Tomcat's 1/35 StuG III Ausf.G Diorama

[ElCapitan]

Niiiiiice! Looks fantastic, I can't wait to see it cross the finish line!

Interesting thing, I saw the update yesterday before you added the snow pics and decided to wait until you had added them before commenting - then have been waiting on a notification that you've posted a new reply ever since. I guess the forum doesn't pick up on edits!

[Tomcat64]

Brrrr, looking very chilly mate!

Niiiiiice! Looks fantastic, I can't wait to see it cross the finish line!

Interesting thing, I saw the update yesterday before you added the snow pics and decided to wait until you had added them before commenting - then have been waiting on a notification that you've posted a new reply ever since. I guess the forum doesn't pick up on edits!

Thanks guys I've noticed the notifications don't always trigger an e-mail, but not noticed on an edit before either.

The photos from last night were taken in a bit of a hurry as I was basically chuffed to get to that point so I'll try and grab a couple more sometime this week with the grown-up camera in between working on the final groups of figures and clutter.

[Tomcat64]

Well with just two weeks to go and up against it I took the only sensible decision I could... and bought more plastic


Actually I'm a bit miffed with myself for not thinking about furniture earlier, but hey ho... and here are the bits I'm going to use along with a couple of other items that are going to be used - I'll keep the positioning of these for the final reveal now we're this close. All have been brush painted with a combination of Scale75 and Vallejo, with Lifecolor for any rust.


I also did some work on the attic; the covers were done by applying thin white glue over tissues (thanks to Spock1701 for pointing me in the direction of this one). This now needs to be glued in place and rubbled up.


And then we came to the figures - here they all are. I've abandoned the idea of fitting a crewman into the StuG for now - he'll come later as it'll require some remodelling that I simply won't have time for in the GB.


So after a shopping trip interrupted play the uniforms came together well on Saturday and I was confident that Sunday would have them finished. Little did I know that the God of Plastic (Styrenia?) had a coyote session planned for me for Sunday afternoon. I don't know if it was something to do with the ambient temperature being higher this weekend or just me having a really off day but I just couldn't get paint to behave; the first attempts on the faces looked like they were going down ok, but then dried with a magenta tint to them which looked awful, so I stripped back and tried again. I also had problems with paint drying out on the palette and brush so it was a constant fight to keep everything wet. Anyway, the faces are done. I'm not 100% happy - actually to be more accurate I'm not even 50% happy with them but running out of time so not going around again. Just to finish things off I use Vallejo German Grey as a scale black for figures and couldn't figure out why it wasn't covering as well as it normally does, so I just packed up at that point - went back a couple of hours later and realised I'd picked up the ModelAir pot instead of ModelColor -

So anyway here they are as they look at the moment - the shiny will be dulled down with Ultra Matte once I've got the equipment painted


Hoping to get the equipment painted this evening ready for Matte tomorrow, then installation, rubble and more snow and mud and we're done - hopefully the next post will be the last one before the reveal which I'm aiming to do on Saturday as we're out on Sunday.

Thanks for looking!

[Stokesy44]

Furniture! Awesome paintwork mate.

The figures look great too. The dio is going to look superb.

[privatepete]

Hi Neil, the figures look fantastic and furniture brilliant touch not everyone would of thought of it , I like this one a lot

[Bissyboat]

Amazing attention to details. Yes. The furniture and other bits and bobs, bring everything to life.

[Bissyboat]

Amazing job on the interior.

Thanks mate - good to see you back again

It's been an exciting week for me StuG-wise although first up was the more mundane task of adding the mittelstollen to the tracks; here's the instruction on the box lid.

Thank you! I like to pop into your tank factories ever so often, but life gets in the way sometimes. Your StuG looks the busniess. Menacing and battleworn. She´s a true testament to the many facets of your modelling skills. She looks like a battered welly, but she also looks like the pride of a seasoned tank ace.

[Tomcat64]

Furniture! Awesome paintwork mate.

The figures look great too. The dio is going to look superb.

Hi Neil, the figures look fantastic and furniture brilliant touch not everyone would of thought of it , I like this one a lot

Amazing attention to details. Yes. The furniture and other bits and bobs, bring everything to life.

Amazing job on the interior.

Thanks mate - good to see you back again

It's been an exciting week for me StuG-wise although first up was the more mundane task of adding the mittelstollen to the tracks; here's the instruction on the box lid.

Thank you! I like to pop into your tank factories ever so often, but life gets in the way sometimes. Your StuG looks the busniess. Menacing and battleworn. She´s a true testament to the many facets of your modelling skills. She looks like a battered welly, but she also looks like the pride of a seasoned tank ace.

Thanks guys appreciate the support as always! And really like the "Battered Welly" analogy - well used but still comfortable

So I had a much more fun time with the paint last night than I did on Sunday and here's the results


And a bit of fiddling with a bit of furniture... the map was from the Tamiya field briefing set and was given a heavy dollop of thinned down white glue and a thin brown wash


Finally the stowage got a thin covering of Mig Russian Earth to dull it all down a bit - oh and the obligatory bucket was chucked on board too


And that's the painting finished, unless there's any last minute touching up to be done... just need glue, rubble, snow and a little mud and we're done. Next post will be the reveal Unless I think of something else to try and cram in at the last minute...

[privatepete]

Hi Neil, you begin to make this look a bit to easy now, stop it now

[Tomcat64]

Hi Neil, you begin to make this look a bit to easy now, stop it now

Thanks Pete! Easy it ain't!

Tell you what I'll give it a couple more days and then pack up on Saturday if things don't improve ok?

[Stokesy44]

With the map you're really taking the p*** mate

Please, please make sure you finish on time!

[ElCapitan]

Love the attention to detail. Makes me want to try my hand at a diorama one day.

Can't wait for the reveal. So close now!

[Quax]

Hi Neil, you begin to make this look a bit to easy now, stop it now

He just likes making us all look bad

I think you seem to be missing a boat in this diorama or is that because you've already pushed it out?

Paul

[Tomcat64]

With the map you're really taking the p*** mate

Please, please make sure you finish on time!

Thanks Stokesy - it WILL Be done!

Love the attention to detail. Makes me want to try my hand at a diorama one day.

Can't wait for the reveal. So close now!

Thanks mate - reveal is still on course for Saturday...

I think you seem to be missing a boat in this diorama or is that because you've already pushed it out?

Paul

Boat!!! I forgot the boat! I'm sure I've got room for a boat next to the kitchen sink...

Quick photo-free update; the figures are all CA'd in place although one of them ended up somewhere other than where I'd originally planned; the furniture has been moved in and again there's one bit I decided not to use; the whole lot has been rubbled up and more snow happened last night. So aside from some minor fettling the base is done.

I need to add aerials & machine gun to the stuG and a little fettling there as well and... well that'll be it. Fingers crossed that it may all be done by this evening but will definitely be ready for photos on Saturday.

Edit: I may have fibbed when I said this was Photo-free... I usually use a piece of light guitar string to make my aerials, but I did a quick google and found that Aber make some AM and Historex Agents got it to me in time


So these will be going on tonight

Thanks for all the support in getting this done - it's honestly been a huge help

[Tomcat64]

It's done... finished

The reveal is here

Now I'm going for a lie down in a darkened room for a month - I have no idea what to do with my spare time!

Thanks again for all the advice and encouragement along the way I hope the reveal doesn't disappoint!