1/48 Tamiya M8 gun carriage (and Jeep) diorama

[Model Mate]

Hello everyone – a blow-in from the armour section here…. I’m building a couple of WW2 American vehicles and figures (M8 gun motor carriage and  Jeep) and really quite fancy a large(ish) diorama to sit them in. They’re 1/48 scale, so it won’t be massive which is a good thing and means I can include more and bigger stuff than I could at 1/35.

 

The first thing I decided to try is a tree. I’ve done little stumps of dead tree before but always shied away from the full oak/chestnut etc. types. To be honest, even this one needs to be restricted in size a bit, so more like a cherry or something I guess, but still a proper tree.

 

I started off using a technique I’ve used before; twigs. I collected a few likely contenders and stuck some thick branches onto the main trunk using drilled holes, metal pins and lashings of woodglue.

 

It’s huge! Really too big. I collected some alternative, smaller twigs, but I think I’ll try something else….

 

Wire trees….. search youtube and you’ll find a huge range and variety of “ultra-realistic model trees” ranging from lumps of bright green sponge glued to lolly sticks to true works of art. Naturally, I veered towards the latter and the best I found was from this chap….

 

 

 

I watched his excellent tutorial and set about making my own, although of course I forgot a fair bit of his advice and adapted a few bits to substitute for different materials I had to hand.

 

The main body and branches were twisted together gardening wire. I then stripped a load of electrical cable and wrapped the copper strands around from the base of the tree. Towards the ends I used a process of “divide and twist” – splitting the strands roughly into two and twisting, before repeating and subdividing as I went.

 

 

Here’s the finished armature; caught just as I was starting to apply a filler slurry.

 

The filler slurry was made from household filler mixed with plenty of PVA to try to add some flexibility. For my last (little, wooden) tree, I used a milliput slurry and I already wish I’d done the same here. I fear this filler/PVA mix might be a bit too soft. Oh well, I’ll keep going and see how it turns out.

 

I’m reasonably pleased so far, although next time I think I will follow Mr Chaterjee’s advice a bit more closely – his results are amazing.

[Model Mate]

Tree update…. Once the filler slurry had dried, I spent a rather tedious hour or so straightening out all the little copper twigs using a pair of tweezers and squishing any filler balls that had accumulated on the smaller sticks – time consuming and dull, but necessary I think. I then sprinkled and dabbed on tiny polyfibre strands. These were culled from a soft toy that my cats have grown bored of, snipped using scissors into very small lengths and fixed in place with hairspray. When this was done, I cut the extra-long trunk back and twisted the short lengths of wire up to form the root system.

 

I dug out an old “third hand” that I’ve never really had much use for to hold the tree in place while I applied a milliput paste (mixed with water) to the roots and stuck the tree down on its new “feet” to dry. A mockup with the Jeep seems to reveal that the tree is a decent size.

 

Next up is foliage – I know there’s plenty of good products out there for flock/clumps, but I can never resist the DIY option, so I started shaving down some bamboo cocktail sticks using a scalpel. Another tedious job, but it looks ok I think. A couple of these shaving sessions were rubbed around in a pot with some acrylic green paints and left on a piece of tinfoil to dry. The somewhat random dyeing of these brings a nice variability I think.

 

So back to the tree. Once the milliput had dried, I poked a wire up the tree’s bum and hung it upside down to spray some primer – black from below, grey from the sides and white from above.

 

[Model Mate]

Progress has been a bit slow… I did my back in and so couldn’t do much for a while, but eventually I managed to get a bit more done on the tree.

 

I applied a brown acrylic wash/glaze to the main branches and then airbrushed the smaller twigs towards the top with some Tamiya olive drab. This was followed by a light grey drybrushing and burnt umber oil wash. Then it was foliage time. Despite shredding an entire bamboo burger-skewer (lifted from a pub lunch) and half a dozen cocktail sticks, the pile of dyed bamboo shavings looked dangerously small. It also started to fall apart into dust as it dried, so I wasn’t convinced it would do the job after all. Instead, I chopped up a couple of used washing up sponges with a pair of scissors.

 

The sponge bits were plopped into a plastic bag with a few drops of green acrylic and some water and given a shake. The resulting flock looks ok I think.

 

This was then dabbed and sprinkled onto diluted PVA-covered branches and fixed in place with hairspray.

 

The results look pretty good to my eye. Very much a spring tree, with leaves starting to come out rather than a fully-leaved summer tree, but I’m quite happy. Whether I add the bamboo shaving and/or some extras from the spice rack, I’m not sure. It might improve things, or it might ruin it.

[psdavidson]

That is a very nice tree

[Keeff]

Wow! That's one good tree! It seems to be a good technique you've found...

 

Keith ☺️ 

[Model Mate]

thanks both - yes, I'm pretty pleased with this for a first tree. I'm always keen to find DIY/scratchbuild ways to do things. All of the things I've tried, I found on youtube - some video tutorials on there are really basic, but some others are gems.

[Model Mate]

So I have my tree – next up is a building. I found a photo of an M8 rumbling past a farm building and thought I could do something similar.

 

I found another photo of a slightly more interesting building and drew it up roughly to scale/proportion.

 

I started cutting out the walls using HIPS foam board but when I mocked up the overall diorama, the building completely overwhelmed the vehicles. The M8 might look like a sizeable beast with its stubby little gun and large turret, but in reality it’s pretty tiny.

