Smoke em if you got em...

Very nice and scratchbuilt at that... impressive!

Hey doog, check out the doog's eyes, they are alive!

Wow, did you use any plans for the gun? If so, could you post them here or reccomend the source. Again, more pics. Oh, and what figures did you use?

David

Excellent work .  Thanks for sharing.

Regards,  Rick

Thanks for the complements guys.

When I built this several years ago, I had only crude drawings to work from. My primary reference came from Schiffer's; German Defensive Batteries & Gun Emplacements on the Normandy Beaches. There is no scale on the drawings, so the only known measurement I had to work with was the gun barrel bore! I scaled the rest of the drawing off this single measurement, checking this against photos of soldiers standing next to the bunker.

The figures are all Tamiya, except for the guy with the camo net, which is a Trumpeter fig, all are reworked a bit. Looks like they could use a tune-up though, my figure painting skills have improved considerably since this was built....

The model is actually only a facade, it measure 19x15 inches. To built the entire bunker would be rather large about 2 feet square. At the time, I didn't have any photos or drawings of the rear of the bunker, so I settled for just the business end.

Here are a few more photos;

Here is the rudimentary interior with the turret removed;

And a shot of the turret;

Smokin' Johan

I plan on installing lights inside....someday...

 What did you use to build the bunker, looks great again.

David

Kykeon wrote:

May, 1944, Battery Longues-sur-Mer, Normandy, France. ..... scratch-built from urethane foam, plaster of paris, sheet styrene

! 

namrednef wrote:

Kykeon wrote: May, 1944, Battery Longues-sur-Mer, Normandy, France. ..... scratch-built from urethane foam, plaster of paris, sheet styrene !

Oops!!!

Duh, sorry bout that, I totally missed it.

David

Kykeon wrote:

The bunker was built from two large blocks of medium-density urethane foam, one for the front face and sides, the other for the roof. I scaled-up the drawings I had and transferred the profiles onto the foam blocks, then hacked out the rough shape with a handsaw and sanded the final profile. Once I was satisfied with the rough shape, I covered the surfaces with spackle compound and embossed the wet spackle with strips of basswood to replicate the texture of the wooden slats of the concrete forms used to make the actual bunker. I painted it with some mismatched house paint I picked up for a buck at Home Depot, it just happened to look like concrete! Final painting with a mix of washes, dry brushing and colored pencils helped to accentuate the texture of the concrete.

Thanks for replying, I totally missed that in the first post. But thanks for the more descriptive version.

Thanks,

David

Concrete is a hard color to portray, but I think you have pulled it off nicely...

I have painted it and seen it painted in a bleached bone color, tannish and light grey color and I think all are realistic...funny how the simpliest of things can be so hard to reproduce in color...I believe it is because our notion of what we think the color IS vs what it REALLY IS comes into play...

Concrete is a hard color to portray, but I think you have pulled it off nicely... I have painted it and seen it painted in a bleached bone color, tannish and light grey color and I think all are realistic...funny how the simpliest of things can be so hard to reproduce in color...I believe it is because our notion of what we think the color IS vs what it REALLY IS comes into play...

i think you hit it right on the head about what the color is and what we precieve it to be. and just think how hard it is for a guy like me who is color blind

Very nice diorama, i've never seen a coastal battery dio, your dio reminds me of a coastal defences base near victoria in BC and this picture in a book of mine.

Thanks again for the complements everyone!

Zokissima; This is only a facade with basically only a front viewing angle. I originally planned to build this into a shadow box with both interior and external light sources, but like so many well intended plans, with has not come to be. When I first started this project, my references were rather limited, as I had no photos of the rear of the bunker, and only crude drawings of the entire structure. Construction of the whole bunker would have fallen into conjecture and guesswork, plus it would have been too big for any shelf space I had available, so I settled for building just the front end, with the idea that the missing portion would be hidden from view in a shadow box. I have never added lights to a model...yet, and I'm not really sure how I would wire the whole thing, so this is partially why the shadow box has not been built to house this model.

I now have many more photographs of this battery, as well as cut-away views and better drawings available. I have thought about ripping the base apart and building the rest of the bunker. Since dirt was piled on top of the bunker for camouflage, any seams could be easily hidden. It would still be a huge diorama and I'd still be at a loss as to where I could display it though....

subfixer wrote:

Very nice and scratchbuilt at that... impressive! Hey doog, check out the doog's eyes, they are alive!

Affirmative--THAT doog's got eyes!

Seriously--how'd I miss this post?

EXCELLENT! FABULOUS! IMPRESSIVE!!! 

All superlatives are inadequate, Kykeon! WOW! This is truly a spectacular piece of work! YOur scratchbuilding skillls are impressive, and the impact of this diorama is a real contest-winner! Have you any plans to enter it in a contest anywhere?  

Also--have you ever thought about donating it to a local museum or VFW if you have problems displaying/keeping it? 

Thanks Doog!

Oddly enough, this is the only one of my large dioramas that isn't a show winner. It's the old "What's the story line?" hang-up. Apparently waiting for the invasion isn't a story line....I think it got an Honorable Mention or something of the sort.....  (come on judges, it's scratch built, FCOL.)

I hope to someday either add the rest of the bunker or house it in a shadow box. Display space is at a premium in our house, as sadly, this one lives in the garage, along with a few others. I have two lighted display cases and another one in storage..... with no place to put it. But so far I not resorting to giving any of my dioramas away.

Geez, Kykeon--between your luck with this one, and SMJ's getting shut out of the awards at his local contest there with the SU122 he just posted, I'm definitely not "feeling the love" for judges today!

I'm glad there's no contest here any time soon; I might just decide to stay home!

Seriously, that's a bummer--an undeserved bummer! 

Love it, especially the camo nets. Nice detail. The german shepard is a nice touch!!

Rounds Complete!!

Kykeon wrote:

(come on judges, it's scratch built, FCOL.)

Man, I second that! This thing is amazing enough without the scratchbuilt factor put into the equation. Great figs, great gun, the whole thing looks amazing!

You got shanked, Kykeon.

  An amazing piece of work. Just proves that you don't have to buy expensive kits to add strctures to your dios. Your 'concrete' is superb.

  I too can't believe the judges looked you over...

  Boomer...