This is my first ever diorama.
I built it as a gift for a man who served in the U.S. Army during WWII.

From what he tells me, in July 1944, his outfit guarded a section of road near Trevieres France for a couple weeks as supplies were being rushed to the front. That’s supposed to be him standing near the traffic directing MP watching what’s going on. I put up a post behind him with "Trevieres" directional sign.

I took some artistic license with his story as there really wasn’t any bridge out near his unit, but, it gave me a chance to try one of Verlinden’s plaster castings, (they are very, very, nice). The deuce and ½, its load, and the Harley, are from Tamiya. The rockwork has been cast from model railroad rubber rock forms, and the broken rockwork in the riverbed comes from broken up HO tunnel portals. The brush/foliage comes from Michael’s craft stores.

This was a fun dio to build, and while perhaps not exactly historically accurate, was warmly received.

Excellent dio "wewillhold". The figures and vehicles are suitablly placed and foilage is awesome. One thing that I believe would help, would be to weather the stone work of the bridge a little. Under the bridge and lower to the marsh/water level would be a green or brown tone. this would help make the broken part look more recent. Some holes drilled in it and brass rods bent up and painted rusty would help a lot here also.
The road seems to be a dark grey like concrete but has heavy tyre tracks. Maybe this should be coloured more earthy tones to show a softer muddier road that would track easy. Some fine grit or sand would even allow for tracks this heavy.
Sometimes the details like this even bring more "life" to a dio and make all the difference to standard company product. Then it becomes your piece.

This an excellent diorama. It was well planned and well executed. I do agree with Plasticbattle on his points. I would also like to add another point. If it were me I would have turned the wheels on the truck so that it looked like it was going left instead of straight. This is one heck of a first dio!

Good point marty. I didnt notice that when I looked first.
Wewillhold ............ could you explain what foilage you used for this dio. Im impressed and would like to get some tips here?

Outstanding first dio! I wish my first effort looked that good . I just hope that M.P. sitting next to the fallen bridge doesn't lean back any farther or else he could be in for a rude surprise #:-) !
Any nitpicks I may have had have been covered, so I'll just say nice job!

Nice concept and good execution. The bridge type you are showing was usually supported internally with "re-bar" or some other form of wire mesh. Drill a few holes, and get some of the excellent plastruct support strips. Insert them about 1/2 inch, and then rust 'em up.

Very good paint job overall, and good placement of the pieces... nothing seems "gratis" or unordinarily out of place.

Keep up the good work!!!!

Plastic---I did absolutely nothing on the foliage. This material is taken right out of dryed foliage packets I get at the local Michael's craft store. About $5 a bag gives a supply of material that contains different leaf colors and shapes, sticks, etc, you name it.

I appreciate the helpful comments made by all the responders. Thanks.

:-) :-)

WeWillHold
This is a very nice diorama. It's well layed out, the composition is good. There is sufficient detail. This is good stuff.

Some pointers to take away for next time might be
I agree with others on the weathering of the stone. Just add some dark washes to the stone work. Very simple and effective.
Next time try swinging the motorcyclists arms down a touch to make them a bit more relaxed. I know repositioning can get a bit hairy and isn't a detail for a 1st dio. So play with a scrap figure first. I do like the fact that you took him off his bike and put him in a unique position .

Very Nice. You can be proud of this one. I wish my first one was this good.

Very nice, Brother Steve. I like the plants, and the debris, tthe truck is nice too. But I would love to have more close up pics on the figures....

Looks great!!!!..... Like Kieth said add some rebar to the bridge.

Very nicely done Beermeister! I like the relaxed atmosphere of your dio. Not a big gun in sight too!

hhhmmmmmm
I thought I already replied to this post but as I didn`t see any FAUST in the thread I suppose that I have forgotten it.
But anyway here we go. Great lookin` dio you have got there. I like The duece and a half you have there. Looks like it`s just came rolling over the red ball line. And I like his load. Looks all real natural. I like the foliage great job on that too.
I`ve discussed the debri thingy with you in the chat but when I looked at the pics for the second time I saw that it was not really that bad.
But what was already mentioned by others is that maybe a lttlie weathering of the bridge would make details come out very good but I can speak easily here but my first dio looked like crap compared with your first Guess I did miss Armorama when I started.

Anyway great dio looking forward to see your second one and your third one and your fourth one.

Very nice. Great effort for a first Dio. I have loads of ideas for dios, but am not confident enough to have a go yet, but you have just jumped right on in and made one heck of a good job out of it. I'm sure with all the help you get here your next pieces will be even better. I don't really have any further comments than what has already been said.

Well done

Roger

Boy Oh Boy Oh Boy Oh Boy......

this dio impresses me big time !!! Sure......there's room for improvement like the other boys pointed out........but I'd like to use only one word for this First Effort EXCELLENT......no......there's more ....... BEAUTIFUL

Any chance of sharing the secret of the real-looking foliage with us ?.......

IMPRESSIVE !

Hi. Nice work really set out well. But may I congratulate you for building it for an old campaigner, I dont know the full story behind this scenario but its nice to see that we still appreciate what these guys did for us all.good luck and keep up the good work .

Johnny K:

Thanks for the comment above.

The gentleman behind this story means a lot to me.

He, like so many other young men and women of the time gave up several years of their lives to fight for the freedoms we enjoy today.

Again, Johnny K., thank you for the insightful comment.