OK, this is the VERY early stage, I have set up all the equipment, no ground work, equipment is not glued down, nor the gun, the setting is going to be in tunisia, If you can see the ammo crates clearly, notice how there are five shells missing, and five shell casings on the ground[:D]
BTW, I thought the jerry can was a nice touch considering the crew might have the good nature to give passerby tanks fuel[:p]
EDIT: now that I think about it, I might do a walk through if this turns out good since I have taken pics so early![:D]
looks like a good layout. However, these thing should be taken into consideration-
Get rid of the jerrycan. The crew would not jut give away gas, they must have their own gas and expect other tank crew to carry their own gas, besides, one jerrycan doesnt exactly fill up a tank. And it is in a horrible location, gas next to ammunition = very bad result if hit with a lucky enemy couter fire.
Get rid of the boots. Unless you plan to have a barefoot man somewhere in the scene they look very out of place. Why would some one set a pair of boots next to their ammo?
That gas mask container was only used by the fallschirmjagers. Get it out and replace it with a standard metal one with strap.
Make some of those boxes empty. you have 5 empty shell casings, thats 1 and 2/3 of a box. So one empty with one shell still in one box. otherwise the viewer really doesnt know where the heck the ammo came from.
The MG and Helmet are kind of a toss up. The helmet and mg would reayy be getting in the way while trying to pull out ammo. Try setting the mg up in the blank spot to the left of the gun. covering the guns flank. Put it behind some sand bags and have the helmet next to or on the sandbags. This will help eliminate a really boring spot, unless you intend to add something there.
Other than these 5 things, I looks like a very nice layout, except for the boring section to the left. Looking foreward to seeing this with some scenery!
Ok, Heres my latest progress, I have added a sandbag barrier with a machinegun to protect the FlaK guns flank, I am intending to put a shoeless man there because his feet hurt from wearing the boots day and night. I changed the gas mask, need your opinion on the strap. I have take photos of the boxes, now you can see that there are five shells missing and five casings on the ground. About that, maybe the crew used different shells for different reasons, ever think of that? I have removed the jerry can, the tube next to the canteen is the spare barrel for the MG. I know I need a bipod or tripod for it, just have to find one. I need your opinion on the sandbags, are they too big? I put the figure there for comparison. I textured the bags by poking them with a big stiff brush, made them out of Sculpie. Opinions please, anything that should be changed tell me.
Also , I know the ammunition could be shot from the flank, but its the best I could do, because if I put it somewhere else it will be totally exposed.
I was looking through an old modeling book covering figures in the DAK and there was a photo of a flak gun with sandbags that might help inject more realism to your diorama configuration.
In this picture the gun is surrounded by a circle of sandbags about knee high, with some rocks used to complete part of the circle. The barrier is essentially level on the top rather than domed like you have yours. I was never in the military, but I’m pretty sure that you want a full circle of cover so that 1) you are protected from artillery shells or aircraft bombs that land near you and 2) you are not completely uncovered in the case of a flank attack.
You’re also not going to leave ammo just lying around like that - it would be stacked behind some sort of cover to protect it from incoming fire. So, I think you’d have 1 partially empty box, possibly other empty boxes, and the empty shells, laying about but the rest of the stuff would be better protected.
I’ve also seen numerous pictures of the war in Africa where the infantry is dug into foxholes while the guns are surrounded by raised protection and covered with camo netting. So, if this was my diorama I’d put a full circle of bags/rocks around the gun and put the covering infantry off to one side in their own foxhole. The models and details look very good, BTW.
[:D]