Unfinished 'Nam Diorama

[harrytheheid]

This is an old diorama from around two years ago with Bravo6 figures on the M113 in front.
I'm posting it here in the WIP section because I obtained additional Bravo6 figures for it about twelve months ago, but still have to paint and locate them into the scene.
Sorry for the poor quality, the photos must've been just WIP snaps for my own info and taken using a phone.

 

[Chris Oldfield]

Nice job, Harry - loving the groundwork & the palm trees!

 

[harrytheheid]

Nice job, Harry - loving the groundwork & the palm trees!

This was in response to Fogie's comments about Bravo6 figures in a different thread.
I should have actual WIP photos in a file somewhere. I'll post them up when I find them.
Cheers
H

 

[Ned Ricks]

Hi, Harry -
Your cavalry ACAVs look very good. In this picture, you will see the same red and white guidon on the hull depicted by your decals. An extra touch might be a roll of fencing carried above the driver's head laterally on the front slope. As seen in the photo, at a stop, this was set up to provide stand off for RPG rockets The vertical fence posts you see are supporting the wire sheets.
A scale substitute may be the fabric used for a wedding bride's veil. In the US this stuff is called "tulle" and it is a mesh that can be painted rust and gray, etc.
Best wishes from an old Cav guy,
N

 

[MoboSchreuder]

Looks great

Mobo

 

[harrytheheid]

One of them's from Academy, the other is Tamiya.
Here's the first photos of the Tamiya build;

And here's the Academy example;

There'll be more WIP photos tomorrow, (my time zone).
Cheers
H

 

[Steve Ski]

Dio looks great to me, my favorite era, actually. Great work Harry, please post some close up when you can, love to see em.

Cheers, Ski.

 

[harrytheheid]

Dio looks great to me, my favorite era, actually. Great work Harry, please post some close up when you can, love to see em.

Cheers, Ski.

It's one of my favorite eras as well.
I wonder where the diorama is right now? Must be upstairs still waiting for those additional Bravo6 figures. I'll have a hunt for it in the morning.

 

[Sgt. Red]

Cool diorama!!!

 

[harrytheheid]

Found the rest of the old WIP photos.
There's a lot of them and some might well be out of sequence, so I'll keep my comments to a minimum.
Most of this is self-explanatory in any case.

Decals applied to the Academy kit;

Meanwhile, back at the Tamiya kit;

And a little bit of pre-shading;

Then the fun started.
The eagle-eyed might spot that I got those yellow stripe decals on wrong........unfortunately, I can't even try to claim it as a "deliberate mistake"....

No rust depicted on the vehicle bodywork of course, but I did try to suggest an overall red-ish color for the weathering.

More streaks, dents and dings;

And that was just about enough.

TO BE CONTINUED....

 

[harrytheheid]

Nice job, Harry - loving the groundwork & the palm trees!

Cheers - I'll try and get better photos of the completed diorama.

Hi, Harry -
Your cavalry ACAVs look very good. In this picture, you will see the same red and white guidon on the hull depicted by your decals. An extra touch might be a roll of fencing carried above the driver's head laterally on the front slope. As seen in the photo, at a stop, this was set up to provide stand off for RPG rocketsView attachment 354759 The vertical fence posts you see are supporting the wire sheets.
A scale substitute may be the fabric used for a wedding bride's veil. In the US this stuff is called "tulle" and it is a mesh that can be painted rust and gray, etc.
Best wishes from an old Cav guy,
N

Thanks for the suggestion. I might try it on the next M113 that I build.

Looks great

Mobo

Glad you like it Mobo - there's more to come.

Cool diorama!!!

Cheers.

Dio looks great to me, my favorite era, actually. Great work Harry, please post some close up when you can, love to see em.

Cheers, Ski.

There's a few close-up's among the WIP photos, but I'll try and get better examples later this week.

Thanks to all who've responded to the thread.

 

[Tony Dawe]

I’m following this post closely. Although it’s not strictly a figure subject, I do a few armour subjects from time to time and have just started on an Australian M113 project from 1966 .

 

[harrytheheid]

CONTINUED FROM THE PREVIOUS WIP POST....

With the Tamiya model almost finished, it was time to see how the Bravo6 figures could be used.

This is the Nam Tankers set of three figures.

Sorry about the poor quality photos.

And I painted the kit figures along with the Bravo6's while I was at it, although I ended up only using two of them.
The rest of the kit figures are now in a box somewhere to be used in a future project.

So, while the figures were put to one side and allowed to dry, the weathering on the Academy M113 got done;

For this diorama, I wanted both AFV's to be heavily weathered.
I use a range of products from various manufacturers, but seem to remember both vehicles were done with Flory Models pigments in the running gear, and their clay-based washes on the superstructures.

Here's YT links to using both products;




TO BE CONTINUED....

 

[marco55]

Damn nice work Harry. Didn't know you did modern.
Mark

 

[harrytheheid]

Damn nice work Harry. Didn't know you did modern.
Mark

Anything from Fantasy to Greek Mythology to Medieval to 30YW to Post-Vietnam is fair game Mark. Depends what piques my interest at any given time.
If I can find the ex-HDD the photos are stored on, I might do a couple of WIP threads on this WW2 scenario....

....and this Korean War diorama.

Cheers
Harry

 

[marco55]

 

[harrytheheid]

CONTINUED FROM THE PREVIOUS WIP POST....

Now that the M113's and figures were pretty much finished, it was time to consider the items I wanted to add to the diorama base.
I think the ruined Buddha Temple was a resin product from Verlinden. Wasn't all that impressed with the side walls, so I used White Milliput to beef them up and redefined the stonework.

The Temple kit didn't include a back-wall, but the tin lid off a box of Green Tea was used for that.

Then I had a play around with the basic look of the diorama. The lion statues were from my spares box. White Milliput was used to beef up the homemade back-wall.

Smoking was still one of my many disgusting habits back when this diorama was built, (although I'm a real virulent Anti-Tobacco Nazi nowadays), so a bunch of empty fag packets were used as formers for the basic groundwork.
The wooden base also got a couple of coats of grey primer to stop it warping later in the construction process.

Then strips of newspaper soaked in dilute white glue were laid over the old fag packets to form a hard shell for the contours of the Celluclay groundwork.

And then a couple of Celluclay layers were shoveled onto the diorama base.
This is a shot of the back-wall. Once the Celluclay had cured, the rear area of the wall was built up using the cheaper Yellow/Grey Milliput, as can be seen in the final photo in this post.

And at this point, everything was left for a day or two to settle down and dry out.

TO BE CONTINUED....

 

[harrytheheid]

CONTINUED FROM THE PREVIOUS WIP POST....

Got some color laid down onto the groundwork....

....and checked the layout.

Started adding the foliage....

....and checked the layout.

So, lets see if the figures add anything to the scene.

And it was at this point I realized that it made more sense to swop the vehicles over, with the Academy M113 in front and the Tamiya bringing up the rear.

TO BE CONTINUED....

 

[Chris Oldfield]

Like what you did with the Buddha temple walls Harry - nice one!

 

[harrytheheid]

Like what you did with the Buddha temple walls Harry - nice one!

Adding a touch of verdigris to the Buddha and Lions improved them as well Chris.
You'll see that in the next set of photos.