A small update...

Unfortunately I’ve had to bin the Monte Cassino dio. After reading more thoroughly up on my history, I’ve found that the scene would actually be completely historically incorrect! It has in recent years been accepted as a fact that; German paratroops didn’t take up positions in the monastery until the day after the Allied bombing of the place.

This would mean that the scene would have to depict a ruin, and I was building an intact structure…

Thus I have decided to move on another project, a small “Battle for Kursk” scene featuring a Panther and a bunch of German officers planning an attack.

Here are a few pictures of the figure painting done so fare.

More to come!

By the way I’m delighted to se a new reader of my humble little blog. Welcome Ludo, love your work!

"The Clearing" the Ardennes 44 - continued

...And the final picture

"The Clearing" the Ardennes 44 - continued

More pictures

"The Clearing" the Ardennes 44

As promised earlier, the final result of the Ardennes dio ”The Clearing”. I apologize for the bad lighting on the pics, but this is the best I can do at the moment.

Monte Cassino Dio - Buildings & figures

At the moment I’m working on the building for the Monte Cassino dio. I’ve spent a few days doing the rough outlay of the dio in foam board. I still need to do the arches, roof, and columns.

The pictures show a bit of the detail work on the on the walls and tile floors. The cork bricks will be applied to all walls. The gaps will be filled with plaster, representing the mortar.

All the tile floors are plaster casts, into which I carved the individual floor tiles.

I’ve done some of the initial work on the Fallshirmjäger figures. These are from Dragon’s “Monte Cassino Defenders” kit. I made a few improvements on the bread sac, adding new “Green Stuff” straps and filled out the gaps between the sac and the figure to make it look more realistic.

Monte Cassino Dio

The Ardennes dio (The Clearing) is done! I still need to do a few good pictures of the final result; they’ll be up soon.

I’ve already started my next project, a Monte Cassino, Italy scene. Featuring German Fallschirmjägers...

Here are a few pic’s of my general idea.

Ardennes Dio - Almost done.

Work on the trees is completed. It was a bit tedious work, but these trees play a major role in the scene!

As mentioned in earlier posts, the trees are made from balsa wood, small birch twigs, and moss. I pull the moss apart till I have single “straight” strands of moss. These strands are then glued on one by one using superglue. I start out by placing one long strand across the full length of the branch, then I glue strands on the side starting with two longer ones at the base of the branch and making them shorter and shorter as I make my way to the tip of the branch.

After having made a sort of rough “fish bone” structure on the branch, I start adding smaller and shorter pieces of moss to break the planned, rather stiff pattern and give the branch a more “chaotic” and natural look.

I gave the green parts a few sprays of darker greens with the airbrush followed by a coat of matt varnish.

After a few days of drying I started applying snow on the treetops. I brushed on heavily deluded white glue with a medium large brush and then sprinkled on a layer of Woodland Scenic’s snow. Each branch got two layers of snow, letting the glue dry completely between each application.

I finished the groundwork as well. This is a winter scene set in December ’44, so it will eventually be covered with snow. The ground was made from a concoction of plaster, sand, flowerpot dirt, a bit of static grass, a few drops of brown and black acrylic paint, and finally MIG acrylic resin to ad strength.

Now all I need to do is apply the snow, and the thing is done!