After a long time building this small diorama featuring an burnt out Opel and four Dragon figures it is finally finished. I am very happy with the result. The final steps were carried out by attaching shoulder straps (made from paper and some brass parts from Aber) to the remaining rifles and then painting the rifles. The final fixation of the figures to the base brought no further difficulties.
And that is how the finished diorama looks like:
I reworked the Opel using the Lifecolor rust set. The colors are very good to use, they can be thinned very heavily and still dry totally matt. Here they are:
I applied these (from light to dark) on the already rusted areas. Then I applied pigments in light colors (light dust, concrete etc).
The look of the debris was enhanced using different pigments (brick colors mixed from pastel chalks, rubble) that I sprinkled over the bricks and then fixed using pigment fixer.
As a final touch I also added some dark oils to the rims of the steel door.
This is the final look of the diorama base:
To achieve a better fit of the figures to the base, I applied dirt using different oils and humbrol colors. Humbrols were used for earth colors, and oils for dust and traces of brick dust:
Now the figures are ready to be fixed to the base. Then I will finish the helmets and the weapons.
Now I finished the bricks and the rubble in the space where the figures are to be placed. And this how it looks like (the holes / brass rods show where the figures will be fixed to):
To the right of the Opel I added two burnt out jerry cans:
During spring this year, I already started building the figures, and added ammunition pockets made from Milliput:
Now I will continue to build and paint the figures.
I added some more details to the base, and finally fixed the Opel to its place. Behind the door I added some steel beams and a sign (from a German wartime factory):
The bricks around the Opel were then blackened with enamel paint and oils:
And this is how the base looks like now:
Now I have to finish the rubble, and then move on to the figures…
Last week I have been busy creating the rubble on the diorama base. The ground was filled first with some insulation foam, to reduce the thickness of the celluclay layer. On top of the foam, celluclay mixed with white glue, red color and water was applied using an old brush.
Into the still wet celluclay I pressed single scale bricks (from Juweela) and small plaster parts, adding some white glue first. After this had dried, I added some small stones and model railroad ballast.
As all was dry, I painted the rubble. I started with a base layer of brick red and light gray for the concrete parts. Then I applied a wash from oils (lamp black and burnt umber), blending and removing stains with a clean brush moistened with white spirit. After this had dried, I slightly dry brushed the bricks using a orange red color, and a light grey color for the concrete parts.
As a final touch I added a filter from ochre and some umber. This added a lot of realism to the colors, as the stark contrasts are subdued, the red and gray hues become much more natural and the overall color range is compressed, also making the overall impression more natural:
Over the “slit” visible on the right hand side the burnt out Opel will be placed.
Now I will add some more details (steel parts, another plate, cables) and also more rubble to the ground areas not yet covered, but this has to wait for the figures being ready to be fitted to the base. Of course the Opel also has to be added, after blackening the bricks under the car.
The wall pieces are now fixed to the base. The door casing between the brick walls is made from styrene sheet and some brass parts from the stash. Things start to look very solid now:
After priming with Tamiya gray I painted everything with Vallejo acrylics. A wash and further details were added using oils.
The door will be placed forced out of the hinges inside the door casing. The plate reads “Keep out” and was made from decal sheet:
These are the painted ruins:
The next step will be covering the ground with rubble, using some scale bricks and plaster parts. The ground will be made from a local version of celluclay.
I am a bit nervous, as I never tried making groundwork this way. And perhaps the diorama will be finished until Christmas time…
Now the base is finished. It is made from a plywood board, some ledgers and thin plywood parts attached to the sides. After being glued together, it was covered with veneer, stained and varnished.
This is how the base looks like at the moment:
Here the stained and varnished veneer is visible.
The walls are made from plaster parts being left over from the first version of the scene, and are temporarily placed on the base. Behind the Opel, there will be a small brick wall, opposite to the car a wall with concrete pillars, bricks and a steel door.
The brick structure was carved into the plaster using various sculpting tools:
fieldgrau - military scenes in scale 