A rabbit to chase

[Wizzel]

Many years ago from Modelzone (remember them?) I bought a set of 1/72 Academy vehicles which included a kettenkraftrad tracked motorcycle.

Inspired by the final battle scene from Saving Private Ryan where Reiben and his BAR jumps on the back of one of these to try and lure the SS tanks into an ambush, a few years ago I decided to have a go at recreating something similar. Now I've finished work until 5 Jan, this is the ideal time to get serious. 

I purchased some US troops from milicast hoping to cobble together enough to make a decent scene as my initial idea was for a decent size setting with quite a few figures but tbh, the detail on a lot of the figures was slightly disappointing so I scaled things back and am now doing a "Matchbox" style vignette with just the vehicle and two soldiers on a 3" x 3" base.

The vehicle went together easily enough as Academy tends to do and has had a base coat of Mission Models dark stone which to me makes a lovely faded dark yellow.
I picked through the mess of resin and picked some parts out of the various torsos, arms and heads to cobble together the two riders in near enough poses I wanted, although I've had to do a bit of cutting and pasting to repose them enough to fit and look like they're doing what they're meant to be doing.

The base is my usual bit of foam with a sealing coat of PVA and sand coloured filler to give a rough profile and I've started to build up the rubble pile in one corner with more of the same and slivers of oak veneer.

Somehow, I ended up making a section of brick wall - not sure how it came about. I was just aimlessly messing with a bit of foam board while the PVA dried and ended up with the wall. I'll be shaping it to fit the look of the base later.

So far, it's taken about 6 hours and I hope to have this finished by the end of this week.

[zak]

A great film and a great idea.

[chriswil42]

Looking really great Dave. Looking forward to seeing this complete.

[Bigkev]

Nice Dave.
See you have a film still to refer to. Small diorama's can be really eye-catching, your Dinosaur's as an example.
Watching this one with interest and for any tricks I can purloin.........

[cph64]

This is coming together great. If you, or anyone else, ever need 1/72 scale figures in the future let me know and I'll see if I have what's required. I've a tub+ full of them.

[Bob C]

One of the most realistic openings 15mins on film yet. Great idea.

Bob c

[Wizzel]

Did I say finished by the end of the week?? Another of my rather ill thought out comments 😂.  I'd foolishly forgotten about the anniversary of a dead messiah's birth (if he ever existed at all) - what you humans call Christmas - which spoilt my fun as usual. Also, because I don't plan things before hand, I come up against problems I didn't foresee, or I change my mind as things progress, and I have to test and adjust accordingly which taken time.

On this occasion, I decided to change the shape and design of the base, making it square rather than with a shaped front and to try and incorporate a cobbled road.

I made the road out of photo mount card and scored the cobbles into it which looked pretty good until I painted it so I'll be covering it almost completely in dust and rubble.  I set it into the front on risers so it was the correct height and and now placing paving slabs around at least part of it, fitting them over the earth I had already laid.  Completely back to front, I know and as with the road most of these will be covered in dust and rubble - but like aircraft with full interiors hidden by the fuselage, I'll know they're there!

The figures on the vehicle are slowly taking shape now and I plan on using a bit of miliput to embellish them. Wish me luck.

The wall and rubble around it is taking shape nicely and is still WiP.

It's going slightly slower than I'd intended but I'm having fun 😊

[Bigkev]

Progress isn't always as quick as we like to think it will be. Never mind, glad you're having fun with this diorama, I'm sure it'll be okay once done.
Nice work so far.

[chriswil42]

Looking really good Dave.

[Wizzel]

After a short period of time spent making and applying dust, I'm calling the groundwork finished.

The dust was just lumps of my ground covering mix roughly chopped, left to dry overnight and then ground up in my mortar and pestle (sounds a bit like a stage in a Delia Smith recipe!).  My ground covering mix is some of the cheapest filler I could find (£3.90 for 1.5 KG) combined with the cheapest PVA mix I could find (£6.60 for 1 litre), a little water, some fine sand (free from the beach) and some brown paint. The paint is the dearest part of the mix as I'd ran out of Wilko tester colours and had to use Vallejo this time but I did make the tub many months ago and the PVA is a brilliant retarder so it still has a soft texture and more PVA can be added to make it spreadable again.

I'm now boxing the edges of the base in with balsa strips which I'll cut to match the profile of the scenery and then seal and paint.

Once that's done, I need to finish the kettenkraftrad and the scary part, the figures!!!

[chriswil42]

Looking good Dave. Keep it up.

[Wizzel]

That's the base finally finished. Just a few minutes of work to do painting some details on the vehicle then just the figures to go.

[cph64]

Great work on the rubble, definitely impressive.