My Scots Grey Dioram is finally finished and I think it came out pretty good.

Dang guys... my first diorama and no replies?

No.... "it's great" or "Its awful... do yourself a favor and put the tools away."

Just saw it - Overall nice job. I love the subject.
The layout is good, not parallel to the base. The action is well spread out.
The figures are nicely done. One question - there seems to be a seam down the inside of the mens lefts - is that a seam or sturep strap?
One thing I would do next time is shorten the tall grass, it looks a bit too tall

I actually meant to reply earlier but I was at work and they frown on using the internet for personal reasons. That said......my thoughts:
I like the overall action in the diorama. I like the trampled grass although I think you could vary the colors instead of the one green tone that is so predominant.
Maybe it is the camera angle but a couple of the guys look a little off balance....as if both the rider and the horse are about to fall or trip...again, this just may be due to camera angle.
I like the creek/river and the idea of moss growing on the rocks, but again, I think if you were to vary the green tones and add browns and yellows it would blend in a little better.
I think you have a very action filled diorama that has many good points, I would just add on and attempt to induce subtle colors to the areas that appear to have only one shade or tone of color. If you look at any pastoral or river scene you will note that there is never one shade of green or blue or whatever color, the closer you study the more variations you will see....even within a small area.

Keep up the good work,
Cheers,
Charles

Very nice. I like the layout, and the action. I also like you paint job. Its adds to the feel of a charge. I especially mean the mud up the horses legs, and on the trousers of some of the rides.

I like the action of the dio as well. It reminds me of the famous painting of the Scots Greys by Lady Butler. I have one small quibble. I like the look of the mud up the legs of the horses and riders, but it seems it's backward. They haven't yet reached the muddy portion of the creek side, so where did they pick up the mud? It's too late now but if it had been posed so they were leaving the stream, and the mud, that would show where the mud came from.

Quote from the movie Waterloo.

Napoleon: Those men on grey horses are terrifying.
Marshal Soult: They are the noblest cavalry in Europe; and the worst led.
Napoleon: That may be; that may be, but we will match them with our lancers.

Thanks for the input and constructive crtiques.

The seams on the trousers were prevalent on all of the riders and looked to be as part of the uniform. The stirrups sort of blended into the inside trousers of all of the riders.

I can trim the tall grass. I agree, it looks too tall.

The grass was made of cut 1/8 natural rope cut in tiny pieces and sprayed with a combination of Tamiya Green & Olive Drab. What I should have done was make two separate colors of grass, perhaps even three different shades. One being a little more yellow. It does look too uniform.

I was not too happy with the way the rocks came out as far as algae. I did try to vary the color a bit but the rocks were already set into the plaster when I painted them and I didn't want to ruin them. In hindsight I should have experimented and painted other rocks to get the right tones before I poured the base then set them in painted correctly.

The mud on the hooves is Tamiya Red Brown. After it was dry I used shaved brown artist chalk and a white glue solution to give their hooves and the riders boots a little more depth and realism instead of just a mud color. I do get what you mean by them being muddy prior to the stream but I imagined them being in a muddy area prior to the charge and charging over new ground. Good excuse huh?

I wanted to put the horses off balance. The kit came with bases on all of the horses and I cut the bases off. That allowed me to alter the position of the legs to give them each a unique look but posed a problem when installing them onto the base. I used an epoxy to secure the hooves and used a good dolop of white glue to secure them to the base. I then painted the epoxy Red Brown and covered them with the fake grass. I wanted to make one horse and rider look as if they were falling. If I was a little more agressive I should have really altered the horse and rider to look as if they had fallen.

I used that Lady Butler painting as a reference.

Thanks again for your input.

I suspect that the seam marks the edge of the leather insert on the inside leg of the overall trousers, IIRC they also had leather cuffs at the bottom too. And the figures are missing the strap supporting the canteen, which at the moment just sits on top of the haversack.

For a bit of variety how about a bit of dappling on some of the horses? - they look a little to uniform.

David

Dappling?

The horses are a bit uniform. I debated trying to make them a bit more grey and adding the white spots but I thought that was a bit above my league at this point. I just didn't feel comfortable with my airbrushing skills to attempt that. I did vary the colors of the manes and added a bit of muscle shading.

Lady Butler in her famous painting of the charge of the Scots Greys left the horses white so I followed suit.

These soft plastic figures are very difficult to work with and did not provide the deep creases to add shading as we see in Tamiya and Dragon hard plastic figures.

Very nice, can't really add much than what the other guys have said.
On another point though... I could be wrong, but I thought the scotts greys wore bearskins and not shako's? I built one a while back and he wore the bearskin, a badge of honour I beleive after destroying a unit of Napoleons cavalry that wore them.
Just a point not a critisism!

Good job on a first dio!

James

They're hidden under oilskin covers on the figures, since there was rain on the evening before the battle.

David

Touche David!

I stand corrected!

James

As withthe other guys, overall, I like this.
Personally, the mud looks too heavy, way more than in your reference picture.
I few years ago, I painted a dappled grey for a confederate rider. I used FS3622, light camo gray, for the base color. For the dappling, I punched a small hole in a coffee can top and sprayed dark gray through it. This was too dark, so I lightly added another very thin coat of the base color and it worked pretty well.

Nice little diorama you have there.. I recognise the 1/72 scale Esci/ Italeri set.

A lot has been said allready, but two subjects have not been discussed yet:

one: uniforms. As any soldier will tell you: uniform it ain't. Even with the most modern methods and materials in dyeing cloth/ wool, colors weather, and never uniformly. So I recommend a slight variation in base color for every soldier next time.

two: I may be wrong, and I do not have the references , but I recall trumpeteers allways having diferent uniforms from the rest of the troops.

Other than that: a nice dynamic diorama, and I love to see what you come up with next.

For more info on the esci set, check plasticsoldierreview.com

They were actually 1/35 (54mm) Italeri Soldiers.

That would have been a good idea to fade the uniforms in variations of one color. As far as the trumpeteer I went by the box but if I had known they had different uniforms it would have even better.

I have already started a WWII German Eastern front diorama with a scratch built building with the armor being a Wespe. In fact I may post some pics of the Wespe because I am not sure how to weather it properly and will be looking for advice.

This time with a live link...

Plenty of mud mentioned in this account of the charge

http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/529/

David

here's a picture:
http://www.britishbattles.com/waterloo/waterloo-army-greys.htm

Craig