Hi,

This diorama is titled "Reinforcements Have Arrived." As the title clearly states, a group of soldiers and a Sherman comes to Bastogne to reinforce the 101st Airborne in holding up a perimeter.

This is my entry in an Armorama campaign titled Ardennes Offensive and my second dio.

The Sherman is a detailed Tamiya kit. The figures are a mix of Dragon and Verlinden. Accessories came from Academy and from the spare box. The ruined mansion is a "pirated" copy. All other things are scratchbuilt (i.e. the floor, the electrical post, the cobblestone road, etc.) Snow is made from baking soda.

Here are some pics.

More pics...































The sandbags are made out of Chicklets chewing gum, the electrical post made out of barbecue stick and popsicle sticks, the vinyl floor is made from an old piece of real vinyl, the wooden floor is made out of chopsticks and popsicle sticks, window frames are from popsicle sticks, window "glass" are from the transparent cover of a plastic toy, the table is from a doll house, wallpaper is made of stationery, the gutter was made out of a plastic drinking straw from Coffee Club and the statue is a pawn of an old chess set.

I made this dio practicing SYMBOLISM. Hopefully, it would be something like this:

1) The GI surrounded by propaganda posters symbolizes the GIs being encircled in Bastogne.
2) The lack of winter uniform symbolizes the miserable conditions of cold in that area. True, the GI's in Bastogne AND the ones reinforcing them have lack of winter gear.
3) The slanting picture frame of Hitler symbolizes his toppling reign of power.
4) The boots on the foreground symbolizes the ferocity of the battle of the Bulge. I'm not sure if it can be clearly seen in the pics. If not, please tell me so I could take a better pic.

I watched Band of Brothers for reference several times and I noticed that the snow in Bastogne is really thick and deep. But doing so would hide the rubble and the groundwork. So, I exercised artistic license and added just enough snow to instill the feeling of coldness while allowing the details to be shown clearly enough.

The same holds true with the amount of rubble. Too much would overwhelm the dio so I placed just enough to instill the feeling of devastation while letting the action dominate.

Update (not shown in the pisc): As suggested by my friends in Armorama, I took out the posters and sprayed dullcote on the figures. I also took those white ceramic thingies on top of the electrical post and replaced them with smaller ones.

Your comments and criticisms are always welcome.

Angela

Dig the chicklets idea....u have....for sandbags.........always looking at creative ways to help in modelling and your idea ....is a good one...... :D

Lovely work.......nice composition........

Rgds
Mr B

Angela,you did a good job. ;) keep it up :)

Dear Angela,
its great to see that you are using a metaphorical approach in the composition. The ideas are quite useful and will greatly reinforce the whole dio when executed with purpose.

I can't help but feel that your first piece was better executed and has a less 'rushed' feel compared to this piece. Somehow I feel that the distribution of the snow can be a little more because some areas seems a little sparse and too sudden.

As for the boot, haha.. anybody who missed is it either blind or really long sighted.
Do you have any new photos on the additions?

Of course, this dio looks absolutely great for a second attempt. Mine ended up as a stiff looking toy like piece which is collecting dust today.

Bravo.

Hi Angela,

I like dioramas depicitng urban warfare. It really puts you to the test in terms of composition and storyline. Yours have a story in each of the corners. I also like the symbolism approach you did on this diorama.

I agree with the points highlighted by CKLoo.

Kudos.

Overall an inspiring work, Angela.

Well done and keep it up :)

- You do have the blood of diorama, seeing your creativity in using daily accesories to add to the dio
- You filled up every corner of the dio quite well not leaving any dead space
- I think this dio story telling an improvement from the earlier one
- did someone conveniently left the boot OR a soldier conveniently left his feet there... nice details like this add lots of excitement for viewer. Well done

Happy modelling
Allan

Hi Angela,

Nice second attempt but agree with Loos comments.

You're a true diorama artist at heart because of your usage of asseccories that many take for granted and don't think of using. Very creative.

The boots thingy...quite gruesome but a nice touch. However Allan has a point, not sure if it's just an empty boot or with part of a leg in it. If it's empty, the putty which is the wrapping around the boot will be missing. I gather with it still there means the foot's still in it...eeuugh. :P

Nice metaphorical approach but as I have found out every viewer will see it in his or her own way, that's why comments will be never ending. :lol:
You build it the way you like it and that's the enjoyment of it all.

Great. Looking forward to many more dios.
Cheers,
Richard.

Women definitely make better dio-makers (probably lose my membership at the Macho Men Society for saying that) :D :lol:

Guys both these dios were done by Angela a while back, the first one done back in 05 if I'm not wrong, so you can imagine how even further she has progressed. Seriously though you do have an excellent eye for detail Angela. I hope you can squeeze some time from your current new job to work on another beauty.

Thanks for sharing this one. Mucho appreciated.

Angela.. Very nice work.. welldone.

can you explain the how to turn Chicklets chewing gum into sandbegs, I need to learn that for my Nam dio...

masterqq,
I am sure you cannot chew the chiclets first! But very much like you, I am curious too. Hopefully its ant proof in the end.

Masterqq and Loo,

Many years back I read in a very old issue of Fine scale that this guy used chiclets by first soaking them in water to get rid of the coating of sugar. The gum base was then used as per since it already had the basic shape of a sandbag in 1/35 scale. He only added stitching detail with a sharp needle by scribing and prodding.

Perhaps Angela may be able to explain differently.

I remember Tog Tan trying it and said that he had cockcroaches attacking the sandbags. Guess he didn't get rid of all the sugar. Wierd! Like somethig out of Starship Troopers. :lol:

Richard.

I had the same problem with my "chiclet experiment" during my early modelling days. Roaches decided to launch blitzkrieg on my M3 Lee. Perhaps the chiclet available here is different from those in Philippines and USA.

Or...maybe have to spray with Bygone first..... huumm...

That's how I did it.

Additionally, I dried the things with my blowdrier.

Haha guys,
so is the dio still intact, Angela? or perhaps you used toxic paint?

Dip the chiclet gum into Future might do the trick. Then coat it with flat topcoat.

It may repel the ants, but not roaches considering their high tolerance of radiation, toxicity and what not.

I'm not too sure about that. I remembered using those 'toxic' humbrol/airfix enamel paint but the roaches still made off with large chunks of my sandbags! Maybe chewing it first .........erm... maybe not :blink:

Edit: Oops! How rude of me to hijack this thread without commenting on Angela's excellent dio. I must say, I'm impress with the 'busy-ness' and clutter in both the dios. A lot of thought has been put into it. Great work!

How about giving the watered down chicklet a heavy coat of water based Ridsect ? Might be enough of a protective shield against ants & roaches & other creepy what-nots. Though, your dio might not smell so good thereafter... :lol: