Hi everyone,

In this post I start to work on the miniatures and the base.  Since the base is divided into two elevations, I decided to work on them separately after finishing the miniatures that will go on that part of the base.

So the first step was to assemble the miniatures according to the needs of the diorama and what I envisioned the scene to be.


The next step was painting them.  Now for the priming stage and the base coat stage, I did everything in one go in order to save time.

When it came to painting them up I did them separately.   The first two figures I did were the ones that are going to be on and beside the tank.  I painted them up in the basic colours then gave them a brown wash to bring out the details and unify the colour scheme.

Next I started working on the base elevation. I added a fence from a Italieri kit and built a stone wall from tiny stones.  I found that I had to score the fence in order to get a more realistic wood texture.  This can easily be done with a hobby knife or scriber.



 

At this point I painted the fence and stone wall up and added some ivy to the fence.  The ivy is photo-etched.

After I finished painting up the figures, I test-fitted them to the tank and scene in order to fine tune their position.

Now that I decided where everything went, I stuck paperclip rods into the areas where the models will go and started to work on the mud and vegetation.   The mud was simply a mixture of soil, paint, and sand.  The water effects were created with Still Water and acrylic paint.

As for the vegetation, it is a mix of several products which I will post on at a later time.  It is enough to say that at this stage I only have done the basic vegetation.  I will add details like flowers and various plants from photo-etched and laser cuts plants from various manufacturers.


The diorama is progressing well, especially with the limited time on my hands, but I am confident that I will finish this diorama and cross off another overdue project from my resolutions list.

Until next time, farewell and good health as always,


 


  NR