3x Tiger II in the Ardennes (1/72)

[Steven000]

Hello guys,
A few weeks ago I started working on a new diorama. I wanted to visualize some Tigers from the advancing ‘Kampfgruppe Peiper’ in the early stage of the Ardennes offensive…

I choose 1/72 scale to reduce the size, time and costs of the project.

The dio is designed to fit in my bookcase, about 52x28cm.

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BASE
I made a base from MDF,
[ATTACH]316625[/ATTACH]

I put some foam blocks inside to shape the hill and road…
[ATTACH]316626[/ATTACH]

Then I covered it with a net (hor) to support the plaster in the next step.
[ATTACH]316627[/ATTACH]

Then I mixed some (wall gypsum) plaster and started sculpting rocks and hills.
[ATTACH]316628[/ATTACH]

After a few days I started adding color with paint. This is always trial and error for me, I just keep mixing paint until I like it.
[ATTACH]316629[/ATTACH]


TREES
For me the Ardennes is all about pine trees, so I needed a lot of trees to get the feeling right. I looked in my stash for trees but they felt unrealistic to me so I gave it a shot and started making trees from scratch.

I took a few wooden sticks, drilled some holes in them, cut wires etc
[ATTACH]316631[/ATTACH]

Then I added glue and fibers to get sort of a pine tree.
[ATTACH]316632[/ATTACH]

I made 22 trees...
[ATTACH]316633[/ATTACH]

I sprayed them brown and later added green with the airbrush.
[ATTACH]316634[/ATTACH]

After all that I drilled holes in de dio and carefully sorted them in place
[ATTACH]316635[/ATTACH]

I made 22, but could use 40 I guess
[ATTACH]316636[/ATTACH]

I went outside to get me some sand, baked it in a pot on the cooking-stove and then sorted with sifts.
[ATTACH]316637[/ATTACH]

I used the sand and stones for the river. The water was done with ‘Vallejo Still water’
[ATTACH]316638[/ATTACH]

All sorts of flocking stuff were used.
[ATTACH]316639[/ATTACH]

I made a small wire fence from matches and the smallest wire I could find in my scrap box
[ATTACH]316640[/ATTACH][ATTACH]316641[/ATTACH]

At the moment it looks like this, but it’s not done yet.
[ATTACH]316642[/ATTACH]

I will add some pics of the Tigers in a moment

Cheers
Steven

[Steven000]

TIGERS
I used 3 ‘Revell Tiger II’ kits, they have nice detail and come with glueable tracks.

[ATTACH]316650[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH]316651[/ATTACH]

I added some detail to the turret, made from thin wire.
[ATTACH]316652[/ATTACH]

I drilled some '88' holes in the barrels.
[ATTACH]316653[/ATTACH]

I have cut some of the side skirts, to give the tanks a bit more character.
[ATTACH]316654[/ATTACH]

Then I choose 3 commanders to put in the turrets, I melted the arm of the left guy to change his pose. Here they got a mist spray of vallejo primer with the airbrush. I love the detail of these figures.
[ATTACH]316655[/ATTACH]

I airbrushed the base color with a mix of Dark yellow and white…
[ATTACH]316656[/ATTACH]


That’s it for the moment, I think I will have some time next week to start the 3 tone camo with a brush…

Thanks for reading and kind regards
Steven

[Jim R]

Hi Steven
An excellent start. Base is really nice. I do like the trees and the river. I look forward to seeing the Tigers.
Jim

[scottie3158]

Steven,
The base is very nice indeed the tress look very good.

[minitnkr]

Great job so far. Love the gardening. Beat me to the punch, as I had something similar in mind in 1/87. Will do a street scene instead. PaulE

[Tim Marlow]

Looking good Steven, nice work.

[Guest]

Hi Steve great start to the build very clean and tidy, I'm liking the base and tree's lot, nice to see a splash of water to, looking forward to seeing the cats in the forest, keep up the great work.:thumb2:
Old Puffer Pete.

[SimonT]

Looking good Steven - always nice to see a small scale build :thumb2:

I bought one of these Tiggers last week as Creative had them in their weekly special offers section - look pretty good but will definitely benefit from some detailing work

What make are those commanders? They look pretty good apart from the mutant banana fingers :smiling:

[wotan]

Steven

Very nice base you are building here. I do like the trees and the ground erosion, very convincing. As an owner of property with a lot of pine trees I can tell you that the ground under the trees is always thickly covered with dead, brown pine needles. The fall being the worst time,

John

[Steven000]

Thanks Jim, Paul, Paul, Tim, Pete, Simon and John for the comments!


Paul: You can still make something similar in 1/87, I don't mind and in a few weeks everyone has forgotten about this tread anyway ;D


Simon : It's a sprue a got from ebay, I think there are 3 sprues in one box.
Here is the information;

Name: 1/72nd German stowage and tank commanders
Model: WW2V20021
Manufactured by: THE PLASTIC SOLDIER CO RANGE


John : Thanks, I will add some dead stuff under the trees, will add some bushes too.


Kind regards,
Steven

[SimonT]

Thanks for the info Steven :thumb2:

[Steve Jones]

Good God Steven!! That is unbelievably awesome. The base is mind blowing. To think it is on such a small scale. You must be very pleased with the way it has come out. Looking forward to seeing how the tanks come out. Will there be an support vehicles or figures in the dio??

[Steven000]

Thanks Steve,
I designed the road for 3 Tigers, so unfortunately there will not be much space left for other support vehicles. I got me some German paratrooper figures, so I hope I can bring some life to the dio...

At the moment I'm painting camo, but still a lot of work to do

Cheers, Steven

Cheers

[Steven000]

Hi Guys,
I got an update on the Tiger tanks, I painted the camo with a small brush (ambush pattern). Had to paint 2 coats for the red and green tones.
I used some images from books as a starting point and for inspiration.

Here I'm painting the first coat red brown...
[ATTACH]318449[/ATTACH]

Here the Tigers are finished, some detail work might be added later, for the moment I don't have enough free time...
By cutting the decal-numbers I could make Tiger '222', '212' and '221'
The commanders are painted and fit into place with some hot-glue...
[ATTACH]318450[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH]318451[/ATTACH]

Here you can see some close-ups of the tanks :
[ATTACH]318452[/ATTACH][ATTACH]318453[/ATTACH][ATTACH]318454[/ATTACH]

Here is a temporary setup in the forest, just to give you an idea.
I haven't worked further on the diorama, so a lot of bushes in the back and under the trees are still missing...
[ATTACH]318455[/ATTACH][ATTACH]318456[/ATTACH]


Thanks for reading
Kind regards,
Steven

[scottie3158]

Steven,
Bravo that looks very nice indeed the vehicles are beautifully finished and the scene sets them off.