Ardennes Front

Very nice dio Gig, I love the snow.
However, I don't know where you orriginate from ?  I live in Belgium and personally I have never ever seen roofing like that in my country, those (I don't know the english word for it) parts of the roofing that are on the ground next to the wall, would go well on a mediterranian building like in southern France, Italy or Spain, but not on a Belgian building.
Anyway, I'm sure that people, not familiar with the local architecture in my country would notice though

Cubsfan11365 wrote:

I have recently decided that i am going to build a diorama of the Ardennes Front form WW2. My forst project is a King Tiger late production model. the seen will be the Battle of the Bulge so I Have to simulate, ice, snow, etc. I will eventullay buy other models to go in the diorama to simualte a battle seen, liek a Sherman Firefly, a Willys Jeep, troops, and some other things. The part thats going to give me trouble is the scenery adn buildings like billboxes adn bunkers. Does anyone have advice on ow to build and paint these to make them look realistic. Any advice will be very helpful.

 

Don't worry about pillboxes/bunkers too much - there weren't many there, just shallow holes in the frozen ground.

The very first thing I would do is get the books by Concord 'Panzers in the Ardennes' and 'The Battle of the Bulge'. These are excellent refences to tanks and other vehicles during that time. Great photos.

make sure to include mud,lots of mud.

Nice snow, Gig! It's funny, but the green foliage in the background lends a little irony to the scene.

A very intriguing layout. The snow looks very good. There are so many appearances to snow in nature. To capture it in several variations on a diorama does wonders to the appearance.

That vehicle has a very nice, used but not too abused look.

I love to see a well-worn vehicle all gunked up in mud, but I also like to see a rig like this, that has some wear-for-use.

About all I would say is the tank could set a little more into the snow and build-up. But it looks like gigantor meant for it to be removable from the scene. Am I right? Such being the case, that "sunk in" look is more difficult to capture.

Good stuff!

Thank you, when i begin the scenary, I will try your advice.

Hi Cubsfan11365,

to simulate snow, you can use a mixture of baking soda and white (craft) glue (60/40 ratio) and a touch of water. Then apply the mixture to your terrain. If you're going to have tree or structures, I've found the you can put white glue on the surface of the stucture/trees and sprinkle the baking soda on it. If you want a slightly shiny appearance with the snow, just add more white glue. Here's some progress shots of a dio I'm working on showing a similar scene.




(The drive wheels are the wrong way around and have been fixed since these photos )

Hope this helps.