This is my first diorama, so not exactly high quality. Going to get some picture frame wood for the edges when i get a chance. Looking for some info on the brush an gravel etc, how does it look compared to the average diorama? Also, should i have made the wall parrellel witht he front of the tank rather than the edge of the board? Does anyone have a good recommendation on a name for this?? All comments and advice is welcome, plz!
(sorry about all the pics for people on dial up)

~Spart

Pretty good for a first dio. As to the wall, it is best to have all the elements at different angles from the base. That way it doesn't look too planned out. I would put the wall and the tank at different angles from the edge. The groundwork and wall look pretty good. The wall doesn't really go in a desert setting though. It looks more like a European rock wall.

The painting and weathering on the M60 looks pretty good. You need to work on basic construction a little more though. There are seam lines and mold lines everywhere that need to be either filled or sanded off. Examples are the barrel and the commander's cupola for seams. The figures and gear have all their mold lines left as well. These really detract from the overall build and dio. Also, some parts are incomplete, such as the missing handle on all the fuel cans (??) . The metal parts of the track should not be painted sand either. They should be a bare metal color. Even if they were painted with the tank, the paint would quickly wear off from the sand polishing them. The spare tracks would be either metal and rubber, or painted completely sand with no rubber showing.

The figures look like you have some promise there. The uniforms don't look right though. Check out the Features in the Historicus figure forum above for some great tutorials on painting 6-color and 3-color desert camo uniforms. Also, just a note about the Tamiya "Modern" figures, they are just plain bad. They are anerexic and poorly molded with soft details. For much better plastic figures, go with Dragon's figures. They are the best ones out there in plastic and offer a wide variety of poses, including a great modern US tank crew.

A pretty good first effort. Keep up the practice and you will be building masterpieces in no time.

In addition to what Gino sasid, a lot of your stowage is unattachehe to the vehicle, such as the water cans on the front fenders. Also, I belileve those plates are reactive armor, not just spaced armor so you wouldn't want to attach gerry cans to them or ocver them, since if they were activated, that stuff would go flying off quite dangerously. The pads on hte spare track have very large ejector pin marks in them and these should be filled.
However, I'm not overly bothered by the straight wall. Even master sculptor Alan Ball occasionally places items parallel to the edges of his base. Where you have it doesn't create a lot of dead space to its right.
This is all stuff that comes with time and experience and we've all had to learn from others more experienced than ourselves.

Very good for a first diorama. Well done However, I agree with the others on the issues they have already talked about.

I think, you could also a quick way to improve your figures is to give them a light wash of heavily thinned down paint. Fx. sand earth colours for uniforms and reddish brown for the skin areas. After that some drybrushing. They look very pale now. Then later you can move on to more complicated techniques.

Anyway, a good first diorama Practice makes perfect.