I finished the sketch of my new diorama but it need some advice i guess

I have a lost US convoy in an urban crossroad one side closed with baricades. In the diorama there will be a m26 pershing ,a m4a1 sherman ,a willy's jeep and maybe ,a gmc truck and lots of figures
I am posting the scan of the sketch


And also there are german panzerfaust teams and ss panzergrenaiders getting ready to attack maybe a sniper.

So it is kinda turns out to be an ambush.I am gonna scratchbuild everything except vehicles and figures.

Please if give me positive or negative feedback also recommendation and ideas will be really helpful.

Thank you,

Nice idea, sounds like you have thought through it.
It's very ambitious and very big. The space you will need to get potentially very large. Make sure you have a place to display it
Visually you may want to make one of the corners a destroyed building or a one story building. This will give the viewer a better overall view of the convoy. That is unless you Want to control points of view and force vieweres perspective and POV's down the road ways. That in itself may make for a unique dio.
Look for the articles on building buildings out of foam board in the Forums.

Looking good and yes, very ambitious!
Only thing I have to add is to decide what your main point is. If there are too many single scenes happening in your diorama, the viewer is easily distracted and may loose the whole general idea about what is happening. It doesn´t matter if you have large amount of figures, just try to keep the action reasonable. Teams working together etc. Some interaction between individuals, but not too much... #:-)

Most of all, good luck and have fun with it! This is out of my league!


Toni

I certainly like large dios, but for amount of building area you have outlined it will certainly be a major undertaking. Of course this depends on the condition of the buildings etc. I am assuming they are not completely bombed out?

As there really isn't a lot going on in the upper left-side of the sketch I would think about just removing that section and giving the illusion of a crossroads without actually having to build the buildings on one or two additional corners.

This will have another positive effect in that your subjects will be easier to view at ground level.

Cheers,
Jim

Oh...and those Germans are gonna get swiped by that Pershing.

Jim

I think that Jim and Envar have stated good points.
If you try to represent every street corner, it will block the field of view and it will be an enormous work.
All the german teams should be isible from only one side of the dio.

Good luck and keep us posted !

Nice idea. May be a bit over done. You may want to rethink how people (figures) walk into the ambush. Armor usually didn't drive into ambushes...

guys really thanks for your comments
i really liked them.
yes i think it is little bit over done and i am still debating excluding the germans from dio and also the left side too.
as far as i am scratchbuilding the diorama how can i learn or obtain good measurements
or references or even premeasured ones to scale down to 1/35

i can trust to my eyes or what should i do ?
because i am not planning to pay 14 bucks on a plaster piece if i can build the same thing for much less money.

Thanks

mmm...massive.
my dad would like to see it . He just like big scale diorama but doesnt built any.

start building!!!

At the moment Im trying to come to terms with one knocked out church and Im starting to get a bit fed up. I try to do something on other projects inbetween as well. Try and rationalize first what you must have and what maybe could be dropped... ie one whole side of the road, etc.
Finished size is a problem for me as well. I use A4 size picture frames as bases and am reluctant to go much bigger. I was thinking one time to make a series of dios on the same theme, that could stand individually and then for show purposes they could all be placed together as one huge dio. Couldnt come up with a good enough solution to hide the fit when placed together was my excuse for not going ahead with it.
But ........ if you do go ahead with this, good luck and Im sure it will be stunning. Im a fan of big Dios myself. I saw some Dios by Rhoad Williams (I think) that covered a table. And that stole my heart. Something to look for maybe.

You have a very creative idea there. I wish you luck on building this scene. One point though. There were so few Pershings in Germany at the end of the war they fought primarily with other Pershings and not in mixed units. In this situation you could sub out the M4 for another Pershing or take the Pershing out and bring in another M4. Otherwise the scene might looked to contrived - like one of each.

Just a thought

Sounds like mad fun!!! :-) :-) :-)
I think you should knock out one buildings and put one or two snipers and a couple of grenadiers, perhaps getting ready to attack???...
I like the idea of the SS grenadeirs around the corner!...
I also think think you should take out the barracaides to the south and make the convoy turn towards the waiting SS grenadiers.

Sounds like a really REALLY sweet dio!...
IF you can get some pic out cos I would really like to this built!
Good luck and have fun!... :-)
Cris

yes i 've thought that too.
and i think i am going to replace m4 sherman with a gmc 6x6 truck with loaded fuel barrels and supplies.

Does anyone know where can i get rtv 11 silicone and resin in PA.
I just moved here and really dunno around very well. it can be around reading, allentown.

