Hi to you all,
Here are some pictures of my first (to be) diorama in progress. It's set in Kosovo. It's suposed to be a Portuguese check point in a remote road, and three civilians are aproaching, very couriusly, to ask for light for their cigarettes. I would appreciate any comments and suggestions! Thank you very much in advance!
Cheers and happy modelling!


Moderator Edit - I changed these from thumbnails to the full image dropped the total # down to make load time faster - There are more in the Gallery - check them out.

Looks pretty good so far for a beginer.

This sounds like a very interesting diorama, Kinda getting tired of those Action dios.

Looks good!

Your off to a good start. Looks like a neat little dio. Good luck lighting the butt with no arms!

That is a very nice idea, Prato. I like it; it's simple and unique due to the fact that it does not have war or battles as a theme.

I haven't been to Kosovo but I think the grass at the soldiers side of the dio is too tall. You may want to cut it a bit. Also, they form in clumps.

There is a feature here that tells you how to scratchbuild bottles. Maybe you can add a few to the dio, too.

It's looking pretty good.

Angela

wow tha looks intresting
i agree with Angela, maybe u need cut off the long grass
or is there any corn farm there?

Prato, what figures are those? Do you plan on cutting off the green bases the figures are attached to or just blending them in with the terrain? I like the camo pattern on the two figures. Nice set up so far. Keep us posted. "Q"

I agree with the others on the grass, looks too tall. Lots of nice details,otherwise and the figures look to be coming along well, too.

Thanks for the comments guys!
Angela, the grass is to be cut to a smaller size. It's just that it came with this size and I thought it was better to glue it like this and then cut it while on the base.

Matthew, These are a mixture between Dragon's modern German Paratropers (the upper body) and Airfix's (still the old boxes) WWII US Marines (legs) with scratch built pockets. The green bases are just supports to paint the figures and try them on on the dio.

Once again thanks for your kind comments! I'll keep you posted with more news!

Cheers and happy modelling!
Prato
Al thank you very much for your kind help on how to post the photos!

Waht I do with taht grass is fold a bundle over and hold it in a clamp. I then tie off a couple legths and apply a drop of superglue at the tie off point. I then cut at the tie and insert it into the hole. The clumps re denser and rounder than the grass itself and I get 2 or 3 clumps from each bumdle. I also tried doing this but using the folded section as the top and cutting the fold withan #11 blade. This gave me a less uniform height to the clump.
For examples of what this looks like, click on "My Photos" and rumage around my gallery.

Thank you very much for your tip Al! I'll take that in mind for future uses.
Cheers and happy modelling!
Prato

Its always interesting to dios with civilians, and yours is coming along very nicely. Looking forward to seeing it done.

Hey there prato thats a great lookin dio....reminds me of that other dio called "negotiating bosnian style" or something like that. I like the composition of it although with the grass i noticed they were all spaced around an inch from eachother, so i would suggest making some small clumps of grass in between some of the spaces so it doesnt look to staged, as in nature things grow randomly. I would cut your grass about half the height and then create some more grass half the size of that...or 1/3 of the size. Just giving u some tips! Looks like u have some beautiful resin stuff to paint....should be fun!
Ian

Thanks for the tip Ian, I also thought there was something funny with the grass, but couldn't figure out what it was! Now that you mention it, I must agree with you! thanks a lot for the remark!
Cheers and happy modelling!
Prato

Prato your dio is a nice one. I like your figure conversion and the work you have done on them with the paint. the diorama will prove to be an interesting one I agree with the rest about the grasses on the one side. AJLaFleche had a great idea for how to make the grass into clumps. What I usually do is take some of the long grass as it is in your pics and vary the height of it as I hold it in my hand then i twist it in a place closer to one end and place a drop of superglue there. I do this again close to the opposite end too when the glue is dry i cut the center piece of grass between the glue spots (at an angle) and then cut directly in the middle of the glue spots and i have just created 4 clumps of grass from one small bundle. Hope the little tip helps. Well enough about grass. I am looking forward to seeing progress pics on this. Cheers Kevin

Thank you very much for the compliments and for one more kind helping tip Kevin! It helps a lot!
Cheers and happy modelling!
Prato