Holy smokes John Third model? That's excelent! The base is great as well and some figures would really look good on it. 

Fantastic ground work, the muddy water is great, could use some figures just to bring it to life>

Both the tank and the diorama look nice!  Great effort with great results.

That is great work. In a couple of those pics, you can't tell that's not the real thing.

That looks great. Awesome ground work and the Stug is superb. That base is too big. It demands some figures or a cart or something.

Thanks for the kind words, guys!

Everything is just superb!

The scene does indeed beg for something else. A figure(s) would be my first choice. 

One nit pick, the vehicle is technically a "Sturmhaubitze", an assault howitzer.

Nice build, i really like the base, especially the water. Great job on the vehicle and really nice weathering effects. Which kit is this.

Oh wow that is nice! The Stug looks great but I love the base esp. The foliage looks good and I love the mud! 

If I may nitpick as Griffin and FP said the base is a little big with a lot of open space. The figures you mentioned would help a lot or a small vehicle like a Kubelwagen or motorcycle. 

Bish

Which kit is this.

It's an old 1995 Tamiya kit, 35197.

German Armour

How did you make the mud? It looks very realistic!

 

The short answer:

2 oz Mod Podge Gloss
.5 oz water
2 oz black top soil (baked at 325 for 10+ minutes depending on volume)
2 oz espresso grout / clay earth 50:50

The water effect is Magic Water.  The mud was made to look wet with Wilder's Muddy Water Effect.

That was after several evenings of experimentation (re-posted from another board):

Did some more experimenting today and I think I've got it.  The base glue is Mod Podge Gloss; unlike the matte, it has a bit of shine to it which makes the mud look a little wet.

Pigments tried:  a brown pastel shaved with a blade, raw umber acrylic, burnt umber acrylic paint.

Mixture elements:  I bought a bag of topsoil from Lowes, nice and dark... but too moist.  I baked in an oven at 325 for ten minutes and it dried nicely, if less dark.  Still kinda chunky, I ground it with a pestle and sifted through a strainer.  Now I had something that looked promising.

Others: Lowes cement sand and Dave's dirt.

I played with many combinations of these (more than seen here) but I think I have a winner.

I started the afternoon out with a time test to see how long I should wait before imprinting the glue with the tread marks.  Hours.  It has to be nearly fully cured or it will just mash through the tread and just look like a mess.

However, my mud concoction cures in minutes.  The formula:  Mod Podge Gloss, grout/Dave-dirt mixture, and the oven dried topsoil, ground and sifted.  Sets up in minutes (that's the grout, I guess) and really takes the tread mark quite nicely.

Great job! You should add a few figures to fill it out Maybe tell a story.

That looks fantastic!   You definitely need to add the figures to it to give it a bit of life...

As for the washed out look in the pictures, that is from the automatic exposure in the camera,  the only way to correct that would be to switch to a manual exposure mode...

Thanks for the walk-though! I too was thinking that was some of the best looking mud I've ever seen in a diorama. 

Justinryan215

As for the washed out look in the pictures, that is from the automatic exposure in the camera,  the only way to correct that would be to switch to a manual exposure mode...

Yeah, I'll have to experiment with that.  I also think the stark white background is perhaps making it difficult for the camera to balance the light load.  I have two 105w daylight bulbs overhead and one 45w from each side.