Okay here is some update photos. The street is Durham's water putty.

Well I have removed the foam sidewalks and made air dry clay ones. I also have scored the Blocks for the street and added holes and cracks to both sidewalks and streets.

It's looking great,and I'd say your options are wide open. Inspiration comes in various ways.rock on

Raualduke

It's looking great,and I'd say your options are wide open. Inspiration comes in various ways.rock on

Thank you. I will keep posting updated.

Nice looking base. What is Durham's water putty. I have heard of it, but not sure if we have it here. I do like the look of the road.

Nomad: Looks great to me. The buildings and streets look really convincing - looking forward to seeing how they look under a coat of paint.

Bish

Nice looking base. What is Durham's water putty. I have heard of it, but not sure if we have it here. I do like the look of the road.

Bish,

Durham's water putty is found at most hardware stores. I got mine at Lowes. It is a powder that when mixed with water makes a putty. it dries rock hard and does not shrink at all. I mix it up like pancake batter so it pours smoothly. You have to built a fence to keep it on the base. also you need to drill 1/4" holes about 1/4" deep in the base to give the putty something to help bite on.

You can use it for roads, walls. and so on. I love the stuff. You can get it in one pound or five pound cans for real cheap. I think I got my one pound can for about three to four bucks. the five pound can was not much more.

The one thing is that you can mix to much real easy so what the amount of water you start off with. I wasted almost a half a can that way.

Thanks for the complement about the road. It was fun to do.

Doug

Gamera

Nomad: Looks great to me. The buildings and streets look really convincing - looking forward to seeing how they look under a coat of paint.

Thanks Gamera. I too am looking forward to seeing what it looks like with paint. I just went with my gut on what to do with the walls and roads. I looked at several photos and also looked at some of the dios on the forum. Then just went to work.

Doug

Doug: Bish lives in the UK, I have no idea if they have Durham's there or not.

I just found the stuff at the local Lowe's recently- I love it, much better than the standard plaster.

I hope he can find it. I just found about it also. this is the second time I have used it. It is great for what I use it for.

I did a quick on line search and could not find it here. What is it normally used for when not making roads. I can check my local DIY store and see if there is something similar.

Their site describes it as a gypsum based power for home repairs. You might ask for something similar. I guess plaster would work just as well, I've just fell in love with this stuff since it does dry diamond hard and does not chip or flake like plaster. I guess you could contact them and see if they have a UK distributor?

Durham's Water Putty

Thanks gamera. I have done some searching and no sign of it here, but knowing that's its a gypsum based product will be helpful. I had thought about plaster, but just thought it would be nice to give something else a try.

Nomad, just looking through the thread again and there's a couple of things I thought I would mention. I am not sure if you are aware, but in diorama building there are a few 'rules' that someone came up with many years ago. One of these is that nothing should be parallel with the edge of the base. So where you have your street coming from the back to the front, the rules say this should be at an angle.

Now personally, I don't quite get all this 'rule'. In the past I have built dio's that are parallel and I think they work fine. But in the last few years I have made an effort to conform to the 'rule' and they do look better, but if I felt it warranted it, I would break the 'rule' in the future. Just something to think about for future builds.

Another of the rules is that the scene should be balanced but not symmetrical. So with the scene your doing, you could perhaps make one of the buildings just a pile of rubble. Are you planning on adding a vehicle.

The foam board did not look right to me. I anted more control over the way the sidewalks looked.

Thank you for the nice comment.

Bish

Nomad, just looking through the thread again and there's a couple of things I thought I would mention. I am not sure if you are aware, but in diorama building there are a few 'rules' that someone came up with many years ago. One of these is that nothing should be parallel with the edge of the base. So where you have your street coming from the back to the front, the rules say this should be at an angle.

Now personally, I don't quite get all this 'rule'. In the past I have built dio's that are parallel and I think they work fine. But in the last few years I have made an effort to conform to the 'rule' and they do look better, but if I felt it warranted it, I would break the 'rule' in the future. Just something to think about for future builds.

Another of the rules is that the scene should be balanced but not symmetrical. So with the scene your doing, you could perhaps make one of the buildings just a pile of rubble. Are you planning on adding a vehicle.

