Hi everyone,
Not sure if I posted this one or not, this is my second ever dio I did a few years ago...Tamiya's Marder III, Verlinden building, first attempt at rubble, bricks are hand made out of clay, and Tamiya's Front Line Infantrymen set. If I posted this here before, my apologies.....
enjoy.
-Kelly

Kelly nice dio man, nice marder also and good weathering to.
The rubble is also nice can you tell me what you used for the rubble and how you made it.

Greetz Rob!

First of all, let me say that you have build a beautiful diorama, with some very impressive paintjobs.

I especially like the amoount of rubble, it looks very convincing. Details such as the shells casings for the MG42 and blackened walls just makes it even better.

If I had to critizise something, it would be that the Marder looks a bit too clean, taken the amount of dust it would hurl up into consideration. But it's just a small thing, and is probably due to the photo.

I like the MG42 gunner in the upstairs. Rubble looks great. The Marder is well done.

Kelly,

looking darn good dude. Impressive pile of, very good looking, rubble you did there. I love the diorama.

Two, nitpicking, point that attracted my attention :

1. The vehicle looks a bit too clean... it lacks some dust you would expect looking at the rubble next to it.

2. The vehicle looks to be "on top of" the rubble in stead of being in it. Perhaps dusting the vehicle with a bit of pastels resolves this idea.

Like I said, it's nitpicking.... a very impressive diorama !!

Hey guys, thanks for the comments!
Yes the dio is about three years old or so (learned ALOT since then!) I agree that the marder needed a little more weathering. Acutally, this summer I went back and "reworked" the scene a bit, I added some Mig Pigments Brick dust to the rubble and the marder, so it's a little more in tune with the scene. The shellcasings are made from stretched sprue and painted gold. The mortar on the edges of the walls is a mix I make, using fine rail ballast, Testors Flat Gull Grey Enamel and a stiff old brush. I just mix the two into a paste and brush it on the surface. When dry, it's solid, and takes a wash very well.

Rubble: Basically it's just plaster and bits of wood. I pour a little slab of plaster (I have since started adding colorant into the mix) I smash it all up with a hammer and bag it up into ziploc bags. I paint up a ton of bits of wood including balsa, toothpicks, etc. The bricks are handmade from self hardening clay and dyed in a brick coloured house stain. I then mix the ingredents into a jar, and pour it out and glue it down, wash, drybrush, etc.

A very well thought out dio and the paint work is very well done
the weathering on the tank is great and the positions of the figures are great also angain great work.

Ron

Wow I really like it! The ruin and the rumble looks great!

KellyZak, nice build great blend of eveything, figs. Marder, ground work, building. It conveys motion in a hard to move destroyed area.- Cheyenne

Ya know what on looking at it again I think the Marder is plenty dirty, it's the crew thats to clean. All in all a great build.- Cheyenne

Looks great Kelly, kinda reminds me of the fighting in Rammel, in Saving Private Ryan, great work!
cheers

Supurb. I am wondering why the tankers are wearing helmets like the men around them. Obviously they are in direct combat. Other than that, a very convincing dio with flaws few and far between, to say nothing of irrelevant.

Jeff

Well thats a nice dio for sure . I love the amount and quality of the rumble first of all . The building looks nice and the laying of the rumble around it also looks nice. I d agree that the tank is a bit clean and fresh for a fighting machine and needs some "bad" treatment to get in more fighting look .
I d also consider of making the trucks some more stepping on the ground cause they look a bit on the airt , or on the rumble to be more precise !!!!. Good work in all

Costas

I like this dio. It's simplicity evokes a sense of power and simple understanding. Very nice.

It would be good if you can add some more details aside from bricks...maybe broken glass, furniture, crates, even a small wrecked or abandoned vehicle. Although the dio is full of bricks, there are still a lot of "open spaces" in the sense that there are not enough OTHER materials except than bricks and building structure rubble.

Another thing is that the Marder is "not heavy" looking, meaning it is resting on the bricks. Remember, it's a heavy vehicle. One suggestion to remedy this might be to add a little rubble around and on the tracks. Just a small amount will do so that the tracks will have the impression of being "sunk" in to the bricks.

A little more weathering would also make that Marder look even greater. A bit of rust and dust will do wonders. You can use pastels or washes for this.

But don't get me wrong. This is a very beautiful diorama.

Angela

Great arrangement of the figures. Supporting MG while the rest advance. Good layout. The tracks could do with a lot more dust. Although I'm not the best person to make judgments.

I'm interested in the bombed out building. Custom Dioramics is it or Verlinden? The brick walls I get from here Tamiya looks very plastic, very new, ie....very bad.

Ciao Kelly,
Beautiful job on the dio! It looks wonderful. I won't echo the good suggestions made by the others, but I think that Jeff has a point. The crew is awfully brave to be standing up in the cab like that without helmets. I mean, if the one soldier is throwing a grenade, that means the enemy could easily throw grenades back (and the first thing they will go for is that tank.)
Ciao for now
Rob

Very nice job. Do more and show us more.

Sealhead

Thanks everyone for the comments and suggestions....as I said before, this was my second ever dio, and I've learned alot since this one. I've learned to add a little rubble around the tracks to help the tank "sit" a little better. As for the helmet issue, this was at a time when I didn't really know about AM products, and stuff like AM heads and such, although I have seen quite a few pics of "in action" scenes where helmets were not on the guys' heads, and they're still wearing their hats. I guess you can chalk it up to a sudden attack, and they've got no time to put 'em on! LOL :-)

Angela, thanks for the suggestions for adding stuff like glass, etc. I do have a pic of the back of the building where there is a Russian casualty and I did scratch a table, although it's not the best, and it is semi buried in rubble.

Mondo, the building is a Verlinden piece, I believe it's called "City House Ruin"? It was donated by a friend, he wasn't going to use it.

Thanks again everyone!
-Kelly