This is my latest ‘big’ project:
It had been a while since I had started planning this diorama. There was always something I needed that I did not have… The Merkava was done first. A quick build, just about from the box - only a few little details added -; the Revell Merkava III kit builds really easily. There are issues with the turret shape, but the exercise was not to build a model of a tank, rather tell a story with a tank as a secondary item. The focus of this diorama is on the right, with a handful of young Palestinians, armed with rocks and small ‘home-made’ bombs, preparing to confront the armoured fist of the Israeli army.
The figures were all sculpted from scratch. The buildings are based on pictures of real buildings in Nazareth, courtesy of numerous news websites. The inside of the buildings are fully detailled: a car workshop on the right, and a living room at the first floor, including sofas, Hi-Fi (& records sleeves), pictures on the wall, wallpaper,… The damaged garage shutter allows for some details to be seen there: rice bags, a washing machine and a dryer in particular. The VW combi van is a diecast from Carorama, though it is re-painted and somewhat detailled inside too.
What took the most time was to ‘weather’ the whole diorama, with masonery and bits of bricks and paving, as well as garbage, littering the road and pavement. And adding little bits of ‘humanity’ such as a soccer ball on the roof (can’t really be seen on this shot)…
Hope you like it.
Domi
Nicely done Domi. Thanks for sharing.
Regards, Rick
I thought David was an Israelite? haha, just kidding man, GREAT JOB. However it’d be nice to see some more pics
That’s really a beautiful piece of work!
It’s really nice to see someone tackle this subject from this perspective; I think maybe some people would shy away from the whole idea out of a fear of “political correctness”? But you’ve sone it admirably.
Lots of great details and thought in the whole scene! WELL DONE!
Good stuff, real good. I think its a good subject to choose and its been done tastefully. The name is well suited and the diorama is fairly neutral. It doesnt favour one side so people of each opinion can look and enjoy.
Thank you, Guys. I’ll try to upload a few more pics. The title is a ‘near’ accident. I’ve been working/thinking on/about a series of dioramas in the same ‘vein’, including the famous picture showing the single Chinese student stopping the Type 69 tanks on Tiananmen Square. The idea behind the series being to create dioramas where the focus of the ‘scene’ was not on the obvious, larger item. I feel many dioramas do not tell a story, merely embelishing a model, be it an aircraft or an AFV, or else. Anyway, as it happened, I got the ‘materials’ to build this one first and of course the title here is more fitting than for Tiananmen. I think the “?” I added after the title got a few people irritated or thinking I was supporting one side more than another… That was certainly not the effect I was after.
Almost everything we see, do in this hobby could at some point be taken the ‘wrong way’. For instance, in my research, I’ve found evidence of people seriously thinking that the Tiananmen events were staged, or not as big as we tend to think they were. And therefore, for this future diorama, I may offend some people too. However, when I build a German tank used by the Nazis to kill what I call ‘allies’ and/or civilians, there is also a fair chance that it will be seen by someone who may think I am glorifying the Nazi war machine…
Domi
Interesting concept of a series of similar dioramas. If I may suggest, there was a an old photo in Life magazine from the 1956 Hungarian uprising that would be of a similar nature. It showed Soviet T-34/85’s being pelted with rocks by Hungarians. Your work is very impressive and I look forward to seeing the Tiananmen Square diorama.