Trumpeter Sd.Kfz.8 Gepanzerte with Tamiya Flak 36/37 1/35
This was a project that occupied the first six months of 2020 and was part of a remeberance group build. I'm not all that fond of doing large dioramas like this since after awhile it begins to feel like a job rather than a hobby but this one kept my attention.
The Trumpeter Gepanzerte depicts a rare German halftrack that was poorly documented as far as I can tell. The kit was well molded and the only real difficulties it presented was joining the upper and lower hull halves and poor fit on the rear plate. Much of this was probably my fault as I don't think I filed the interior partitions down enough but at the end of the day Squadron green putty came to the rescue. I was determined to display the nicely done Maybach engine so I had to scratch a radiator and interior bulkheads since Trumpy does not see fit to give you one in the kit.
The Tammy 88 was finished as a Flak 37 since I was trying to depict a later war scene. This kit has been around since the early seventies and altho it shows this it still builds up nicely with a little fussing and care. I did go so far as to cut, drill, and pin the steering components on the front truck, it would not have looked right if the tires were straight.
The building on the left is a MiniArt vacuform with scratched floors and beams made from basswood. The building on the right is fully scratched from pink foam board and basswood. Rubble was made by casting sections of light hydrocal with grey acrylic paint mixed in, then placing the castings in a durable plastic bag and beating them with my old framing hammer for awhile. I fixed this to the base with diluted white glue. The fence was a PE LHS find and the vegitation came from War World Scenics.
Figures are a mix of Dragon, Tamiya, MinArt, and Masterbox. I didn't do so well on the faces; my eyes ain't what they used to be.
I was very glad when I finally got this off the bench but it was worth the time and fuss to commemorate my buddy whom we lost in 2019.
Fantastic diorama, Mark @markh
It can be clearly seen that this one got your attention all the way to the end.
There is so much perfection in this build even the haces of the figures look great to me.
Very kind assessment sir thank you
Superb job, Mark!
Appreciate that sir my thanks
Nice work Mark and inspiring to a Begining diorama builder.
Thanks also sir, and if I may I'll advise you to keep your first one or two as small as you can and uncomplicated. The bigger they are the more space there is to fill and this can become a difficult balance to achieve.
Try watching Martin Kovacks (Nightshift) videos on YouTube he's very good at this and his step by step/how to approach is second to none