This is a diorama I worked on during the year of the pandemic (I was still working full time as a nurse at the time). It took a little over a year to complete.
The scene: It is April of 1945, in western Germany. Elements of the US Army’s 10th Armored Division enter a railroad yard on the outskirts of a small city. Here they find an abandoned BR 52 locomotive, which has somehow survived bombing raids and relentless air attacks, only to be stopped by an inoperable water crane. They find an elderly German engineer, who stayed behind after other railroad workers fled upon hearing the Americans approach. He decided the Americans couldn’t possibly be worse than the Nazis. The American soldiers find other abandoned equipment and supplies, including a long-ago captured Citroen CV-11, and a Mercedes-Benz L4500A truck adapted to railroad work. MPs arrive to secure the area, as the soldiers begin checking for hiding German troops and inspecting the big locomotive. One officer finds a bottle of wine in the cabin of the locomotive, much to the amusement of one of the MPs. On the platform they find other wine bottles, a fire barrel, and other evidence of recent habitation, testament to the homelessness and chaos of the last days of the war.
The models come from Trumpeter, Meng, Dragon, Taska/Asuka, Skybow (now AFV Club), MiniArt, Zvezda, and Tamiya. The figures are a mix of new and old figures, from Tamiya, Dragon, MiniArt, and Masterbox.
Wow. Such a well done scene. Everything ties together very well from the figures to the ground work to the extra details throughout. I really like how you finished the 4500, especially the interior of the bed.
This is something I would really like to see in person someday.
I keep scrolling though the pictures and finding more wonderful details. The strewn papers, the empty wine bottles, the pigeons, the lifelike weathering all over the place…This is absolutely amazing. This is art. A masterpiece.
Link955 this is an awesome diorama! The complexity is amazing. They always saw that a good diorama should tell a story, well yours sure does. The more that I look at it the more hidden details I find.
I don’t know were to start… absolutely stunning! I love ALL of the small details. The weathering is top shelf, and the story of your diorama sucked me in. Absolutely well done Sir!
I could literally sit down for a good hour to take all of this in and will for sure be coming back to this dio tomorrow to have another good look at it Mike. Un…frickin’ believable…
How fun to look for all the little details! It’s hard to even offer comments on a project of this scale. Each vehicle or figure is an entire project on its own, let alone making them all fit together in the context of a scene like this.
Is this on display anywhere, or has it been to a show of some kind? Or is it hidden in your basement away from appreciative eyes?
It’s actually in a glass case in the living room. My wife insisted. She loves my models, especially this one.
And yes, I’ve had it at a few shows (not many this far north).
