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John Staehle
8 articles

1/35th scle Iwo Jima Diorama in progress

January 14, 2014 · in How-to · · 6 · 2.5K

Iwo Jima, the volcanic island that still smelled like rotten eggs was the subject of one of the worst battles of WW2 that lasted over 5 weeks was the request of a new customer with Hobbies in a Barn. Armed with light weapons until the tanks arrived the Marines fought for every inch of the volcanic sand and rocks where the Japanese hid very effectively. This was the challenge of scenery because volcanic rock is pretty rare in the desert but the hard clay worked really well. Along with 3 different DML marine kits that have interchangeable parts I had a choice of many figure combinations. The figure shown is from the Tarawa set that has two poses per figure choice with parts that are very articulated.

There will be more in-progress photos.

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16 additional images. Click to enlarge.


6 responses

  1. John...you are a diorama machine - you need to expand your horizons. lol 🙂

    • Thank you Craig, be sure to check out Hobbies in a Barn for more about my FB page and the business I'm in now. One of my fellow modelers called me an artist that builds models, that too was a great compliment!

  2. As above, perhaps a tutorial on the groups page will help us lesser mortals.

    • Simon, thank you for the compliment. I have considered that and as mentioned I have many postings on my FB page, Hobbies in a Barn which also happens to be the name of my business, so now that I am in the model and diorama business, it would be ok to post more except that I would be possibly cutting away at that small but promising business. Taking customer orders for my models and such is a great way to share ideas as well as I will be posting all the progress. Thanks again for the idea however.

      John

  3. John,
    Good looking Marines. I want to see this when it is completed.

    • Thank you Frank,
      I'll certainly keep up the WIP photos as I complete each figure. Mixing figure parts to get just the right effect is proving interesting right now I'm building a flamethrower Marine from parts from each of the DML Marine 3 Gen 2 kits. If you are interested about having one of your own dioramas with this same theme, let me know and I'll send you the ordering details. Hobbies in a Barn is always happy to fill custom orders!
      John

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