Need Comments

Here are some photos of the new base and dio that I am working on for the Sdfkz 251. I am going to call it "Defense of the Hedgerows Normandy 1944" Hope I can get it right. The rocks are not glued into place yet so that is why they are scattered.

Ghostrider114

Don't ever give up just because someone says you're doing something wrong, if you did that, you wouldn't learn anything.

The reason I thought it was North Africa, was that the base just looked more like desert then coastal France.  Try adding more greens.

No worries. I was having a bad day when I read the posts. I will add some greens to the base and see if it looks better. Oh I took the static grass off.

SuppressionFire

Agreed 'back bladeing' with a #11 hobby knife is effective removing seams. Once its close plastic cement - thin solvent type can be applied to the seam a few times to blend it in. Allow 24hrs to cure.

Enamel 'Flesh' colored paint should be used in a mix of flat red and flat dark brown as a base color and acrylic 'red brown' is the perfect 'wash' for the darker, shadow areas of a figures face sculpt and hands.

My simple rule is highlights enamel, shadows acrylic wash. It keeps the process simple. Another rule I try and follow is aside from primer I like each coat to be visible in the finished figure. This keeps the sculpt crisper and avoids loosing detail in layers of paint.

Thank you so much. I will get the red brown the next time I go to Hobby Lobby if they have it. The wash should be like a pin wash right?

BarrettDuke

Hard to do with a hobby knife without scratching and gouging the surrounding area. For a few dollars you could buy some sanding sticks. I have some that come with a tapered pointed end that I use to get at some of the harder to reach spots on figures. I also use flexible sanding files that have a foam core. The abrasive surface on these lasts a long time, and the foam core helps stop me from sanding into the figure.

I have both. I will try harder to get the seams off the figures from now on.

Don't ever give up just because someone says you're doing something wrong, if you did that, you wouldn't learn anything.

The reason I thought it was North Africa, was that the base just looked more like desert then coastal France.  Try adding more greens.

Nice work, great base!

Overall much better! I like the tall grass you added at the base of the wall but it may need a slight "hair cut". The creeping foliage seems more natural now. Nice job!

Agreed 'back bladeing' with a #11 hobby knife is effective removing seams. Once its close plastic cement - thin solvent type can be applied to the seam a few times to blend it in. Allow 24hrs to cure.

Enamel 'Flesh' colored paint should be used in a mix of flat red and flat dark brown as a base color and acrylic 'red brown' is the perfect 'wash' for the darker, shadow areas of a figures face sculpt and hands.

My simple rule is highlights enamel, shadows acrylic wash. It keeps the process simple. Another rule I try and follow is aside from primer I like each coat to be visible in the finished figure. This keeps the sculpt crisper and avoids loosing detail in layers of paint.

Hard to do with a hobby knife without scratching and gouging the surrounding area. For a few dollars you could buy some sanding sticks. I have some that come with a tapered pointed end that I use to get at some of the harder to reach spots on figures. I also use flexible sanding files that have a foam core. The abrasive surface on these lasts a long time, and the foam core helps stop me from sanding into the figure.

That is what I am trying to do with a hobby knife. I need to work on it more. That is a great idea for the skin tones> I will give that a try the next time I do a figure.

Thanks Pawel

Hello!

For removing the seams I like small files the most. But since you don't have them yet, you might also take a sharp, pointy knife, like a scalpel or a hobby knife and try to gently scrape the seam off. It's good to keep the knife perpendicular to the seam and to the surface it is on, and don't press the knife too hard, just let it go along the seam, that works very well. Hope it helps and good luck with your next builds.

As for skin tones I would suggest painting the part base colour that's close to the skin color and letting it dry throughly. After at leas a day, or better two or three, you can add shading on top of that and mix colours together on the model - this way you can get much more shades than the three you have.

Good luck with your next builds, I hope to see them soon!

Paweł

Hey, Nomad.

Getting all the flash off and not taking off part of the model is indeed a challenge. And the camera is not forgiving at all! I just go after the flash on figures with several different grits of sand paper. I find that works better than files because the figures' surfaces are full of curves, and the files are just too stiff. Sandpaper lets me go with the contours. For heavy flash, I use a 360 grit to start and work my way to a 600 grit.

