alternatively you could just go ghoulish and put a couple of decomposing Polish soldiers peeping through the snow

It will actually be a bit muddy ideally, I'm thinking a soft field after a fresh rain. It is just the first base layer that I put down so it dried light and the camera showed it even lighter than it is. I wanted to get ideas on fencing, a small building, rock wall, any terrain features before I put grass and dirt down. I should have been more informative about it just being the base start.

Wow Tim, I sure wouldn't have thought I'd see another one either. Super job, I love the accessories. I bought it long ago...assembled it and then for whatever reason (likely for bigger tougher meaner subjects) I boxed it and stored it. Now many years later I pulled it out to finish.

It hasn't lost it's tracks I still need to install them and do the final weathering, I just wanted to get started on the base.
I still have to install the tracks and final weathering

Hi,if you turn your vehicke around it coyld be towing an artillery piece. Alternatively you could have an artillery piece in frontcof it in firing position.

Another option is a German half-track being readied to recover it.Or a couple of smaller German vehicles passing in front of an abandoned vehcle driven off the road and out of the way of the advancing troops.

Regards Jason

If it's appropriate for the location, you could put in some sort of road sign.

It is a fairly large base for the size of the vehicle, so your challenge will be to make it less bare and more interesting. A fence requires something on the other side. A large base also calls out for figures to add life.

You could have part of a ruined building, which you can make up from plaster yourself, or a barn from wood strip, low cost.

Ideas:




the remnant of an abandoned observation/artillery pit? Add some soil on top of what you have to create a berm that they hid behind:


and add a discarded tarp (maybe a shredded one from returned artillery fire?)


You could even have the remnant of an aircraft that crashed. It does not have to be recognisable, just a jumble of wing parts made from flat styrene stock and wire.

Google for inspiration.

I always remind myself that a diorama must tell a story. What story can you tell with a damaged tractor?

A repair effort?
Being inspected by the enemy?
After the battle? (Abandoned among the debris)

All come to mind...

Good luck