This diorama was simply remarkable back then. Still stands up 47 (FORTY SEVEN) years later.
Enjoy!

Shep Paine's work was always fantastic, he was a true pioneer. Although I've seen this diorama depicted in his books, I never realised there were actually two 251s in it.
Thanks for showing it here in all its glory, Chaz.

As a kid, I can still remember how blown away I was by Shep's diorama inserts in those Monogram kits, originally released in the 1950's. Later as an adult, it was an honor to meet him and get to know him a bit. These Tamiya figures were leading edge stuff when released in the early 1970's and Shep took them to the next level and made a quantum leap forward for our little hobby. AFAIK, this was both Shep's first urban scene and perhaps the first urban scene ever, in any diorama.

I remember seeing one of Shep's Monogram dioramas on display at a local hobby shop as a teenager. I thought, "OMG, is this some sort of sorcery?" I can't describe how well done it was, compared to anyone else's work. Shep inspired so many of us as kids, to get into this hobby.
RIP, Shep.

BTW, this diorama still exists and is in the hands of a collector.

Nice to know it’s being looked after Chaz, unlike some of Francois Verlinden’s stuff which was thrown into rubbish skips when he decided to retire.

I think virtually all of his stuff, is currently coveted by collectors. He even made sure his Historex spare parts found a good home.

When I was about 11, I was at a department store with my parents and saw this. It was the two small color photos below, on the side of the Monogram M-48 box which blew me away.
The tank looked dirty! How was that done? There was an M-60 machine gun team with painted on helmet covers. The tank commander has body armor and an M-60 with and M-113 ACAV shield was mounted in front of the loaders hatch. And all that cool gear hanging off it! Even an extra pair of boots! I stared at those two tiny pictures for half an hour! LOL!

Sounds like a valiant effort!

In the '70's they had an aerosol deodorant which dried to a white powder. I thought, what an excellent way to give my Monogram Sturmgeschutz a white wash snow camouflage - and easy too! It required about a half a can and actually came out fairly decently, but it made my room smell for weeks!

Shep's version:

Exactly. I still don't, at least, not as much as rivet-counters at Hyperscale and in some other forums. I built and paint what I like, the way I like.

Prost!
Brad

And what's great about "Red Sniper Hunt", and the Monogram dioramas, is that he used Tamiya's kit figures, and Monogram's, which are sneered at today by so many figure painters and modelers. I see comments about how bad they are, and I think of those dioramas. We need to remember that Shep wanted to encourage modelers, to show them what they could do with a kit, if they tried.

Prost!
Brad

Exactly! These 1/35th figures, (below), were from a kit released in the 1950's. They were not multi-pose, they were single piece injected plastic figures. By cutting them apart and swapping arms, torsos and legs, Shep showed us how to "convert" . Even repositioning the hands for more realistic poses.





The early Tamiya figures were light years ahead of these.

Here's the Diorama tip sheet explaining the figure conversions.

I remember going to a local hobby shop with a friend back in the day, and looking at a Monogram piece Shep had on display there. As an aside, I didn't know it at the time, but Shep actually lived about 10 minutes away. Anyway, we were talking to the shop owner about it and he said, "You should see what he can do with Tamiya stuff! The yelling figure actually has teeth!"