Sabotage

[Aces High]

Morning all, I am currently (read that as slowly) building an inglenook style shunting puzzle named Winterfall, which you can follow here. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/113387-winterfall/

 

However, being easily distracted and wanting somewhere to practice my skills I decided to build a small diorama named sabotage. It is being built on a cheap and cheerful picture frame purchased from the range for less than £2.

 

It will depict the midsection of a rake of GWR boggie wells with a cargo of Cromwell tanks on their way to embarkation for the European TOO in late 1945. As with Winterfall I predict a fair amount of molders license whilst learning new skills. Anyway, pictures paint a thousand words so here's a few that take me up to where I currently am with it.

[Aces High]

Or I will add some pictures as soon as I've resized them.

[paul-dereham]

Or I will add some pictures as soon as I've resized them.

 

 

We wait with baited breath!

[Aces High]

As Promised. Sabotage is my test diorama.  It's only going to be small built on a £2 picture frame purchase from The Range.  It will depict two GWR Bogie Well wagons each with a Cronwell tank on board passing over a small culvert in which hides an enemy Agent.  Entirely fictional as I don't believe the German Abwehr had much success with infiltrating the UK mainland during World War 2.  

 

 

 

I have started off shaping the land using polystyrene tiles and a craft knife to carve out a culvert.  I am using a Wills culvert for the embankment, painted it with Humbrol enamels and weathered with a wash made of pastels and water.   My next step is to build all the features that will be embedded in the land before using air dried clay to finish off the land form. If, like me, anyone also has an interest in Military modelling as well as model railways I'started a spin off group to my Aces High page on Facebook called Planes, Trains and Tanks here. Currently there's only myself and my good wife as members so we're flying high  https://www.facebook.com/groups/1143691822405174/ 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jerry1975]

Sounds interesting, I used to model WW2 vehicles so looking forward to seeing more progress.

 

Jerry.

[Aces High]

This week has been pretty uneventful on the modelling front, it's the end of a month with two birthdays, paying off a large part of our impending Disney holiday early next year and starting to put stuff aside for Christmas, suffice to say the bank balance has seen healthier times.  There's always time for a few small jobs though, those of you who are following the speedy process of my diorama will know that I've started to work on the land form. 

 

 

 

  As I'm planning to use air dry clay for finish off shaping the land I'm now concentrating on the smaller items that I will want to plant into the land.  Those being the fences, telegraph poles, culvert and trees.  I'm making the trees in bulk as I want quite a few to go on Winterfall as well.  Once their done I can crack on with modelling the country lane under the bridge on Winterfall.

 

 

 

  I painted the culvert using Humbrol enamels and then picked out individual bricks with a final wash to weather.  The trees I've started making using a technique on one of the videos on the How to page on my website.  I've also started a small spin off group from my main page on Facebook called Planes, Trains and Tanks for all things modelling, without the crafty business (sorry Mrs B  ).  https://www.facebook.com/groups/1143691822405174/  All members, visitors and advice most welcome as I'm a complete novice to all of this.

[Jerry1975]

Hi,

 

If you ever need any information on military vehicles especially tanks don't hesitate to ask, your diorama is looking very good.

 

Jerry.

[Aces High]

Will do Jerry, thank you. I have an armoured background but that's modern day stuff. This diorama will have Cromwells .

[Aces High]

  A wee update as I'm getting further with my diorama than I am with my main layout, as this is for me to practice my skills though that makes sense.  This week I've made my final decision on where everything is going to sit and I've started on my scenic build.  I'm going to use my method described about for the single tree on the layout but do something similar for the bushes using horse hair.

 

For the stream bed I've used dried sand we got from the beach at summer and glued some of the larger grains/small pebbles randomly on it.  The water is going to be frozen in this stream but I thought it would be good to practice and I plan to break the "ice" in a few places.

 

  I've bedded the pillbox in using air dry clay, this area is going to be muddy and trod in.  I'm toying with the idea of using an old bandage to make a cam net but I'm not sure how widely they were used, if at all, on pillboxes in WWII.

 

  On the IT front, I've been plodding along with the website and to try and help out other new comers to the hobby, like myself, I've decided to host a "hassle free" night every Sunday on my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/AcesHigh76/  If you have your own small page or group and you want to attract more followers simply turn up, post a link to your group or page and then browse any others that have done likewise, hopefully we can give each other some mutual support.  Anyway, enough shameless plugging, here are some pic's of my work this week.