Well I want to make a diorama depicting the amiya kit wth Otto Carius tiger tank. There was a part in his Bok Tigers In The Mud where he talks about holding a line after he had ambushed the Russian advance tank unit in the village, and bringing up infantry to support him. Well I was thinking of using the tamiya Otto Carius tank (217) and using the Tamiya Krupp or Opel Blitz and have the truck loaded with infantry. I was thinking of also adding a pak gun in there that was already dug in by infantry that had already gotten to the position.
Have you sketched it out to see what kind of space you’ll need? That’s my start-point for all dioramas. Draw some basic shapes around the pieces you’re going to use onto some paper and then measure it out around the perimeter in order to give an idea of how big your base in going to have to be, going slightly larger than you think you’ll need. Like if you think you’ll need 11" x14", draw the border out to 13" x 16" and then place your mostly complete vehicles on the paper “base”. With three kits on the base, you’re going to have to go fairly large on this one, so a mock-up is a “Must-have”.
I did a quick mock-up of three kits that are more or less the same size as what you’re wanting to do, and the dimensions came out to 19" x 14", and it’s a bit crowded… I’d say you’ll need to space them out a bit more than I did, and that’ll call for a base at least 24" x 18" to give you some space and a nice reveal around the diorama…
You could get away with doing a base maybe a couple inches smaller, but that’s about it. You can experiment with positions of the models as well, I just did a “quick & dirty” layout… The most important question to ask in diorama building is, “Are my viewers going to know what’s going without me having to explain it to them?”, Or in your case, read the book? The story not only has to be obvious, it has to be immediately obvious to the viewer if you want to grab their attention and pull them into your story… They can’t see what’s inside your head, so you gotta show 'em, and you have to do it with a “snapshot”, which is what a diorama actually is, a 3-D photograph…
You can get away with a short paragraph to set the time and place, but try to avoid it if you can ( but no more than 3 or 4 short sentences)…
In this case, you talk about having to hold the line, so ideally, you’ll want to show the infantry dismounting, rather than just sitting in the truck, under the direction of whatever NCO or Officer is in charge, with some indicator of the direction of the enemy, and perhaps the PAK crew looking on while it’s cheif is watching with binos in the direction of the enemy’s location…
Anyway, you know where to start, more or less… Keep us posted.
I need some suggestions on what soldiers to use on the krupp, I think i’ll go with the tamiya seated waffen SS soldiers and the panzer riders loraine, and maybe tamiyas assault infantry I could use some of the guys that are hoping off of the truck. Any other figure kits that could be used. I think for the ground work I was going to do like a medium height yellow grass/ wheat looking crop.
Again, what are your figures going to be doing? They supply the action, so you need to have a pretty good idea what you want to do. Are they moving or sitting? Are some going to dismounting while others sit there? Is there going to be a sense of urgency? What you’redescribing, I’m not really clear on… I know you’re referring to specific figure kits, but I can’t picture which ones you’re talking about, so I ain’t sure on what poses’re available. I’m guessing that you don’t plan on any figure conversions, but are settling for what’s straight out of the box?
Going SOB is ok, and there are some times you CAN find them in the right pose, but if you’re going to do that, you’re going to run into problems, especially with the cost of buying figures that fit your action… I’d suggest that you start early and learn how to convert figures to the poses you want, rather than trying to find them already posed that way. It allows you make the the figures fit the story, rather than forcing you to make dioramas that fit the figures…
However, we’re getting way ahead of ourselves… First, you need to decide on the vehicles, their placement, and diorama base-size. Then you need to start the models, because you’re going to want a more-or-less complete model for placement on the mock-up. Once that’s accomplished and you know where everything is going to go (after changing everything around a dozen times), then you can start on the base and groundwork and gather materials for it. Once you’re ready to mount the completed models in place, you can THEN start on the figures (except for ones that need to be in-place before you lock the models down, like drivers)…
I’ve just started the construction phase for a dio using a Sherman in an urban setting and have to convert three (possibly five) figures to be doing what I want. (The Sherman’s TC has just shot a German in a second-story window with his pistol that was about to drop a grenade into the Sherman’s open hatch as it goes through the wall of a building that the German happens to be occupying, on the second floor) All will be a Frankenstein effort with Tamiya, Dragon, and Italeri figure parts making up a completed figure. For instance, the Sherman’s TC maybe will be a Tamiya torso, Dragon legs, Italeri arms and boots, and a head with CVC helmet that I don’t remember what figure it came from… Dunno exactly, I ain’t too the figure construction-stage yet…
Another thing you should consider is looking over Manstein’s “Death in a Courtyard” diorama andd pay particular attention to his stages of construction, and how it came together, with constant revisions, test-placements, etc. … Don’t worry about reading the comments and suggestions, just look over his photos and construction notes. Not to toot m’ own horn, but also look over the figure conversion I did in the “Mauldin” dio. It was pretty straightforward, with no real troubles, other than converting a US Marine to a US Army Cav Trooper. The arms received the most work on that guy, with a bit of stuff done to the shirt and the pistol (The pistol had to cut out of a submachinegun since I didn’t have any pistols). I’m going to have to do the same thing with the Sherman TC, since I still don’t have any pistols layin’ around here…
Anyway, Start your staging phase to get the dimensions and figure out how big you’re going to have to get, and then start the models to get to the mock-up phase… Keep an eye on the dio forums for interesting figures to pop up in builds, and go back in the archives to check on figures as well… When you find some that are kinda what you want, sound off and we’ll take a look, and don’t be afraid to ask questions…
Good luck…
What would be a good conversin kit for German soldiers?
