The last weeks I spent building the bike and the base. Let’s start with the bike: the set is not of the best quality, as the plastic is very soft and the frame of the bike was already broken into pieces when I opened the box. In addition to that, my building efforts looked not good to me, so at the end I decided to buy another set and start from scratch again. And you name it, the plastic now is of another color, much harder and the individual parts have much better details… I think the first time I got a set that has been on the shelf for quite some time.

I also rediscovered another truth (I should have know better in the first place): It is much better to join PE parts by soldering than by using CA glue.

At least I made some progress with the base. I covered it with veneer, which was then stained and varnished. It looked like that then:

Then I glued small pieces of insulation foam on the wooden parts, in order to keep the celluclay layer as thin as possible.

The celluclay was mixed using white glue, water and some earth-colored acrylic color. On the base I also applied a layer of white glue before adding the celluclay with a spatula and a brush. Then I pressed small stones and little pebbles into the still wet clay.

After all had dried, I teared a grass mat from NOCH (called nature plus, I bought it a while ago) into pieces and glued these onto the base. It looks quite nice now, but has to be painted of course:

After a brief break I embarked on a new project: another small diorama featuring a BMW R 75 from Masterbox , two figures from Alpine and a civilian with a wheelbarrow.

The scene will be situated on a Russian road, together with a nice signpost. The civilian (peasant) will also get a potatoe sack on its wheelbarrow.

I have already prepared the figures for priming and painting:

The rifles and the gas mask containers are from Dragon.

These are the bike riders:

I exchanged the Karabiner of the standing figure with a MP 40 submachine gun. Therefore I removed any traces of the rifle from the back of the figure, as well as the carrying strap, and then reworked the coat with putty. I also attached a magazine pouch instead of the original one for the rifle ammo. The picture to the right shows a replacement hand with the MP 40. The carrying strap is made from paper and some brass parts.

The peasant is now wearing a nice beard from putty.

The diorama base is also on its way, this is how it looks like at the moment: