Well my 1st attempt at a diorama, titled "Dogs of War", is nearly complete..I just need to finish painting one more figure (He'll be sitting on the closed ammo crate) and add a few collar devices to one or two of the figures present. The scene depicts a Tiger 1 crew stopping for a respite/reload interval during the winter of 1943, and while resting are met by a pair of Feldgendarmerie (German MPs). Of course, you can't meet a German Shepherd Dog and not want to pet him, as one of the crew does! The figures are a mix of Tamiya, Verlinden, Revell-Germany, Dragon/DML,and Esci. The dog-lover is a conversion of several of them.The tree was scratch-built from wire and Sculpy clay.More pictures are on my website, www.ScaleWarbirds.com.Enjoy the photos!

Hi james
Thats a real nice dio there good little story and a change from the norm love the snow and the foot prints and paw prints the tree is very effective what did you use for snow?.
Only thing i would do is put some track marks in the ground if you still can chew the ground up a bit mud and snow sort of thing or if its been parked up a while and the snow has covered the tracks, put some on the tank to give that idea other than that a great dio,nice onre mate
Cheers Chris

As I am not a diorama expert by any means and this being your first, I will keep this too a minimum.

For the good: your snow is great, especially in the tracks. The colors of the vehicle and the snow set each other out. The Tiger and its weathering to awesome. The rust and stains are subtle but striking. Your figures are really good, especially the dogs. Your composition is really good, with the Tiger offset to the side.

For the improvements: Personally, given the snow, I would tone down the skin of the soldiers. I would also tone down the blonde's hair, it is pretty yellow. The Tiger guys can clarify me on this, but a little more rust on the rear hull plate. I can't see much of the tread tracks in the snow not sure if that is because of the image or what. I am reluctant to say this, but I also thing you need to tone down the tank numbers. They stand out way too much (from an asthetic point of view it looks great, I am just not sure about accuracy). The cross too looks too clean compared to the vehicle. For the cross, you can take a white or gray acrylic color (Tamiya works best for this as it dries insanely fast), apply it somewhat liberally over the decal. Let it sit for about five seconds and then lightly smear it off with a paper towel. You can experiment with this technique on a piece of stock card (paint a part of the stock card and try the technique). It better blends in the decals.

Overall, the successes of your dio far outweigh the things that can be further improved upon on this diorama or the next one around. I look forward to any new ones you have.

Jeff

Great first dio!! Looking forward to seeing more works from you. As for critiques, everything that I see has been mentioned already. Cheers Kevin

Thanks guys, I really appreciate the input!! Beleive it or not, there are some moderately deep tracks behind the tank.....they just don't show well in the photos, I guess!? I plan to airbrush them a bit to replicate the ground beneath. Yeah, some of the skin tones are pretty "Miami Vice".... I gotta work on that!Anyways, the techiques I used I learned right here on Armorama; what an outstanding site!! I also used Lynn Kelsy's book "How to Build Armor Dioramas" from Kalmbach...really awesome book if you do not have it! This was fun!

JK

would this scene be in russia?

if so, consideing the fact there is no mud tracks under the snow, it impossible of snow to be on the side of the tanks. try putting loose baking soda in the cracks on the top the the tanks, thats were snow would be if it hasnt been removed. even if the tank was advancing quickly, there would be snow in the cracks, jsut not as much and everywere.

this could be put aside if it was spring and the snow was melting because your wno on the ground tooks "thick solid" but then you would need to remove the snow sitting on the front of the tank. the solid look can be removed by spraying hte base with a coat of spray net and sifling baking poder on top( jsut a thin layer)

try to use an ab to make waves in the snow when the white glue and bakin soda mixture is drying( iam guessing thats what you used) to simulate hard wind.

for the comedy because there in a lot of dog prints around the tree you could add a stain of pee

that said and out of hte way, very good job the tank is awsome! realy caugth my eye, and the figures are awsome!

Frank

Hi Frank,

It's really funny you noticed the paw prints near the tree....I am going to add a pee stain, just haven't gotten to it yet!! Great minds think alike! There are tank tracks behind it, I just finished airbrushing in the "mud"...I'll post pics tomorrow, Remember...this work isn't completely finished yet! Thanks for the encouragement,

James

That's a great dio. I especially love the weathering of the tank and the natural positions of the soldiers.

One comment, though. I have the DML Feldengarmerie kit. I don't know if it's just me but I find the German Sheperds too small and thin.

Angela

I really like this dio. I think that the tank looks really great as far as the weathering goes. I do however feel that it could use a bit more snow over it, and a bit more dirty feel to the snow tracks...But as you said earlier you will do this later. I love the german shepards, i think they look great. I think their size is perfect. If you notice most shepards in real life, ones that are used for work, ex: police type dogs, are usually trim and very muscular. Great Job!...Can't wait to see it after you make the minor adjustments that you plan..
Mary (++)

Thank You ladies, your comments are appreciated! Angela, as Mary pointed out, German Shepherd Dogs (GSD) are typically between 60 - 80 pounds for females, and 80 - 100 pounds for males. Of course, there are always outliers in each, but these dogs seem appropriate.And, maybe they're young and still growing! The one getting petted was painted to match the colors of my black & tan GSD, Treassa. She's 70 pounds at 8 months of age and wil grow another 4 or 5 months (!). Anyways, I hope to finish this project up today and get back to work on my TBM Avenger.

Good effort so far. I like the composition. The tank is well painted - good job. Things I would look at a little closer:

1. Camo uniform - this is a Lenningrad Tiger, that makes the scene predate the camo pattern you are using.

2. Water streaks would be a great addition to the tank. It was deployed before the snow flew, thus it would have gotten dusty. Post snow, this would have streaked down all the verticle sides.

3. Tank rear. Living in the great white north, and getting to drive on snow covered dirt roads regularly, snow would accumulate on the rear of the tank - the whole rear, stopping where the rear plate joins the sides and engine deck. It would melt around the mufflers and guards, and even form icicles.

4. When snow falls around trees, especially if its windy, the leeward side forms a depression, or carve out in the snow. The snow you have is not that deep, the figs are not upto their hips, thus some ground would be showing through in this carve out.

Overall a good effort so far - keep at it!

Hi James,
first of all,the overall looks great.congrats for the good built. just a few points ; the track prints behind the Tiger should be deeper than the foot prints..i think the ground will be visible under the snow with the heavy weight of Tiger. A roadsign can give more info about the location of the diorama.... and the cover of the water bottle is metal
bestest regards

hey john, great minds do think alike :-) but what seperates us to is i havnt been able to get a good looking tank liek your tiger lol.

what john said in parts 3 and 4 should be taken in consideration. tehre should be weeds, some areas of grass, and mud were your vehicles circulted.

also i jsut remembered that for your tree, you can put snow on one side of the tree(on the trunk) if lets say there was a big snowstorm that day, or a few days ago.

ex: if there wind was blowing to the south, the north side of hte tree would have snow on the trunk

keep up the work

Frank

All good suggestions, and ones I will incorporate into my next diorama!! Here's a few shots of the finished scene:

Very cool! I love the pee stain. Heheehe....

How did you paint the dogs and what colors did you use in doing so? I haven't painted a dog before but I want to paint one from Tamiya.

I love the dio.

Angela

Nice effort , there , especially for first one u did it .nicely, i wont say again whats already said, so just wish u keep on dioraming !!!