Excellent reference photos!-stone work in Germany

Hey guys, having recently returned from a tour of Europe, I took a lot of great photos of stone work and masonry from Germany, from two of the oldest towns; Marburg & Nuremburg. Most, if not all of this masonry is original. Some of the buildings were bombed during the war, but the bulk of the masonry survived intact. EVen repairs were carried out in the original stone. I’ve been using these photos as a reference for a 1/72 dio (DML’s E100) that I’ve been working on, and I figured that sharing them would be a great asset to anyone interested in realistic painting and weathering of European and esp. German/Third Reich buildings. Enjoy!

Photos 1-3 are from Marburg, a picturesque old town about an hour east of Frankfurt. It was settled around the mid 12th century and has ordinances against over-developement. Martin Luther and the brothers Grimm walked these streets. It is THE quintessential gorgeous “olde German town”–a great destination for holiday!

Photo 1 is a ruin of the old hospital, destroyed during the war; some interesting shades there. Note the drab tan hue of much of the stone esp. the window perimeters.

Photo 2 is the ancient road going up to the old "landgrave(castle)/present university. Note the rough character of the cobblestone and the Roman-era walls. This road was a bear to walk! (yup, that’s me peeking around the corner at my girlfriend!)

Photo 3 is the old Lutheran church, the Church of the Virgin Mary, where Luther spent time…note the pinkish hue of the stones.

Photos 4-5 are from Nuremburg, the birthplace of National Socialism (“nazism”). Photo 4is a shot of the side wal of the “Kaiserburg”–the huge castle dating from the mid 11th century that dominates the hill above the Old Town. The colors of the stone used in construction is identical to local churches and the walls enclosing the city.

The last photo is from within the Kaiserburg “keep”, and is a great photo showing different textures and hues of the cobblestones, walls, buildings and even the roof tiles ubiquitous to European landscape. (That’s the other “photographer” in the foreground-lucky me!!! :wink: )

I hope this helps those of you interested in WWII dioramas and esp. those situated in Germany…!

Excellent shots, Doog. Yes, thank you for sharing. I will study those bricks and building quite a bit more.

I spent three weeks on tour over there a few years back and dumb as I am, got very little photographic proof of it. I was in Nuremburg for a day, but most of my WWII sightseeing happened in Munich and Berlin. Other than that, it was mostly “van/beer/load-in/beer/play/beer/load-out/beer/hotel/beer/van”. So thanks again for the shots of scenery important to us dio makers.

Steve

Great photos Doog. That last one would make for a cool diorama.

Your photos are really making me homesick for Germany. I lived there from 79 to 85 and really miss it sometimes. I’m half German and my mother still lives there. I wish I could go back in time with my digital camera and take a bagillion pictures of everything I had seen when I was there. [sigh]

Thanks for posting those. [:)]

espins1,

I’m not even a German and I only spent a week in Germany (Munchen) for my work many years ago, and I miss it a lot as well. Good food… good beer and great people.