[edit] Would the verlinden waffen SS coversion for soldiers work?
There’s no real “conversion kits” for figures… The conversion kits are other figure’s parts, an arm from here, leg from there, head from over there, etc… You take a razor saw to the major joints (wrists, elbows, shoulders, neck, waist, knees, ankles) and re-position them to suit your needs, then fill the gaps with putty and smooth out the joints. I add a piece of wire to become a the new joint to drilled holes in each end of the joint, then glue the joint together in it’s new position, fill the gap around the new “bone”, and sand. Then paint in the normal manner…
EDIT: I’m starting a dio today and I need to convert a number of figures… I’l document one and post the steps with some pics so it’ll make more sense to you…
Ok, here’s a short and easy conversion. A Sherman is on a narrow street somewhere in the house-to-house fighting at in St. Lo, shortly after D-Day. You want a TC figure that’s standing in his open hatch and suddenly spots a German infantryman about to drop a grenade from the second into his open hatch. The Sergeant can’t engage the Kraut with his .50 cal, he’s too close, too high, and there’s no time to open the distance between them, so he squeezes off a couple shots from his pistol that take out the enemy trooper…
The stock figure:
It’s close, but there’s really no way to make this guy look like he’s shooting a pistol at a guy above him, so we’ll improve or replace him with a better figure. There’s a Tamiya TC from a Sherman kit that’s in your parts box that almost fits, but not quite. He’s holding both sides of his hatch and looking straight ahead, you need him looking up and shooting a pistol. First, lop off his head with a saw and add a "spine with a piece of wire, turning the head to the desired angle and glue it in place with some CA. Next, we need a new arm. So again with the parts box, we find an arm with the proper cuff and hand to hold a pistiol, but it’s bent instead of straight, so we straighten out the arm by first cutting the arm at the joint with a razor saw:
Now you have bothe pieces. Separate them and drill hole in each section and insert a piece of wire or straight-pin for a “bone” and glue with CA. You now have a straight arm.
Fill the gap with putty (Testor’s White here) and smooth into shape.
Now attach the arm to the TC and check his pose in the hatch of the Sherman. This one’ll work…
Now you can finish his neck with the putty and paint him, then start on that Bog (Bow Gunner/radioman) down there and get him slumped over his open hatch, a victim of the sniper across the street…
Nothin’ to it, pard… Total time for the conversion was about 45 minutes, including drying time for the CA… Let the putty dry a couple hours before begining the painting though.
Converting/modifying figures will open many, many more storylines for you to model, rather than getting stuck with what you can do with the unmodified figures that come in kits and sets. They’re not ALWAYS necessary, one example being Manny’s “Death in the Courtyard” dio, but eventually, you’ll run across a situation or story idea that you can’t do any other way and you’ll want to have this particular set of building skills in your “toolbox”. It’ll save you a LOT of money as well, since buying separate figures like Verlinden’s can get pretty spendy. If you pick up a figure set here and there every time you go shopping for a model, you’ll quickly build up a good selection of body-parts to work with. Rather than looking at the poses though, look at them for their separate components… When assembling them, stand up and assume the pose you want to make, taking note of where and how your arms and torso move in relation each other and the rest of your body, then translate that to the plastic…
where do you get the wire from to make the joints?
I go to the Wire Store… They specialize in small custom pieces of wire for converting figures in lengths from 1 to 6mm… Before they opened a franchise here, I’d be forced to look for wire around the house, or use straightpins or wires from breadsack twist-ties and such…
C’mon, man… It’s wire…
Don’t “Smeagole” me…
LMFAO!!! [(-D][(-D][(-D] HA HAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!!!
[(-D] LOL—use paperclips for Pete’s sake !!!
Floral wire works great, stiff but easily bent to shape. you can get it at your local craft store like “HOBBY LOBBY” or “MICHAELS”. And it’s very cheap.
I think we’ve had our collective legs pulled…