Neil's 1-35 Liberty Ship Diorama

[Neil Merryweather]

Very impressed indeed Neil. Amazing what you have achieved and the careful planning needed.

cheers Jim,
the 'careful planning' was more like fear of starting....! it was easy to just keep building digital stuff- and the great thing about that is that the laws of physics don't affect what you design, so CAN have things held up with sky hooks if you want.
It was the absolute bane of my professional life working with architects, believe me!

[Neil Merryweather]

Just caught up with this build Neil and wow, very impressive work

welcome aboard, Mick- the more the merrier!
oh and thanks

[Airborne01]

I'm still incredibly impressed - (are you going to install a mini-recording system that plays creaks, groans, sloppy water noises etc, etc? I wouldn't be surprised at this level of detail!) Lovely work mate!
Steve

[HAWKERHUNTER]

Hats off to you Neil. The attention to detail is second to none. Brilliant.

[Neil Merryweather]

Many thanks everyone for the encouragement
Well I’ve now primed it all and I have been mulling over how best to proceed from there.


As you can see I’ve made a start on the Boat Deck above, just to make sure it all fits together before I nail everything down...


The blobby thing in masking tape is the ends of the cables in the roof which I can’t fix in place until the roof is permanently attached.

All that’s left really is to paint it all in the final colour. I will leave the weathering until the end for the sake of consistency.
I don’t fancy airbrushing so many large areas so I have decided I need a spray can which I can match with an airbrushing colour for smaller stuff; and my deliberations have led me to RAF Medium Sea Grey, (BS637)which I can get in aerosol form from Army Painter. I can’t put it all together until it's painted, but I haven’t got the paint yet.
My original intention was to have this stage pretty well finished before moving on to the figures, but there are some things that need to be dealt with before I can do that. There are going to be GIs lined up along the walkway and I was thinking about how I would fix them once the top is glued on and that’s clearly going to be a nightmare, so I will leave things here and make a start on the figures at last!
cheers
Neil

[scottie3158]

Neil, that is looking the nuts mate.

[Jim R]

This is just getting better and better. Really admire the thoughtful planning as well as the skills.

[Neil Merryweather]

Thanks a lot guys.

So, as promised, let’s finally make a start on the figures.
Over the years I have collected various US Infantry sets by different manufacturers and some are better than others, but hopefully the variety will reflect the general weirdnesses of humanity.
This is the pool from which I will draw.


When I started out I had no idea about the variety of uniform possibilities but now I have decided to ignore the anti-gas impregnated HBT (HerringBone Twill) fatigues worn by some units, and go for the wool trousers and M1941 Field Jacket, which will give me some colour contrast between trousers and jackets.


photo - Europa Militaria

Some of the figures in these sets have later style field jackets and trousers with cargo pockets, so there will have to be some carving but I'm deliberately avoiding any heavy conversions, other than for the sake of animation. The action poses will be useful for the guys climbing down the cargo net.
I have already spent many a happy hour sorting out all of the various arms and legs and torsos and heads; the helmets,the packs and the pouches ,the Garands, the BARs and the Thompsons. And I have a whole lot of re-seal bags of individual sets of kit ready with the correct pouches for the weapon etc.
So, as the first figures are going to be the queue of GIs along the deck ,waiting to climb down the into the Landing Craft, I’m going to use the Italeri US Infantry on board because all of them are standing upright.
There are two identical sprues of 5 figures each, and to be fair to the designers they are all SLIGHTLY different, but only if you look closely!


The sculpting is rather disappointing, really, but it’s somewhere to start, and the legs will be mostly hidden behind the whales(?)

The good thing is they all have the life preservers on, so I don’t have to fabricate those.
And the faces are really full of character.....



Hollywood idols or Hornet Heads they ain’t!

Before I start I must remember that the deck is sloping , so they are all going to need to be standing correctly, and to avoid damaging my handiwork I have 3D printed( because I CAN) a small mock-up of the deck and the ‘whales’.
It also avoids having that massive lump of foamboard in my way on the desk all the time.





The slope is hardly noticeable, really, is it?
This is a figure I made a while ago as test piece - clearly his arm is too long, but the principle is good, it means I can pose people leaning over the rail etc without doing damage to the model itself.
So we will leave things here while I have a play with my soldiers....

[Jim R]

Clever stuff Neil. Loving it.

[flyjoe180]

Just catching up with your build Neil. Marvellous work and attention to detail. Looking forward to seeing the figures on board

[Airborne01]

Superb planning and prep mate
Steve

[Steven000]

Nice, have fun with those chaps! ?

[Neil Merryweather]

Thanks for the comments and interest chaps!
So let’s get on with these Italeri guys.
I’m going to do them in small batches so I don’t get overwhelmed with the sheer weight of numbers!
I have at least forty GI figures to work with, and I haven’t even counted the US Navy guys I have for the crew.
I had forgotten that I had already done a fair bit of preparation work on these figures. They are all wearing the HBT fatigues which I have decided against, so I had already removed the cargo pockets and too long jacket skirts from all the legs. I pinned the pairs of legs together with 1mm copper wire, all slightly skewed on the sloping deck, then I pinned a torso to each ,and a pair of arms to each torso. I have stopped at six for now-including the first one I’d already done.


They are all looking down at the fun going on beneath them on the cargo net.


The next step is to break out the Magic Sculpt- I am finding it much easier to use than the Milliput I used on the first figure- and fill in the gaps; and once that’s gone nice and solid I will work into them and refine them.




I can already see a couple who appear to be wearing Zoot suit jackets, so the scalpel will have to come out!
But I’m going to have to be a bit less precious than I was with the French Fusiliers or this will never get finished. I did feel that a lot of the effort I put in to each individual was overshadowed by the impact of the whole thing, so I am going to have a few incidents or situations in sharp focus and a lot of more ‘background’ figures.
Well that's all for now, thanks for following.
Neil

[scottie3158]

Great work Neil, that is something I really should try. I have never had a go and making my figures fit

[Richard48]

Great stuff Neil.Nice to see some figure sculpting.I havent done anything with figures for nearly 3 years.I always got on okish with Magic Sculp.Milliput just seems to cause me grief.Then again im so slow using Epoxy and starts to cure too quickly.

[flyjoe180]

Bit of YMCA action going on there with those figures