Ah, now then. Well the camp itself is now safely tucked away and I am finally beginning work on several small bits of scenery that will depict activities that took place outside the area of the camp I modelled. These "dioramettes" will stand on stilts above the building of the camp and will have information cards explaining what the heck is going on there. To date I have got planned; Mills bomb training, barbed wiring (these took place on the camp but not on the bit I modelled), range practice at Rolston, cliff top battery which was part of the coastal defence battalion accommodated at the camp and, as a bit of a tribute to Tolkien who was based at the camp for a bit, a scene from one of his Hobbitty book things which will take a bit of research as I have never read or seen any of them.
Anyhow, the first mini-display I am working on is the cliff top battery. I was on the lookout for 1/72 Great War figures to use in the camp and found a couple of boxes of EMHAR figures in Just Kits. There were the 18 pounders with crew and WWI infantry and tank crew. 2 guns in the box of artillery made this the obvious choice for a diorama and the figures came in quite a few poses - not all aggressive combat ones too, which means I can use most of them in the relatively peaceful environment of a training camp. The infantry were just as diverse. Some bits I will likely never use, but I'll certainly get me money's worth out of the rest!
As ever, finding the confidence to make a start was the hardest bit. I got a bit of MDF and cut a wobbly corner off one end to represent the coastline. I had already decided to have the guns near to the cliff edge with an access trench behind it for the crews and supporting troops so I glued some packing foam to it for very basic contours and layered it over with newspaper soaked in water and PVA glue. Once that had dried, I got to work making the plank lining and duck boards out of picture mounting card, suitably scored with a dental spike to represent the planking and nail heads. Once these were painted and the newspaper had dried, I gave the trench a coat of brown paint to avoid having any bit of The Holderness Gazette showing through any gaps in the timber lining! The lining was then stuck to the side of the trench and upright support posts glued to them.
Next was the duckboards. Here I cut some long thin "rails" of card and over the top of them, with random spacing so they weren't too neat, I glued strips to represent the boards. With these, I ran my dental spike along them randomly to get a wood-grain effect. They were then painted. With all the wood, I used an undercoat of black and then dry brushed various shades of browns, buffs and a touch of red leather to get what I think is an "old wood" look. The duckboards were then fitted into the trench.
Then came the sandbags. Made of oven baked modelling clay, I rolled a sausage, flattened it, cut it into lengths and smoothed the ends off then, just prior to baking, I pressed down on them lightly with a piece of bunched up gauze bandage to add some hessian texture to them. Once baked, they were painted khaki and then very lightly dry-brushed with buff shades for highlighting.
The barbed wire pickets were lengths of garden wire that I stripped the plastic off and holding one end in my little vice, using my pliers on the other end I wrapped it round my little dental spike (you should get one, they're dead handy) to form a loop then removed the spike and pulled the loop a little tighter for scale size. I did 2 more loops on each picket, alternating the direction of the loop so I had 2 loops on one side and 1, the middle loop, on the other. Barbed wire was simply net curtain, painted and cut into individual strands to leave very short stubs of material along the strand. One end is anchored to a picket and then twisted. When the other end is anchored to hold the twist, the result is impressive I think.
The ground is plaster of Paris mixed with various paints, kiln dried fine sand and cement retardant to increase the time I had to work with it. It pretty much laid itself and took very little prodding to get it to look how I wanted. Before it dried I laid my sandbags into it along the trench top, poked the pickets into the cliff edge and placed the guns down to leave locating marks or them.
The guns then. fairly simple kits with a seam to scrape away just to remind you it shouldn't be too easy. The plastic I found very repellent towards the paint and it took several coats to get a fairly even layer - not that I was too fussed as these would have been sat in the coastal air and would have likely looked a bit rough anyway. I had no colour references so just painted them a blue/grey with steel wheel rims. Whether the spokes were steel of timber, I haven't checked yet, but I thought there was enough brown in the model for the time being so left them grey.
Some pictures of it all so far are attached. Still to come are; trench clutter including ladders, boxes and bits of kit lying about - not too much mind, it was not a front line unit so was subject to a bit of discipline and bull - sandbags around the guns, more barbed wire and the figures. After that, just a bit of touching up, the stilts to be put on and the information cards printed and attached. NOTE TO SELF: Drill locating holes for stilts in base of diorama BEFORE building the diorama!!!!!! I shall update you all as things progress.
Jolly good.
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