Thanks  Bish for the information. I can cut the base without harming the street. (I hope.) I have a photo to show you what I mean.

No vehicle in this one as of now. As far as making one of the building just rubble, that might work also. I would still like to have both MG42's in the dio.

Shoot me some ideas on this.

Doug

You could do, but I did that once on a base and I thought it looked a bit odd. I would not worry to much, I just wanted to point it out to you. As I say, I don't always follow those rules, but some treat them as the word of god.

Hello!

I'm not a soldier, but I'm afraid the location for the machine gun might not be a good one - do I see it right, that they only have the hole in the wall to fire through?

Good luck with your dio and have a nice day!

Paweł

Hey Pawel,

Thank you for the comment and observation. Yes you see it right. The idea came to me from the movie Saving Private Ryan. It i the scene in where the two GIs were setting up the 30cal machine gun in the upper room of the shop. They were firing thru a hole in the wall at the on coming Germans. There will be plenty of debris all around them from the bombed out buildings..

This dio is only in the starting stages and may be subject to change at any time.

Thanks again for the comments. Feel free to leave more if you want.

You have a wonderful day also.

Doug

i'm going to throw my 2 cents in here for what it's worth. first off city fight is brutal. i did some training in berlin and a cat would have to be lucky to survive.

i like cutting the one corner off but, like bish, i am not locked into rules and i tend to be symmetrical, especially since i am a technical illustrator by trade. i think the prone MG team needs some rubble in front for protection. and i n would block the door to the left of the tripod team because they ain't leaving that way.

this set up is like the depuy (USA general) foxhole concept. it works great until a position is breached, then it all goes to crap.

waynec

i'm going to throw my 2 cents in here for what it's worth. first off city fight is brutal. i did some training in berlin and a cat would have to be lucky to survive.

i like cutting the one corner off but, like bish, i am not locked into rules and i tend to be symmetrical, especially since i am a technical illustrator by trade. i think the prone MG team needs some rubble in front for protection. and i n would block the door to the left of the tripod team because they ain't leaving that way.

this set up is like the depuy (USA general) foxhole concept. it works great until a position is breached, then it all goes to crap.

Hey Waynec,

 Thanks for the comment. You are right on the prone MG needs rubble in front. That is what I plan to do. Now that I know the rule I will try to follow it when I can. This dio has been a real brain teaser for me on what to do with the colors. I guess I need to just get the airbrush out and see what happens.

Doug

Nomad: A lot of what Bish and the other guys are referring to about not building everything symmetrical comes from Shep Paine's 'How to Build Dioramas' - it's from the early '80s and a little out of date on somethings but still it's an invaluable reference for dioramas and a bunch of other modeling related stuff. It seems to be out of print at Amazon but a used copy should be fine or just buy it elsewhere. It's from the same company as FSM so you might be able to pick it up here. In any case it's well worth the money spent.

SHEPPARD PAINE DIORAMA BOOK

I finally got a copy of that book last year, after 20 + years of building dio's. I think I had learnt by looking at others and trial and error. While it is old, it is certainly worth a read and I think there are some things which will always be relevant and others that are open to opinion.

You know,  you could add something like a damaged Panzer II, German Halftrack or even a German artillery of sorts  amid a pile of rubble to the diorama. Just a thought....

Gamera

Nomad: A lot of what Bish and the other guys are referring to about not building everything symmetrical comes from Shep Paine's 'How to Build Dioramas' - it's from the early '80s and a little out of date on somethings but still it's an invaluable reference for dioramas and a bunch of other modeling related stuff. It seems to be out of print at Amazon but a used copy should be fine or just buy it elsewhere. It's from the same company as FSM so you might be able to pick it up here. In any case it's well worth the money spent.

Doug

BlackSheepTwoOneFour

You know,  you could add something like a damaged Panzer II, German Halftrack or even a German artillery of sorts  amid a pile of rubble to the diorama. Just a thought....

Yes I could add some armor or a cannon but at this time I have none to put with it. It may come late.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Here are some update photos of the base.

This one is one sidewalk complete.

This one not finished.