Steven's 25cm German Heavy Mortar position 1/35 CMK

[Guest]

Bravo Steven.
Well done, you did extremely well. So much to take in , detail was exceptional. Enjoyed following this .
:thumb2::thumb2::thumb2::thumb2::thumb2:
John.

[Fernando N]

A real stunner Steven, congratulations on a well deserved award.:thumb2::thumb2:
Nice way of showing it all with a video, so much to see, absolutely one to be proud of sir.

[papa 695]

Fantastic work Steven and well done on the third place.

[Steven]

first of all guys, thanks for all the warming words - they do mean a lot. :smiling4:
Now, as I hinted in the preveious post work is not done with the pit - my aim was to finish in a stage of completion that it could enter and place in a show. I did that, but that does not mean that there's no room for improvement. I have some thoughts regarding said improvemnts that I would like to share in the following ( I do go on a bit but bear with me..)

thoughts on the roof structure:

When I did the roof of the pit I glued balsa sticks toghter painted them brown and forgot all about that one side of the roof them would be quite exposed - forming the one side of the pit opening.



In the drawing I am using for reference the roof is a sandwich construction of concrete, timber ,gravel, earth and steel "I" beams - the drawing is kind of hard to make out, even when enlarged, but I am somewhat sure that the smaller "I beams" are bolted to either heavy timber or larger iron beams, so I guess I could use A larger size "I "beam and glue it to the side, that would cover the wood. This would be quite rusty and would be a nice weathering thing.
Another option is to take the exposed beam as being wood, by scraping a wood grain into it and make it generally more "woody - looking"

Option number 3 - leave it be.....

Staying with the Roof - protruding timber logs
I wanted to show of some the design features of the timber constructions - especially the steel hoops binding the heavy logs together, I have left them visible several places but they are either hidden in shadows or blendig in with the terrain - I decided to make them rusty which did not help matters either.


I am thinking that these logs are running the length of the roof and by removing some of the celluclay and by gluing 5 other small bits - with the hoops more prominently showing - in the other end, I can show that.

What do you think - am I overthinking this?

[Guest]

Hi Steven.
No I don't think your over thinking it at all.
I can see your point of re looking and thinking how you could improve the over all diorama.
Ok you could change that end beam to make it look rougher, personally I think it looks right.
I do agree with the protruding logs though, the inclusion of the hoops will certainly add to the entrance.
John .

[stillp]

Saw this at Duxford today:
[ATTACH]314589[/ATTACH][ATTACH]314590[/ATTACH]

Pete

[Steven]

A beast, ain't she? - this is the older short barreled version - looks in pretty good nick - great pics thanks for sharing this :thumb2:

[stillp]

Forgot this one of their temporary write-up:
[ATTACH]314591[/ATTACH]

Pete

[Steven]

Just some thoughts....

[Steven]

I thought the Left hand firestep looked a little bare, so I wanted to add some detail (the LH side of dio might or might not have both figures but that is for a later post..):
As scratching goes, not the most complicated job ,- ( yet I still managed to bodge it slightly:rolling ,- a trench periscope:



I plan to add some cloth to mine as well (cover often made by canvas from a sandbag helped break the contour of the scope and it blend with the bags on the parapet)
Cf. :The real thing

[Guest]

Steven .
Good call on the thoughts of some additions, must have been a complete mess of rubbish and battle debris.
Like the scope :thumb2:
John.

[Steven]

Steven .
Good call on the thoughts of some additions, must have been a complete mess of rubbish and battle debris.
Like the scope :thumb2:
John.

Indeed, and on that note her's some of the battle debris I am going to add, all are wip:

Generic crate made form balsa - will be half submerged in the shell hole


with almost all of battlefield transportation done by horse and caret there's bound to be a cart wheel lying around....

Assorted splintered planking, some ammo boxes and I will do some discarded tins as well - including a lot of discarded metal might not be correct as the Germans by 1916 were saving metal but just for the hell of it.


Any further suggestions for battle debris? I was thinking adding a dead horse but that beyond my scratching abilities :smiling4:

[Peter Gillson]

This is progressing well. Have a look at Andy Belsey's posts for battle field debris such as cigarette packets etc. those little day to day items add a lot of realism.

Peter

[Steve Jones]

Stunning work on the debris. Is it all done with acrylics?

[Steven]

This is progressing well. Have a look at Andy Belsey's posts for battle field debris such as cigarette packets etc. those little day to day items add a lot of realism.

Peter

Indeed, I have drawn a lot of inspiration from Andy's work, he does however have mad skills I sadly do not have

Stunning work on the debris. Is it all done with acrylics?

Thanks Steve, Yep, all done with Acrylics .