Diorama "The Ardennes Front" using Dragon's Nashorn and Dragon's Panzergrenadiers and two figures - by "Art Instructor" :

















Still many more pics of this diorama in my latest page, plus snow really falls there! :

http://www.falconbbs.com/model35b.htm

Have fun! ;)

Personally I find it an overall well composed dio. The snow coverage is very good and thick too. I feel cold just looking at the whole scene. If there are any tiny comments would be adding track marks behind the SPG tank. Of course if the tank had been there some the snow may have covered the track marks up but based on the amount of snow on the ground vs. on top of the fuel drums it would seem the tank had arrived not too long ago.

The other minor point is the camo zeltbahn which may not keep the soldiers warm. Again it can be said this is the Eastern front where many of the soldiers were not equipped for their first winter campaign in Russia although you have placed them in Ardennes from the title. Again just a minor point.

My compliments to Art Instructor for a well done dio and thanks for sharing this with us Phaisal.

very nicely done..are the trees supposed to be 'half length' ? ie top half blown apart by artillery ??

The trees ! Excusable. Starkly absent weathering on the Nashorn not. Decals very neat. A no-no. They should show through the camouflage whitewash or paint not on it. Snow very good.

its always easy to comment after the hardwork is done by someone else. point out the mistakes if you must...but do provide some guidelines as well in the hope whatever mistakes done would be remedied in future projects...not just comment only.

Model Maniac...good effort, a pat on the back for you. what i would like to point out is ...there is two things that could happen to an AFV during winter, either they are sparkling clean or down to earth dirty. remember this , snow is always wet. snow falling on a hot running afv will melt and wash away most dirt, providing its heavy snowing, and your scene is one heavy snowing .....so no wrong here for your starkly absent wheathering. not only its excusable , infact you got it right.

about the decals...yup! dont use it, they are too neat, infact i seldom use decals provided in kits especially ww2 german afv. numbers and insiginal on a german panzer are usually painted by its crew member in the field, how good the finish depends on the skill of the crew. painting is done either with stencil outlines and spray painted on or freehand with a paint brush. there are examples of crude paint job, one number is bigger than the next and so on, some have very neat finish, some panzer do not have any insiginal or numbers on it at all. no worries if you have a shanky hand when it comes to painting the numbers ...you will not go wrong.

about the ardennes front...lots of movement from 3 german army group on a small piece of real estate. as you can see from photos of the real thing, theres plenty of mud every where especially during the early german offensive. as i had said snow is wet , mix that with plenty of movement by the germans and the retreating allies, what would u get?... mud!
but when the german offensive ran out of steam, there was a short period of stalemate, german holding on to what they had gain and the allies not strong enough yet to push them out. there was not much movements by both sides and heavy snowning had covered most of the mud created earlier. so again my friend you got out of jail with your absents of weathering.

about the infantry..your diorama would been better without them. for the simple reason, the guy with panzerfaust had his sight on something, probably an allied tank or some infantry, so does the guy with the mp. okay they see something, there could be a firefight..thats fine...but what is the tank commander doing with his hands in his pocket?...isnt he suppose to be barking orders to the crews to man the guns? where's the gun loader and his assistant. its hard work to let off an 88mm round, the muntion has to be taken out from the storage bin , prime, goes into the breech, aim then fire. the gunner alone in this diorama will not have a chance if he is to work alone....not when his boss has his hands in his pocket.
a fight scene is not always easy to duplicate, unless everything falls into place , the diorama will not look good. take the infantry out...then your scene becomes an ambush or an on guard scene...and its okay for the commander to have his hands in the pocket.
well , hope you would do an improvement on your next project. keep up the good work.

A Warm Welcome aboard the Diorama section and to the SMM forum as well, Ari.

If you can spare the time you can tell a bit about yourself in the link below and even share some of your work here as well.
New Members Introduction

Not sure if you're familiar with Phaisal's (Model Maniac) posts but just in case you may have missed it Phaisal usually posts on behalf of other Thai modellers which he usually mentions at the start of his thread. This dio is by a Thai modeller, callsign "Art Instructor". But I'm sure he will relay your constructive comments to his colleagues.

