With Winter coming on, and all the talk about "snipers in the snow", here is a photo of my latest diorama "Captain Winter"... the reference being Stalin's famous reference during the attack on Moscow that "General Winter will not allow the Germans to win this war". General Winter of course being the reference to the severe winters that turned back Napolean and every one else who had ever tried to invade the heart of Russia.

In this diorama, the winter season is just starting... the very first few hours of snow have fallen, and at this point, the "General" could only be considered a "Captain". The diorama depicts a Russian squad about to go on patrol in a small town called Gorsk, 20 miles away from Moscow. This was the furthest the Germans penetrated, and it was stated that the Germans could see the spires of the Kremlin from this location... but they never got any closer.

As the pictiure shows, as a few of the Russians attempt to cross over their sandbag defenses, the first across is picked off by a sniper, with deadly results.... Enjoy!

A full article on the creation of this diorama (and the intersting story of the person who commissioned it!) will be forthcoming. - Comments welcome!

Keith,
that looks reaaaaaaaally cool ! The damaged house is very nicely done : broken floors and all... Just one question : what brand of plugs do these guys use to hang their pictures and clocks on the wall ? The whole house is blown away and they still hang firmly to the wall. But the clock and painting make it all the much nicer, of course...
The "victim" frozen in action is interesting, too. Really a "freeze frame" !

looks nice. Question why is one side of the figures white and the other side plain green? Is this some special camo? Okay Jan to hold those things on wall white glue bomb tested LOL (:-)

You NOTICED! Yes... half of the soldiers uni's are snow laden, while the other half is not... I think one of the photo's show a small corregated metal lean to.... in the snow and cold, the fellas would have croweded together under a shelter with their backs exposed to the elements - and thus snow. Their "fronts" would logically be huddled around a small fire or at least they would face inward to keep the cold wind from blowing on their face... these fellas then hear the command, break out of the shelter and jump over the bags.... then BANG... but not enough snow would have fallen on the "clean" side of their uni's to accumulate visible snow as you see on their backs. Make sense, or did I over analize this?

QUOTE: Make sense, or did I over analize this?

Makes prefect sense to me. I really like the "peak action" look and feel to the dio; as a reformed photojournalist I respond best to that sort of thing

LOL Jan. Fischer pluggen denk ik....

KFM,

A masterpiece again!

I was watching the simple blue backgroud....really adds the freezing cold to this scene. An absolute perfect choice of colours. I also love the gun and helmet "in mid air".

Thanks guys... one of the cool toys in this piece are the Sandbags... i found them in a store in Argentina a few years ago... the neat thing is that they are "groved" on each end to fit the other end... meaning i could cast a jillion of these, and make as long of a sandbag line as I need. This particular scene uses just two.

As a side note, the company that made them ("InstaModelo, S.A.") is out of business... so I don't really feel I'm ripping anyone off by casting additional units... I mean, I couldn't buy them if I wanted to... Thoughts?

KFMagee
SWEEEEEEEEET! The snow effect are really good!
How did you get the snow on the soldiers backs like that???...I have tryed that plenty of times each faling miserably

Cris

Looks really nice. Great detail.....but: the gun... what is it doing there? The way it is positioned now, it looks more like an aa gun than an at gun.
That's the only niggle (exept indeed for picture and clock) that I got.

Quite easy...




I used a plant "mister" and lightly sprayed a fine mist on the backs of the soldiers... from one direction only.... then I held Hydrocal in shaker above the figures and let it fall. An hour later, I blew away the dry dust. Where the hydrocal hit water, it stuck giving me "snow" on just the exposed areas I wanted.

As for the next question about the gun...




You must mean the 45% angle of the cannon itself... instead of a more flat trajectory... I actually got the whole idea for the setting (gun included) from a book (in Romanian) that my client brought to me. In the book there were soldiers cleaning the gun which was implaced behind a sandbag fortification near a town square. It was covered with a tarp tent made of blankets and sheets that had been spray painted. The translation was to the effect that the soldiers would drag the gun around where ever it was needed from street to street, and then hide it from aircraft under the tarp between engagements. I wanted to show the detail of the gun, so I didn't use the tarp.

As for the picture and the clock... the picture would have been mounted on wire, and the wire nailed into place (actually a large U-shaped staple). The cock-eyed position of the picture is meant to indicate the blast impact. You are probably right about the clock though... should either be on the floor or dangling by a wire from the wall. The client loved the interior so it's his decision now.... I can mention this to him and fix it in a matter of seconds....

I must admit KFM..... you really CAN !! The more I look at the pics, the more I admire the scene. Pure Craftsmanship !!