The Calm Before the Storm.

[Tyrel]

Greetings and salutations. I finished my latest dio last week and thought I would share some pictures with you all.

I'll fill the story behind the dio in a bit later. I have it all typed out but I left it at work.

For now, details are as follows:

Dragon Pz.Kpfw. I Ausf.A Modified w/Interior

Bronco Models 1/35 Kfz.13 Adler Armored Car

MiniArt Village Road

Various figures from Dragon, Alpine, and MiniArt

I split the diorama into two part for ease of moving and for judging purposes.

I hope you enjoy the pics (Some of them have been PhotoShop modified)

[Tyrel]

[Tyrel]

[yak face]

Fantastic work ty, Loving the weathering and colour modulation on the vehicles. Your figures are excellent , i only wish i could do half as well, cheers tony

[Guest]

Excellent dio, the figures are fantastic as are the model kits, top notch.

[Guest]

Wow!

[spanner570]

Top notch stuff Ty, well done.

Ron

[Guest]

WOW Superb work.

[Gern]

Clearly up to your usual very high standard!

Gern

[Guest]

thats fantastic that mate

[Guest]

Beautiful work, Tyrel! Such a lot of work's gone into this and your figure work is superb.

I've always wondered if figure modellers fill the joins where limbs join the torso, or whether they're sanded for a tight fit and a line left to depict the seam of the clothing?

[Guest]

Hi Tyrel have to say mate i love this dio, your figure painting is of a very high quality and i like the paint and weathering on the vehicles. The whole dio is top notch mate this is one to be proud of five stars from me.

scott

[stona]

Stunning Maestro as usual. I love your dioramas but the figures.........in my dreams I can do that.

Cheers

Steve

[Ian M]

Tyrel does it again!!!

Great stuff. I agree that the vehicles are fantastic but the thing that always gets me in you dioramas are the figures.

Excellent Tyrel if I could I would give you six stars for this one. Alas I can only give five.

SO you get five for the figures and five more for the armour :-P

Ian M

[Tyrel]

Thank you everyone. It was a fun build and a nice change to do something from the early period. I have found the figures were much easier for me to get results when I followed the steps I laid out in my tutorial on the 1/16 Otto figure. It's just for 1/35 everything has to scaled down. And for my uniforms I just follow these basic steps. Don't paint them all the same colour. Mix it up a little with the greens and grey. Prime (I usually use Tamiya NATO Black) Paint the webbing first (it easier for me to see at this point) Base coat the tunic, pants, and boots. Base coat the on board stowage (bread bag, map cases, ammo pouches, gas mask container etc.) Paint the metals (knife, belt buckle, webbing rings) Side Note: (A good tip for mess tins is to paint them with Humbrol aluminum enamel, let it dry completely, the paint black grey acrylic and let it dry for a few minutes. Then take a toothpick and scratch off some of the acrylic and you have a very realistic dinged up mess tin) Anyway, once you have everything base coated and the uniform decals on (I use Archer) prepare your washes. My washes are much darker versions of each of the base coats. (I use artists oils or sometime MIG washes) If the tunic is green the wash is black green, grey pants call for a black grey wash etc etc. You may have to wash more than once to get the desired effect. When you're happy prepare your dry brush colours which are of course much lighter versions of your base coat. I only use artists oil paints and I put a little onto a piece of paper and let it sit for couple of hours as the paper will leech out some of the oil and make dry brushing easier. Get your favorite dry brush, get some paint on it and on a clean paper brush most of it off. Then dry brush the high points of the figure. I like to brush at a 45 degree angle to the high point. When you're done, let everything dry for a day and take another look, tweak as need and when you're happy hit it with a matt clear to seal everything. Last thing I will do is hit the boot and knees (if needed or they are crawling around rubble) with pigment powder that is the same colour as the surroundings. I don't know if this helps with out pictures but hopefully in the next while I can do pic by pic 1/35 figure class.

In the meantime here a few more shots for you, including some interior shots of the Adler car. The kit was pretty sparse so I added the MP40, grenades, and ammo cans and pouches. Cheers!