My first attempt at creating a diorama, using my third attempt at building a model. The first try (Academy mid Tiger with interior) was a disaster but a good learning experience. My second attempt was one of Dragon's super kits (Pz IV ausf D) which came out a bit better. Good enough to encourage me to re-try a Tiger, the Tamiya early. It was during this build that I came across this picture (http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/tigers-02.htm - scroll down to sPzAbt 505) which inspired me to try making the diorama.
How did I do? Loosely based on the photo as you can see and certainly not from sPzAbt 505. In fact, no specific historical context was intended. But if you need one, the setting is Russia, around Kharkov, late Feb or early March 1943. Wasn't Tiger 332 in the vicinity at the time? Either way, my primary goal was to have fun and to simply see what might arise from plastic, plaster and paint.
The Tamiya kit is well engineered and went together without major problems. It's dressed it up with Eduard PE (still learning how to work with that), a Jordi aluminum barrel and Friul tracks. The jack block is a small piece of wood. It was initially painted in panzer gray and the winter whitewash was done by dabbing white oil paint and blending it with a brush that was dampened with mineral spirits. Not sure that's the best way to do it because it took almost two weeks to dry completely. But I like the end result. Weathered with additional oil paints and pigments. And finally, it was dirtied some more with real dirt mixed with white glue and a little raw umber paint.
My daughters love dogs so when I saw that Custom Dioramics offers a set of 1/35 dogs, I couldn't resist. And hence the title, Ein Hundeleben; A Dog's Life,
which reflects the difficult life of the strays that are caught in the middle of a war but also the difficult lives of the tankers who frequently also didn't know where there next meal would come from. So here are comrades in arms sharing a meal.
The barn was scratch built from Evergreen plastic sheet, rods and strips; like the dogs, the farm equipment was also from Custom Dioramics; the tree is plaster over a wire base. The grass mat is one of Silfluor's cow pasture products to which I added longer tufts of field grass from Woodland Scenics. The snow is also from Woodland Scenics.
Figures are a mix or Verlinden, Master Box and the wonderful Alpine set.
Although if you use the macro lens to photograph them, they look pretty ugly...
I did that because my wife said that if this guy...
... were six feet taller, I'd be history.
Thanks for looking. Feel free to offer criticism and suggestions for improvement.
Don