Christmas WW1 Diorama

So I’m catching up with posts,

The first part I did was just to paint the model. I’m no expert but looked up the army colours and painted the salute miniature. This has grown organically at first i was just going to paint this and give it to her.

I wanted it to be quite grimy hence the heavy wash, i was thinking of doing the base with red flowers but I also liked the idea of snow as a good contrast. I bought some ww1 soldiers playing football but the two sets of miniatures don’t look well together. I bought today some new miniatures from reaper which i feel will fit in with proportions alot better.. The album shows varying degrees of painting. I kept them on their own base as I presume my mum will probably put these in a cabinet and not show the whole diorama.

The next part I took a plastic regiment moving tray (large) from Mantic and stuck large pieces of polystyrene to it (using gorrilla glue sparingly), I cut smaller chunks to give the trench some height, adding into the height so there was a step up from the trench floor (the mantic base) to the trench step and then the lip of the trench.

I used lollipop sticks to give broken duck boards and wall boards and used the odd kebab stick for wire posts and post uprights.

I then used some REALLY old pollyfilla (im talking this stuff had the texture of solid marshmellow. And pasted it on in huge amounts. I wanted to add splodges around the wood as if the were no longer new and had warped under weight from the mud. I also polyfilla’d the sides of the diorama.

I then cut two small holes which were going to be bomb craters in no mans land.

Next I used a very ‘mud’ brown wilkinsons tester paint (who would have this on their walls?!) painted basically everything in this, demolishing some cheap brushes I bought for the purpose.

I then used a model mates mud brown on everything to give it a more sodden wet mud look…

In the last pictures you will see water in the bomb craters. This is a mix of vellejo water texture acrylic and ‘AK’  company puddles wash, for some reason these kept making a hole in the middle of the pond (presume theres a gap and its soaking into the base??? However kept topping up. I think i will get this even and use a ‘crackle’ wash later to give and icy look and then dry brush a little with white over the top.

I used some pigments from MIG however these have mostly been painted over now with other washes as I didnt like the look. In the last pictures you will see I drybrushed over the mud with the army painters warpaints leather brown

Next I have:

– added fake barbed wire to give a better “no mans land” effect
– bought new models which have a passiveness about them, eg: carrying boxes, shouting, walking etc. I want to create a scene where people are bringing rations to the ‘salute’ miniatures eg: joining in the celebrations and a man on the trench top shouting down to others to join in. Ive got french german and english people to add.

– I added vallejo crackle wash to the top of the resin, i will probably dry brush light blue and white to give an icing effect – however unsure as the middle keeps sinking in the puddles

– I have pva glued some areas, sprinkled some citadel snow basing i had left over from a woodelves/eldar eskimo project. and brushed it down so it stuck.

– lastly i modelled some sandbags out of milliput glued them down and painted them grey to give a loose ‘top’ of the trench.

the miniatures will not get painted until the weekend probably.

I have recently started painting the ‘other’ soldiers, finished the british reasonably fast, and finished the french soldier last night, only the german left.

then i will build their bases/paint them to fit in with the scene. I’m wondering of creating bases out of milliput which can mould and fit in certain areas of the scene, but can be taken out if you want to move the soldiers around or take them out entirely but that depends on how much time i have.

lastly will be touch ups to the base, I’m thinking of dry brushing the ice and adding more snow flock as well.

Lastly I haven’t decided but I bought some ‘red’ flowers (poppies) unsure as to put these on as not necessarily a ‘winter’ flower however would be a good nod to remembrance, I was thinking maybe a subtle one per base but I am unsure at the moment.