Cold War Gone Hot – The Venlo Counter Strike
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I decided to have a change of pace just lately. This is the Mini-art Dutch house.
I've always been a great fan of some of the "Cold War gone hot" books such as Gen. "Shan" Hacketts "Third World War" and "Third World War - The Untold Story". I'm also a fan of "Chieftains" by Bob Forrest-Web, "Team Yankee" by Harold Coyle as well as Jim Clancy's "Red Storm Rising".
I'm doing a series of diorama's, they will involve Chieftains, Leopards some WP vehicles of the period.
As you can see, I've started off with the base and weathered it. I'm now working on the house itself. I'm at the stage of painting the bricks in contrasting colours of red. I'll weather with artists oils, which will get into the gaps between the bricks and give a "mortar" effect as well as toning down the contrast between the colours of the bricks.
I found putting the house itself together a tad difficult. They come in vacform on sheets of plastic. Detaching them is easy enough, but great care must be taken on getting the angles right. Mimi-art have a video on their website on how best to do it.
I think that the worst part of the Mimi-art dioramas/houses, is that they supply generic doors and window frames, so from Normandy to Austria, via Holland and Belgium, there was only the one style of door and frames! I'm going to adapt the items to give them a more modern look...
The BMP and BTR have been used to try and give a conceptual view of what I'm planning.
Comments and suggestions on how to improve the diorama will be gratefully received!
A vac kit is a vac kit, meaning a challenge of putting together, no matter if it's a plane or a house, my friend Ian!
Your job looks splendid so far.
Regarding windows and doors shapes and sizes, the only advice I could give is varying the colors and, if possible, the sizes.
Looking forward to this refreshing project!
Thank you Spiros. I think for the next one I'm going to try scratch building the building myself. I've done quite a few vac form aircraft in the past, but hey, it's skill fade! The next vac form aircraft I'm going to do the is the excellent Echelon 1/32 Lightning. I made one when I was in Norway, but sadly she never survived multiple postings 🙁 But for now, I'm going to be working on the "Cold War Gone Hot" series...
Thank for sharing. So far very nice work. I’m incorporating Airfix1/76 buildings into my small armour collection and am noting your work and progress on how to do it.
Thank you Bernard. There's an excellent video which includes an excellent bit on weathering the buildings, might be a good source of techniques for you
Very impressive work, Ian (@ianfoulk96). Working in vacuform, especially in 1/35, must have been a lot of "fun".
Thank you George. Vac does tend to put modellers off, but it's like injection kits only with slightly more preparation one the shape is off the backing sheet. Again, Mini-art has a good video on their website showing how to make them, it is fairly straight forward, but you do need to make allowances for the medium you're working in!