Hope to see you around the neighbourhood.

oh..i surely had missed that, haha silly me. but then, what ever that i have said is for this particular diorama.

well i have nothing to show as i have no tanks except for a 1/16 pz mk3. im starting out again after an absents of 9 years, as soon as i could find a hobby shop that stock anything other than tamiya...i have not bought a tamiya kit since i cant remember when due to their highly inflated price( a personal boycott i suppose) any brand will do, it doesnt matter in what quality they come in as i always rework them.

i stay in cheras, taman putra, is there any shop that you could recommend?
is humbrol paints still avaiable in kl? if they are not, then i dont think i will start, as they are a very important part of my weathering and dry brushing proses.
i know gunze is here, except i couldnt find ...no 19 and 39. in my heyday i used to buy 10 bottles or more of these two numbers as stock piles.
the good thing is i know oil paints are sold at the art shop..hehehe.
before i even think about starting over i must be sure the paints i mention above are avaiable in kl. oh no...dun ask me to use tamiya paints..i rather roast in hell.

ari,

you should visit HHq,City Squqre ,there got gunze and humbroll paint,than you can cotinue your hobby and post some photo here ;) :)

ari,

A warm welcome. For the model shop, I recommend Hobby HQ located at City Square plaza and Miniature Hobby at section 14. I believe you can get your humbrol and Gunze that you need. As for model, espeacially tank or amor, I personally prefer Miniature Hobby for the choices and variaty available, but, when I looking for PE, Jet Fighter and Warship, my first choice will go to HHQ.

Anyway, you can easily found any of our forum members and kakis hanging around that two shop. :D

is miniature hobby is the same one that has a shop in bukit bintang some 10 years ago?..i miss that outlet actually.
they dont have tanks at hobby hq?...i tot of going there later today.

Hobby HQ and MH has stock of armour. Not sure of they have your specific interest but they do carry armour besides other stuff eg. planes / helis, ships, figs, etc.

thanks for the info guys...and yup i was at HHQ this evening. got the paints i wanted. well, hope i could find time to mix them, i mean i dont use colours straight out from the bottle. the basic colours i use is yellow, red brown and dark green ..mostly for german afv camo. my yellow is basically no 39 +19+340, in the ratio of 7+2+1, red brown is 29+33,ratio 9.5+0.5 while the dark green is 340 +33+19, ratio 8.5+1+0.5.
hehe even got the humbrol paints...not to my delight...the price is abit on the robbing at gun point side, man i used to pay rm2 for this :angry:

Ari,
just to let you know, there is a healthy bunch of us AFV fanatics here in KL and the sole reason why you do not see much stock of variety is that whatever AFVs that do come ashore, gets snap up really quick. You will be scrapping the bottom of the barrel by now as the last shipment in HHQ was some few months back while MH had a new batch in last week and is practically drained by now!
Cheers.

actually i dont mind scrapping the bottom of the barrel.....infact i prefer it that way. new and hot kits comes with a price. i wouldnt like it if everyone is having the same kit as i do...better you guys get your fill and i pick up the pieces. by turning rejects and unwanted kits into a beauty will surely make heads turn...and the good thing about rejects and kits with lost parts is you could always say to the owner..."Bos , half price lar"...hehehe

dun worry brader...if the bug really could stay with me, i have my ways in getting kits that i want. to rely on the local model shop for supplys is not what im used to doing
btw...do you know where to buy any BTR-50K kit?...i has always wanted to bulid one...an indonesian marine version that is

Gentlemen,

I will be the first to admit I'm the main culprit for going off-topic on many occassions and although I doubt Phaisal here would mind I think we should start another separate thread on discussions of kits and paints other than those found on this dio.

Such discussions will benefit other readers as well. So if we can continue on in a separate thread rather than loading up Phaisal's dio post here it would be most appreciated. Thanks.

as Beachbum said... back on track... i have a question...

1. How to make the snow stick on trees like those in the dio above? do i need to use the white-glue on the tree and then disperse/sprinkle the "snow" on the tree?
2. Will the snow above get blown away or its being hold down by the "white-glue" or hairspray? they looked sooo soft and fluffy (is the such word to describe the texture of the snow? )

thanks

kuman

I haven't seen Phaisal around our neighbourhood in a while so I'll give your questions a try Kuman.

Art Instructor is likely to have used very fine salt in this dio as I remember Phaisal did mention it once in one of Art's other snow dio. Irrespective of salt or bicarbonate soda either hair spray or very diluted PVA:water mix is used. In the PVA:water mix its usually applied using an atomizer. The stuff our Mums, HM or GF or even some of us use to sprinkle water on clothes before ironing is a good enough atomizer.

"Snow" is usually applied in layers. Glue (Hairspray or PVA:Water) first, then sprinkle snow material. Then glue again and then more "snow" and so forth depending on how thick you want it.

"Snow" is spread in many ways but I find it easier using a tea strainer (which btw I permanently requisitioned from the kitchen without the HM's knowledge) as it gives an even spread. Avoid clumps.

Lastly snow dios are generally not as portable as other regular dios. Hope that helps Kuman.

Lor.. I thought the snow is using glue covered with chalk dust or 'kapur' that mixed with paint one :P ?? hahaha..