I guess this dio will take some time to finish and i am planning on at least 3 to 4 maybe 5 months because i need to continue my normal life (as a student )
and spreading the dio out to 4 months helps financially too.

but when everytime i build something i'll definetely post them.

Yes,
A very ambitious undertaking especially in 1/35 scale .Also a great idea in of itself and so far you`ve gotten some great advice from your other replies.As far as finding your RTV/SIL supplies ,most good hobby shops wil help ,meaning yelloy pages ,or word of mouth via the internet in Pennsylvania.My case is a littie different ,origianally from Chicago ther are beaucoup shops w/ every thing under the sun.(I know because I woked at Al`s hobbies fof 2 years-as their UPS reciever ,Christmas every day ).I now live in the Springfield area down state and they offer vey little-but -since ive been taveling to ST. LOUIS I`ve hit the preverbial jack-pot.Besides VLS , Verlinden and at least a half a dozen grea hobby shops in the area I`ve attatched myself to a small but profound shop in my world.CRM Hobbies carries everything for the scale modeler and will gladly send you several sizes of RTV/SILICON depending on what you need .Call or e-mail Chis Merseal at 1-314-645-1117 e-mail to crm@inlink . To be fair Cathy ,Donna ,and everyone at Al`s ,plus Mary and Marty at M&MODELS aregreat but for me tteir a 6 Hr drive.CRM being 3 Hrs away is more conveinent.
I know I tend to ramble-sorry-and my wife is about to bayonet me in the back for tacking so long but if i could help at all I` m glad.
I`f your on line tomorrow especially in the morning i`d like to discuss yuor dio more in depth. ALL MODELING IS GOOD MODELING prbesch
or [email protected].

To get a good idea of the size of your diorama, take a large piece of paper (like the back of a poster) and draw the diorama at the right scale. The vehicles are easy : you probably have those already, or use similar vehicles from your collection. Don't put them too close to eachother either: that is not natural. From the vehicle size you can deduct how wide the street needs to be. Don't forget gutters, sidewalks, etc. Next you can install the buildings. A city building facade in a European WWII scene should measure between 5 and 10 meters (a normal house is around 5 meters, with one door and two windows. Look at pictures of the right country to get an idea. Don't just scratchbuild something out of your head, but use pictures for reference. your diorama will look a lot more "real" if you do. One floor measures between 3 and 4 meters high, and a city building has at least one ground floor, a first floor and an attic. If you don't go for ruins, make sure your roof looks real. This is not easy.
When you draw all that on 1/35 scale, you get an idea of the final size of your diorama. If you want to make it like it is in your drawing, that will be a BIG dio !
Looks like much fun, though !
Jan

I've got a conversion card I made up. I'll scan it somtime in the next few days. Send me a PM (with your e-mail) if you want one.

HTH

Matt

hi again guys;

i was working on scratch building some sidewalk curbs and i finished some as long as i finish my work i'll post the pictures that took.

several questions;

In germany about 1944 or 45 -how wide the roads were? any guess ?
were there any standart width or can be everything between 5 to 6 meters?

and what do you guys think about the base of the diorama? dimension wise of course

I am thinking to get mdf for it next week as soon as i finish my scaled drawings of the road and the buildings.

prbesch: i'll return to you asap
matt: i have the conversion chart but thank you anyway
GeneralFailure: thanks for the information i found lots of pictures based on your information today


Thanks.,

For a twist on your theme instead of having the germans ready to attack how about having them hoping to avoid a confrontation. With the amount of vehicles plus troops the allies have it would have to be a good ambush. Maybe you could have a couple of the germans injured and unable to move and they have been cut off from their own lines. It would be fun to try and see how close you could get the allies to the germans without them "seeing" them.
Just an idea
Robbo
:-)

nice point
Actually it was one of my first ideas and i was thinking about it just minutes ago.
you are good at reading minds huh? :-)

For example while escaping, a german vehicle rolled over and some germans trapped inside and others are trying to help but at the same time avoid the detection by allied forces . I don' t know what kind of vehicle i am going to use but any suggestions?

Thanks,

deadman, check your pm please.

Funny how we both have the same avatar too. No wonder why he mixed us up.

thank you dman ,

i was wondering why he did not send a pm

Hi deadman. Maybe somebody will be able to help you further if they have the magazine and a scanner. One of the finest examples of type of dio I have seen is Neil Hewlet´s "the road to Caen" in 1:76 scale. It has excellent buildings and built in such a way that yu can see clearly from almost every angle of whats happening. It is is military modelling magazine vol.31 no:14, euromilitaire 2001 special edition. Although there is no sniper or ambush element, it does a great job to show a convoy of allies going through a bombed out street. Worth seeing. Maybe somebody scan this in?