Whipped this one up over the weekend... basically, a jeep has broken down during the winter in a wooded area. While working on the jeep in the middle of the road, a German patrol stumbles across his troubles...

Interesting points about this dio:
- Trees were made using LeMax series, and 'painted' with whitel plaster.
- Jeep is an old Italeria product. I made the tarp roof from scratch (an article in itself!), because one doesn't come with the kit.
- The tool chest on the front bumper is from the Italeri "field tool shop kit"... a favorite... I probably by 5-6 of these each year!

I do have one additional piece to add to the scene... a directional sign post that is covered in snow and icicles (there are a few on the trees as well), but i still have to finish the map research to correctly place the distances and directions before painting them on the sign.

30+ images of this dio are in My Gallery, under the album "Bad Timing". Here are just a few to tease....













Comments welcome!

Ola Keith

Well your off on a good start here and the concept of the dio is very nice. The positioning of teh figures and the story they tell is very good and I like the way you showed that the Jeep was malfunctioning and that it was under repair. I also like your trees they look pretty convincing.
One thing I`m not so really impressed about is your snow. Especially on the trees. It looks a bit messy. Some branches have snow some don`t. And at the bottom of the tree the whole trunk is surrounded by snow. Wich even when it is a Blizzard will not happen. When is snows heavily usually only one side of the tree will gather a good layer of snow while the other side remains untouched. When the wind turns the snow will simply/melt fall off and then the other side of the tree will receive a good coat of snow. I found a couple of pics on the web to back my story up


Also when you look at the branches in your dio you`ll see that some of them are covered by snow and some aren`t, quite random. When it snows everything gets covered except the places the snow can`t reach (Underside of the branches) Again I found a couple of pics of this phenomenon:


Well as you see I took pictures of quite extreme cases of heavy snowfall (at least for Holland we never get so much snow) Also I noticed the Blobs of snow in the trees. Unless it is cold enough to freeze them in place they will fall down due to their own weight.
The snow on the jeep looks quite good though you migth wanna add more to the little nooks, crannies and corners such as the footboards and places that won`t be touched often during 1 ride. What I really miss from the medium you used for your snow is the cold appearance. The snow on the sides of the road looks too hard like it is frozen. It lacks the soft snow feeling in wich you dissapear with your complete foot.I took a pic from your gallery:

The snow would be more convincing if the guy standing there would be in about 8 to 10 cm snow if you get what I mean.
I like your wet road. Looks like the road already had some travel before the incident in your dio. It also seems if there is a crack running in your groundwork visible in the first pic at the right side.

Well besides my snowy critics I must say that the concept is really really good and the figures fit the scene. I`m no proffesional myself but this is what I noticed in your dio of wich I think could have changed with a little more work. When I made DISTRACTION I found out myself how hard it is to do snow convincingly and I have tested and experimented with many products and ways of doing snow. At that time I made it with babypowder but also the Busch snow was promising at that time. I hope you don`t take this too personal but I hope a little bit that you will take another snow technique for your Stalingrad Factory dio as it would be a loss to see such a building being downgraded by not so cool snow.

Sorry for my harsh Critics

I like it! The scene shows the story itself! Congratulations!

hola, nice snow.

Faust - excellent post, and thanks for the photos. I will admit- here in Texas, we get very little snow - so I am not totally used to the terrain specifics. However, I think I can easily chip away the snow from one side of most of the trees... to give a more directional view. i actually did that on the "Hansa" project... I figured that the sun exposed to the East and West as the sun moved would thin or eliminate most snow on those sides of the brick walls. On the North there is the most snow, and a bit less on the South side. Wouldn't this be correct?

As for the other snow comments in this particular dio... yes - I was actually going for "frozen ice" on the road, as opposed to soft flakey stuff. Tell me if my logic is wrong here, as I went by the only prolonged experience I had with snow (winter in Philadelphia) :

The wet snow in the road is always melting and refreezing, and as such is more like ice with some snow cover, rather than the soft stuff as it falls from the sky.

Also, the "bank" of dirty snow would represent the accumulation of snow blown from the roadway, which is exposed to black exhaust... thereby giving a bit of a black-grey tint.

Similar "dirty snow" is caked on the wheel wells of the jeep, and the sides, like in the tool storage area, and the crevices of the jeep itself. I actually have quite a bit of this snow in the recessed areas, but since it is brownish, I think it may be hard to tell in the photo against the olive drab of the jeep itself.

The feet of the soldier standing in the snow has already been fixed...this was actually a planned revision. I couldn't get the figure into the snow until I had placed the figures. Then I came back and "sunk his feet" a bit. I used simple white paint in the photos so I could get something uploaded this evening.

There are a few other similar modifications still to be made, like more icicles on the limbs of the trees, and the tire in the ditch.

Finally, thanks for mentioning the crack in the snow. bank.. this must have happened as the plaster dried in place (it was quite thick, to support better sculpting). I didn't see it, but can fix it easily enough I believe.