I get it on colorblindness. I have some blue/green color blindness. May I suggest that you use your own skin as your guide. Pick a spot on the palm of your hand or the inside of your arm and mix your paint to match that spot. It won't matter if you can't really see what color your skin is, it's skin just the same, so if you match it, even with your colorblindness, you are likely to be close to an acceptable skin tone. Of course, that's only part of the problem. There is so much variation in shading on skin, that a monotone will never look right. You have to put on the base you want and then engage in a series of wearisome, subtle, shadings. I'm still sorting through it all myself.

Best wishes to you. I'm looking forward to seeing your future work.

BarrettDuke

Nomad,

I think you are very close to excellent work. You clearly have a steady hand and a good eye for detail. Also, I am really impressed by your willingness to take the critiques you have received with such a positive attitude. I appreciate people being honest as well. One might as well know what people are really thinking when they see something we did. I don't want to be picking at nit, myself, but since you asked, here are a few thngs I noticed that I felt detracted from your overall excellent work: The thing that detracted mostly from the effect was the hands. It appears that you forgot to sand off the seam flash. The hands are so prominent on this figure that they require a lot of attention. On reflection, I thought those might be intended to be glove seams, which would then need to be there, but I think they are the wrong color if they are gloves. Seam flash always interrupts the sense of realism. Also, I think you want to start focusing more on skin tone variations and general color. The hands on this figure are just a little too bright. I  am still trying to get that part of figure painting down myself. I have not yet found a ready-mix color that I believe captures actual flesh tone, so I understand the difficulty with this part. Next, I think you need to dust up the figure some more. I can't tell for sure, but it looks like you might have thrown a little dust on the boots. I suggest dusting him up from the boots up a little more to make the figure seem more in its element. Finally, in terms of scale, I don't think those reeds? would be that tall in real life, especially if this is a wind-swept bluff. Overall, though, I think you have done superb work. I really like the undulations in the ground. You are going to be producing some really stunning dios soon. I'm looking forward to seeing them.

BarrettDuke,

Thank you for your words of encouragement. I agree with you 110% with the hands. I just can not seem to get all the flash off. Maybe I do not have the right tools to make it easier to do. I would like to get some jewelers files but that will have to wait for the time being. Any tips and help on this part would be greately welcomed.

As with the skin tone I do not like it either. I only have three skin tone paints right now and they are Vallejos Flat Flesh, Dark Flesh and Basic Skintone. I have watched several videos on painting faces and figuers but none seem to get right down to points that I need. Really what that is I don't know. Also I can't mix paints worth a darn as I am somewhat color blind to certian colors. I have to ask my wife if the colors are right and that gets old for her. lol. (Not for me as I love to bug the crap out of her.)

Thanks again for your comments.

Nomad,

I think you are very close to excellent work. You clearly have a steady hand and a good eye for detail. Also, I am really impressed by your willingness to take the critiques you have received with such a positive attitude. I appreciate people being honest as well. One might as well know what people are really thinking when they see something we did. I don't want to be picking at nit, myself, but since you asked, here are a few thngs I noticed that I felt detracted from your overall excellent work: The thing that detracted mostly from the effect was the hands. It appears that you forgot to sand off the seam flash. The hands are so prominent on this figure that they require a lot of attention. On reflection, I thought those might be intended to be glove seams, which would then need to be there, but I think they are the wrong color if they are gloves. Seam flash always interrupts the sense of realism. Also, I think you want to start focusing more on skin tone variations and general color. The hands on this figure are just a little too bright. I  am still trying to get that part of figure painting down myself. I have not yet found a ready-mix color that I believe captures actual flesh tone, so I understand the difficulty with this part. Next, I think you need to dust up the figure some more. I can't tell for sure, but it looks like you might have thrown a little dust on the boots. I suggest dusting him up from the boots up a little more to make the figure seem more in its element. Finally, in terms of scale, I don't think those reeds? would be that tall in real life, especially if this is a wind-swept bluff. Overall, though, I think you have done superb work. I really like the undulations in the ground. You are going to be producing some really stunning dios soon. I'm looking forward to seeing them.

Thanks Pawel. I will remember that and give it a try.