 

So a re-think was in order. I considered a little town square with a fountain, and after a bit of googling, found this:

 

First thing was to construct the fountain. I wrapped some tin foil around the cap of a spray can and applied some Fimo clay. I rolled a ball of crumpled tin foil over the surface to get some stone texture and then popped it in the oven (after pulling out the spray can cap).

 

The nice thing about scratchbuilding diorama pieces is that absolute accuracy (as far as I’m concerned anyway) isn’t essential, so I’ve tweaked the fountain from the photo and made it a bit more rustic – i.e. easier to make! I then cut out HIPS foamboard shapes for the base and the background walls.

 

Next up was the fountain’s central urn. I assembled a collection of ring/tube material, using some old syringes I used for resin casting and glued these onto cut out circles of 0.75mm plastic card.

 

These were mounted on a length of iron wire using superglue and the basic form was mashed into place using milliput.

 

Once dry, I sanded it all a bit smoother and more regular and drilled some holes for the “spouts”. I created a very simple jig from HIPS boards and cocktail sticks, on which to wind some 0.5mm lead wire to make some relief decorations.

 

The wound lead and some other scraps were glued on to decorate the urn. Again, a bit more rustic than the photo, but I’m hoping it’ll look ok under a coat of primer.

 

[Model Mate]

A good bit of progress. The urn got a squirt (or rather, three squirts) of primer – black from below, grey from the sides and white from above. All rattle can, all Halfords and all from a bit of a distance to try and get a bit of grainy texture; something I normally try to avoid of course, and in this instance, managed to avoid, despite my best efforts – doh! Nevermind.

 

I prepped the foundation base by adding a circle(ish) of cut HIPS board, and sealed the inside gaps using mod-podge. I wondered if this stuff might also be used for the water in the fountain in lieu of clear resin, and so started a trial in the lid of a hairspray can. I’m writing this three days later and it’s still a white jelly, so the answer is a resounding “no”. Good to know at least…

 

I marked up the HIPS foam base and cut some trenches in it to help key the plaster ground to. The dias was cut out and I made an upper kerb and some cork tile for the flagstones.

 

The cork is a bit thicker than the HIPS, so they all needed cutting down in height; an easy enough (if messy) job, and I marked the undersides of each tile so I knew which went where. The tiles I'm using have a sticky backing which is really handy.

 

So out with the plaster – which isn’t plaster. Well not entirely. It’s Pollyfilla – used neat on the tiles (spread like butter on toast and flattened/smeared using fingers) and in combination with clear PVA (in lieu of water), grey tile grout and brown tile grout pigment for the road. I textured it using a big and terrible kid’s “craft” paintbrush.

 

I pressed the vehicles into/onto it, but not too much. This will be compacted hard earth, not deep mud, so they don’t want to be up to the arches in it. Here’s the mock-up.

 

The little sloped side wall was textured using a couple of pin tools and I added some coping stones from offcuts of HIPS.

 

And this was “glued in place using pollyfilla/PVA mix with some wire pins to hold it together. The rear face was textured using the same mix, daubed on.

 

The fountain base sat with very noticeable gaps on the flagstones due to their variable height, so I made masked a circle and smeared Pollyfilla/PVA on to bed it onto before removing the masking and tidying up the join with a bit of water and a brush.

 

The building façade was textured using my pin tools and I cut out some thick cartridge paper which was affixed using double-sided tape. This HIPS foam board really takes texture well, and simple tools like the handle of a scalpel, pins, files etc. can produce a whole load of textures really easily.

 

 

For the doors in the arches, I used an approach that I first tried with a similar diorama a while ago. The arch cut-out pieces had strips of coffee stirrer glued on and extra texture (particularly at the tops and bottoms of each plank) was scribed and scratched using pins and blades. I then applied variable shades of grey/blue acrylic, as dry as I could get away with to avoid the paint soaking into the wood.

 

They were lightly sanded and then the oils came out. Burnt umber, then black, applied as relatively thick washes and blended using plenty of white spirit.

 

The last step (after an overnight dry) was a final light sanding to reveal some of the original light wood colour.

 

 

 

[Model Mate]

Very much paint time now. The main parts of the fountain and building got primed – plain old grey Halfords rattle can - and then I started painting up the wall section. I added a few patches of household masking tape to represent some additional layers of broken plaster and painted the lot in various grey/cream/stone colours, all very thin and in multiple passes to try and mix it all up.

 

It was all looking a bit too clean and well defined though, so I applied some pollyfilla mixed with a dab of yellow ochre paint for the mortar and streaked this mix all over the plaster sections to blend it together a bit more.

 

Then onto the fountain and base. Similar thin acrylic washes and glazes as above, followed with a bit of drybrushing and then burnt umber oil wash. The wall got some oil washes too, but pretty limited.

 

Next up – the road. I applied some acrylic earth and khaki washes, and then some diluted PVA and crushed up cat litter for stones and gravel.

 

Finally for now, I glued the doors in and the back wall in place. There are rather too  many rocks and stones at the moment, but once it’s all dry, I’ll knock a few off.

 

[IMG1]

Really love this, love tanks, hate tracks but scratchbuilding always frees up the mind and looks great.

[HK-500]

Really nice , I feel like a kid once more, all goggle-eyed and a large grin on my face🥹👍👍