Suspended action

You could make some bars run over the diorama, and hang objects from it with some very, very thin wire of some sort...   That's my only suggestion...   I don't know how to do it else....

Stern0 wrote:

I have been experimenting with action in my dioramas and was wondering what some thoughts were on objects in midflight such as grenades or debris, and bullet strikes. I have a 1/35 scale team of German pioneers traversing a graveyard and would love to see a machinegun straffing the markers. I have tried slivers of clear platic, fine gauge wire and a few other failed techniques in order to "suspend" the action. Any thoughs are appreciated.

You might try using cotton or spun glass "Angel Hair" to make a "dust cloud" for bullet strikes in the dirt or on walls and such...  In water, I've used clear resin, same as I used for the water, and kept pulling it up into the air with a needle-point as it set, holding it in place until the resin set enough for it to stand up on it's own, takes a couple of minutes, but the effect is worth it... In my case, it was some GIs caught in a rice paddy, but a few strategically-placed "mud puddles" in your "cemetary" will do the same trick... For grenades "in-flight", I just keep them attached to the thrower's hand, but at the far end of the throw, with the grenade just touching the extended hand, with the spoon just about completely popped off... It's even more effective for potato-masher grenades... Either way will get the point across to your viewer that, even though the grenade isn't actually airborne, it's about to be...  Looks better than than the standard grenade "here's the wind-up" pose, at any rate.... 

Flying debris, on the other hand, well.., it's next to impossible to hide the supports, unless you plan on putting the diorama in a shadow box.  With a restricted view-point like that, it's easy to suspend objects in mid-air from the back of the diorama wall.  Use the object to hide the support from the viewer.

I think you hit on my biggest problem and that is keeping the supports on the invisible side. The angel hair is a great idea, I've used cotton for steam off a soup ditched F4u's engine ...pretty effective. The "water" trick I will apply to my ongoing project, going to be a while before I pour the water. Unfortunatly the cemetary has been completed, but there may be a "puddle" ot two in upcomming projets. I would love to see your "paddy" diorama, sounds great. Thank you for the input, good stuff.

I'll get that rice paddy 'bush dio back one of these days soon... It's on loan to the CAF Great Plains Wing museum (about a three-hour drive from here) right now, and I built it before I had a digital camera... It's a Vietnam piece, some 9th ID GIs un-azzing an M113 under fire from Victor Charles in the Delta... 

Stern0 wrote:

I think you hit on my biggest problem and that is keeping the supports on the invisible side. The angel hair is a great idea, I've used cotton for steam off a soup ditched F4u's engine ...pretty effective. The "water" trick I will apply to my ongoing project, going to be a while before I pour the water. Unfortunatly the cemetary has been completed, but there may be a "puddle" ot two in upcomming projets. I would love to see your "paddy" diorama, sounds great. Thank you for the input, good stuff.

You can use the resin trick for bullet strikes on dry ground as well--except when the resin dries, paint it the same color as the ground or "dust" it with ground material so it looks like dirt instead of water...