Well, don't give up too easy, Nomad53! It seems to me, you're having problems at the planning stage. If you start with a model and try to do a diorama out of it, it's easy to make such mistakes. How about you find a photograph, and try to show in your dio the photographed scene as exactly as you can? I did this once, some time ago and it was really fun, because of all the input the photo gives the builder. So please try that and post your results. Here's how it turned out for me:

15 years ago:

Four years ago:

Good luck with your projects and have a nice day

Paweł

Wow.... am I that far off? The dio is supposed to be a bluff over looking the English channel. I guess that my building skills really need to be stepped up. I guess that I will not make any more dios for a while until I can get it all to come together.

Thanks for all the comments.

To be honest, the SS trooper looks out of place.  By the look of the diorama, he's supposed to be in North Africa, right?  I don't think the SS operated in that theater, and, if they did, I think they would be wearing their desert uniforms.  Plus, while people stand like that all the time in movies, in reality soldiers are trained not to silhouette themselves on the top of hills like that.

Technically though, it's pretty good.

Having built a few dioramas myself I know how extremely difficult it is to organize things (rocks, vegetation, spent casings, colors, etc) to appear disorganized, random. Nature is not as easy to realistically model as many people would think.

On this new diorama a few things grab my attention. Please don't take any of this as "hating" on your work. I'm just pointing out some things I noticed.

One is why is the vegetation so tall and spindly? The ground also appears to be solid rock, not something plants would grow out of.

Second, the two rocks by the figures right foot, they appear out of place. I know if I were to approach rocks like this I would either kick them out of the way or step away to keep from tripping over them. Also, why are any of the rocks even there? They appear to be an entirely different type of rock than what the ground is made off suggesting they were transported in by some method. Perhaps a nearby wall or structure.

I suppose it all depends on what degree of realism you want to achieve.

Well here is a new one. Hope this one is better. I am calling this one "The Watch"

Hmmmmmmm...... After looking I see what you mean by the sights CapnMac. I agree Ghostrider, research research research. I'll get it right one of these days.

The rocks have improved--but, I was willing to accept it was a verdant springtime before.

Getting some brown down before the green is one of those subtle things for vegetation.

You might want to consider changing to a 75mm howitzer, or an 81mm mortar, as the gunner on that PAK is not going to like that wall in front of his front sight.

AT gunners like to have an "alley" to shoot along, preferably downhill.  Now, your dio could be of a location at the bottom of a long down slope.  In which case the gun crew would have tarps & netting rigged to stay out of view.  They'd also dig a pit to get the breech of the gun lower to the ground, too.

I know how that feels, since I got back into models a couple years ago, I've found that my mantra has become "Research, Research, Research."

Looks like I'm going to have to sit back and take all of this in. What I need to do is collect my thoughts and start really looking into the subject matter and do some research. All these ideas are really great, I just wish I had the years if experience to pull it off. I have found that I am never to old to learn something. You all are great.

Thanks,

Suggestions to bring the courtyard into the city. Add pieces of wrought iron fence or simulated broken glass (cut up cellophane tape works) to the top of the stone wall and some garbage caught in the rocks/bushes. Very nice first effort. Paul

SuppressionFire

Familiar 75mm AT gun by Tamiya & crew!

Liking the progression of your display. The AT gun in a defensive roll was most effective camouflaged. A few bushes on the top side - think Normandy hedge and a camouflage net over the gun, leave the gun sight clear to view.

A few more tweaks and call it complete. Look at other modellers work and always check reference photographs. Your next project will always be better!

One more thing to consider changing: The 75mm shells leaning on the ammunition box would not rest at a angle like that, the would roll off. A lot of modellers place the shells on the ground resting on a tarp.

True, I've found that one of the hardest things to do in a scale model diorama is make things that are supposed to be heavy sit so that they look heavy.

This is why I like these forums so much. All the helpful tips and suggestions. I will make all the changes that have been suggested and post pics when done.It may take a while but it will get done.

The shells had moved when the photos were taken. They are not leaning now. LOL

Familiar 75mm AT gun by Tamiya & crew!

Liking the progression of your display. The AT gun in a defensive roll was most effective camouflaged. A few bushes on the top side - think Normandy hedge and a camouflage net over the gun, leave the gun sight clear to view.

A few more tweaks and call it complete. Look at other modellers work and always check reference photographs. Your next project will always be better!

My only suggestion is to break up the sides of the wall a little bit.  Rock walls rarely break smoothly.  the mortar is going to break before the stones.