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Panther and crew at rest, Southern France 1944


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For your perusal and critique, my diorama depicting a 2nd SS Panzer Division "Das Reich" PZKW MkV Panther and crew enjoying a break at an old farm. They are depicted in the middle of a card game with the commander and another crew member looking on while one is not sure if he should play or fold.

In the courtyard a field kitchen has been set up with a couple of Heer landser getting some welcome hot scoff.

The kit is a Tamiya Ausf A kit as is the field kitchen. The crew are Masterbox with the addition of the commander from my spares box ( I think he is from a Tiger 2 Ardennnes kit). The base and building is from Miniart and the trees were my first attempt at scratch building, using a couple of dried conifer twigs and some thinner twigs from a bush in the garden. The foliage is grated sponge soaked in a wash of green water colour paint.

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Edited by Fatman24834154
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Great work Dave,very natural looking setting. I've just started a dio using the Miniart ruined church,hopefully I'll achieve something almost as good.

The frustrating thing about this site is every "Great idea for a dio" that I have is that some other bugger has already done it & made a darn sight better job of it than I can ever hope to!! Lol!!........oh well,practice makes perfect,better pull my finger out!!

Andrew

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I know what you mean. I've got a Tamiya Churchill to do once I've finished my Somme dio. It's the same as Badder used for his Lost in France dio so I'll be doing a variation of a theme.

There's a couple of things I need to address on this one and I wish I had known about soaking the tracks in hot water and stretch them very slowly so as to give the normal track sag which you don't normally get with "issued" tracks in a kit.

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Excellent dio. I love the panther and the field kitchen. The groundwork and the building look spot on too.

I remember making the kitchen back in my teens and wondering what the hell I was going to do with it dio-wise. I didn't think to display it as a 'duo'. I seem to remember having a couple of horses towing it but I messed them right up and although I was very pleased with the kitchen itself, I think I ended up binning it. Back then there was no internet for sourcing replacement parts.

Oh and by the way, I now have a 2nd Churchill and Eduard PE parts so expect another dio later in the year.

Rearguards,

Badder

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Cheers Dave,excellent tip on track sag.........unfortunately a bit late for me to use on my half track,but something I'll remember for other builds.

Andrew

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Dave,

Nice dio, it a nice compasition it's all finished very nicely. Is it mounted on a picture frame? What did you use for the moss on the roof of the wood shed?

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Dave,

Nice dio, it a nice compasition it's all finished very nicely. Is it mounted on a picture frame? What did you use for the moss on the roof of the wood shed?

Thank you for your comments, they are very welcome. The base of the diorama kit is fixed onto an old piece of plywood I salvaged from a skip, amongst other bits and pieces, and surrounded by some wood mouldings from B & Q (other hardware stores are available) fixed with PVA glue and allowed to set completely before staining it with some varnish. I quite like the look of it, if I can be honest and I've used the same mouldings for my other dioramas that I have done. I will post piccy's when I get chance and had the opportunity to revisit them and improve some aspects of them to try and even get close to some of the work I've seen on the site.

The moss is just some fine flock ground cover (the same I have used for the track in my Somme dio) sprinkled over some PVA dabbed in patches onto the roof of the out buildings.

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Thank you for your comments, they are very welcome. The base of the diorama kit is fixed onto an old piece of plywood I salvaged from a skip, amongst other bits and pieces, and surrounded by some wood mouldings from B & Q (other hardware stores are available) fixed with PVA glue and allowed to set completely before staining it with some varnish. I quite like the look of it, if I can be honest and I've used the same mouldings for my other dioramas that I have done. I will post piccy's when I get chance and had the opportunity to revisit them and improve some aspects of them to try and even get close to some of the work I've seen on the site.

The moss is just some fine flock ground cover (the same I have used for the track in my Somme dio) sprinkled over some PVA dabbed in patches onto the roof of the out buildings.

Thanks dave,

I've got a couple of the mini art kits, I've just mounted them on MDF after putting newspaper to stop the plastic from bowing. I'm going to try your idea on my next build.

Thanks

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The whole base is actually two kits which form one scene, in fact a few of the Miniart dioramas can be joined together to make one large one. When I glued it to the piece of plywood I had to trim off the two sides of the bases where they joined and the plywood was also cut slightly smaller than the dimensions of the plastic base so that it all sat flat. The mouldings was then glued with PVA to the exposed part of the wood to form a nice looking surround.

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Dave, very impressed with the dio....the mini art buildings and how you joined them have come out great Ive only tried one miniart building and as i personal matter i didnt like working with it - just wish i had taken more time and patience with mine and it might have turned out better. You certainly made them look a lot more realistic than i did!

I've been meaning to build my field kitchen for some time - now youve given me some inspiration...however i am worried about the horses and what i should do with them.

Best regards Jerry

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Send them to Tesco.👹

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Seriously though, I'm not sure what can be done with them, apart from depicting them tethered against a fence or in a stall or stable of some sort? I used the different kit than the one you mention, it must be the one where it is "on the move" so to speak. I've tried looking for a German soldier figure who is leading horses or pack miles on't t'internet but my powers of Google-fu have failed so far.

Edited by Fatman24834154
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