I’ve never been known to follow the pack…and dioramas are no exception…I wanted to do an airfield diorama, but lacked the space, so I scaled everything down to the smallest feasible scale…
I used an old trophy base from one of my many 3rd place awards… the aircraft are 1/350 scale Trumpeter B-25s (as PBJs), F4U Corsairs, a scratchbuilt PBY Catalina, and a Betty from the Tamiya 1/350 Prince of Wales kit.
The PBY was originally supposed to be a Martin Mariner from Iron Shipwrights, but the kit was so badly warped I couldn’t do a thing to straighten it. So, I did the PBY. It’s a hand carved fuselage with sheet plastic wings. The engine is a white metal part from Tom’s Modelworks, and the engine mount is made from photoetched brass leftovers. The canopy is an extra from the Trumpeter B-25 sprue, as are the props. The ball turret is a small clear plastic bead from the inside of one of my daughter’s dolls that the dog got a hold of…Landing gear is also scratchbuilt from plastic disks and extra ship brass. So is the scaffolding…the crane is also scratched.
The Quonset hut is made from sheet plastic, I cut a circle in scribed plastic and then cut it in half, that makes each end of the building…then simply wrap sheet plastic over the top and sand it on a flat surface.
The Corsairs were fun…I opened the cockpit up on one of them, then realized I was in serious need of a shrink, so the other is closed up. The tanker is another scratchbuild, the tank itself is made from a piece of brass tube flattened with a pair of pliers to get that oblong shape. The hose is thin solder. The figures are all White Ensign photoetched. The palm trees are floral wire, and that funny green paper you get in the Tamiya dinosaur kits, folded and cut with an x-acto knife to get the individual leaves…the groundwork is Woodland Scenics, and the clutter is N Gauge model railroad junk.
The bottles in the background give you a good idea of the overall size…my camera can’t handle getting close to something this small, so I have to bump the resolution up and then crop the images…6 of one, half dozen of the other I guess…hope y’all like it.
I mean, can you guys actually see pictures ? All I see are red X’s…[%-)], at least here on the forum.
To view your pics I need to “ask” the properties, copy the URL and paste it in a new window.
But what a dio !!! It is GREAT in all it’s smallness.
At first glance I was thinking it was maybe 1/144 or something, then I really looked as I read the post and all I could think was “Did he go blind whie adding that tiny detail?” Simply amazing! I am in awe at what you’ve done here. Thanks for sharing with us.
Great work Jeff.
The detail that you have put into this small scale dio is incredible. I love that you got all the antenna wires in there and they look tight too.
if you right-click on the x, then bring up properties, and copy and paste the URL into your browser, you can see the picture. to see the other, hit the back button and do the same process to the others. at first i only saw x’s, but then figured this out. grea dio, Jeff. i dont know how you can stand to build something that small, i have trouble with 1/72. later.
Jon
nice work!!! i too marvel @ the scale id go blind!! well if u really need to conserve space and really wanna do that dio its a good scale!
really…NICE WORK!!!
it inspires me to start working on that wildcat i ve been putting off[tup][tup]
I’ve seen this a couple times in person (Milford and Long Island) and it’s even more impressive up close an personal.
And don’t let him fool you, this was not hard work for Jeff. He’s only 3 mm tall! [(-D]
Thanks guys, and Al’s right…it’s easy to scratchbuild something when its 1:1 scale… [:D]
In all honesty it started out as a lark…I had a bunch of 1/350 aircraft and stuff leftover from doing a Trumpeter carrier, so I started thinking about what I could do with it aside from the parts box.
