Just finished this earlier.Photos by my friend,Phil Douglas.
Comments,constructive criticism,questions are always welcome!
It's a 'what if' scene where the Afrika Korp is victorious at an imaginary El Alemaign II batlle where they capture the port city of Alexandria,Egypt.
Tiger 744 has reached it's objective and taken up station at the western point of the harbor.The crew and troops are watching the remains of the 8th army try to pull off a Dunkirk-type evacuation on the far side of the harbor.
Enjoy!Hope you like it.













More in my gallery.Thanks!
cheers!

The birds are good idea . Its a prefect diorama Ricky . I like egyptian history .

Impressive diorama Rick. I like the concept!!

First off, the pics are a bit dark. If you want to present your diorama the way it deserves (A good way) then you should probobly go take some pictures of it outside or with a good light source. But for what I can see, the tiger looks awesome. The birds are a nice touch. I really like the ruins also. Thanks for sharing.

I like how the desert sand on top on the hull. I would like to see the same on the turret as well. To give a more uniform on the weathering.

The pennant, birds, and umbrella are very nice touch to the diorama.

I also like DAK crew with variaties of uniform and color.

Phantom Major is right! The Columns and the Phaero need much more weathering. Column and Phaero should be toppled and chipped since these are thousands years old under the African sun.

From what I understand, 90% of the "desert" in Afrika have rocks and vegetation on the terrain rather than "plain" sand. Perhaps more pebbles can be added to the ground work.

Overall a very well thought out diorama! With the history background from Phil brings out the subject! Thanks for sharing!

WC

Thats looking really great, I like your tiger, what paints have you used on it?

But I agree with James in that I think that the building needs a little more 'wear and tear'.

Thanks Guys!
Harrison-I thought the pics were a little dark myself-thought Phil was adding a filter but now looks like it's just weak winter sun.I'll talk to him in a day or so and see if he wants to do a few more.
Phantom Major-You are absolutly right about the ruins.When I was only a wash or 2 away from calling thepainting 'done' on the columns,I realized I had forgotton to segment them as the real deal I can go back and score them and get them more 'authentic' looking.Phaero is another matter.Waffled between chips or not all through this build.Liked the posture and"pleasant" expression he has.Very little control when you start chipping plaster and didn't want to get into repair when I thought it went too far as then I would have to make the repair not look like a repair,follow? So I opted to let the ruins be a little new-ish and let the paints show the ageing.
Wild Card-There are a few stones in the scene,as well as patches of harder dirt that is slightly darker than the sand.It actually looks like blown sand over dirt with a few little ruts.
Goose-The tiger is my first shot at this piece of armor and I wanted to really capture the desert flavor.I used a red auto primer in case I wanted to show some of it later on.Then I sprayed MM afrika mustard as the base coat.I then used Winsor&Newton olive-straight out of the tube to wash it into a darker green-brown.There are about 15 washes on the tiger and all are done by hand using#4 or larger brushes.Some washes were water based,others were done with mineral spirits.Turret # are dry transfer.The stalking tiger is kit waterslide and is the only area I used Future.The dust is pastels applied wet with water and when dry,I scrubbed the chalks with a stiff stencil brush.Repeated this till I was happy
Oh!The detail painting is a mix of Polly Scale and MM or Testors,depending on the color.
cheers!

Hope this helps somewhat:
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/columns.htm


In the very earliest of Egyptian history, columns were often made from one large monolithic block

So you could get away with the current columns - but I do think the statue would benefit from some severe weathing - go at it with some different grades of sandpaper getting progressive finer.

I like this one alot and I'm really looking forward to the lighrt photos.

A good idea. Always interesting to think of "what-if"-stories.

I love it!!1 Once you score the pillars i think its passible, afterall it is a what if? Right Cheers Kevin