"Liri Valley" diorama in 1/35 scale

[SyntaxModels]

This is some amazing work! I'm loving the look of this already Hamilkar!

Keep these updates coming!

[felisbarcinonensis]

Looking good Michael; No rivet-riddled crucifixions this time of the year

[Coen]

That's freaking cool now. Epic piece Mike.

[Nev]

That's looking fantastic mate Gonna be frackin awesome

[HamilkarBarkas]

Cheers guys i think the street section where the halftrack will sit on will require some more modelling clay because that bit is quite steep. It would be tricky to get the vehicle sit there properly.

[HamilkarBarkas]

I managed to assemble the halftrack. The AA gun was complex to build, but everything went fine. The fit was perfect and the instructions showed no flaw there.




Added some cargo already, i will add more, but i think i will paint it separately.


Some crewmen. I built the using the parts of the figures i showed in the very beginning of this thread.




I´m going to position the goat in the shrubbery and one soldier will take a look at it to see what or who is in the shrubbery making strange noises.


The gun straps are made out of lead sheet. Paper can be used aswell but it is a bit more fiddly to glue in place.


Two wooden barrels made out of resin will sit behind the house.


I´d love to incorporate that plow too but i lost the assembly instructions. That thing is really complex!

I´m really glad that i managed to create enough suitable figures from those two sets from Dragon and MiniArt and adapt them to my wishes. I thought of buying some more but painting too many figures can be very exhausting.

[felisbarcinonensis]

Both the half-track and the AA look great. The figures look cool as well. Love goats in a good story!!

[Scaleman]

Looks really good michael, I dont know if you read my d-day thread, but I had some issues with the same sdkfz, In some parts or the instruction and the parts themselfs, looks like you overcome most of the issues. But the gun is a beauty. This is what I call an epic diorama looking really good.

[HamilkarBarkas]

Cheers guys!
There were some issues with the halftrack kit but mainly because of the bad instructions. with the parts itself i could spot no flaw

[trekfanj]

I built that same halftrack a couple of years ago; it REALLY is a pig. I especially hated those ammo boxes on the sides; I didn't even use the photoetch parts for those. I really enjoyed the AA gun assembly, but I really messed up the basket on the right side that caught empty shells; I just cut the photoetch and made something that looked like a shell collection basket. And the completed model feels so fragile, I was scared to just pick it up, worried that the thing was going to break apart into a million pieces.

I had so many issues with it that I swore I would never build another Dragon kit again, but now that I know a modeler of your (much higher than mine) skills had problems with it too, I might give Dragon a second chance.

The diorama is coming along nicely! Keep up the excellent work!

[HamilkarBarkas]

News!


I applied some Mr. Surfacer 1000 on the figures and primed them with grey acrylic paint.


The vehicles got primed with black acrylic paint.


A layer of sand yellow followed. I prefer Revell Matt 16 over anything.




I left the Kübelwagen sand yellow, on the halftrack i applied green (Matt39) and red brown (Matt 37) camo stripes.


The assembly continued, all wheels installed after i painted them separately along the other details.


Tracks glued together and in the right shape. The halftrack still needs quite a bit of detail painting.


Some stowage bits and pieces will get painted separeately. I added lead foil stripes to some of them.


Decaling started! There are not too many luckily

[felisbarcinonensis]

Vehicles, troops and goat looking so cool!!!

[rodrant]

Wonderbar!!!!

[Coen]

I love that shade of yellow Mike. Very cool colour, oh... A goat!!!

[mincemeat]

This looks fantastic! Good work.

[SyntaxModels]

Excellent progress Micheal! Thumbs up for the goat

[HamilkarBarkas]

I make good progress at the moment! If everything works fine i´m able to finish it soon


Painting the details on the halftrack is finished, i continued with the chipping. It was made with the sponge technique and a thin brush.


Same applies to the Kübelwagen.


I painted some of the equipment separately and glued it in place.




Tracks installed and i worked a bit on the road. I applied some more modelling clay to give the street a slightly more flat angle.


Wash time! I rediscovered my appreciation for the MIG dark wash again, it works really fine in combination with AK interactive white spirit.




Wash on the halftrack, not yet dried up!


Dried.


The roof looks rusty enough.


The figures require a lot of work, but i should finish them soon.

Then things become creative again as soon as i apply the earth and grass on the diorama.

[HamilkarBarkas]

Let the mess begin!


The next task was the application of the dirt on the diorama. I use my proven method for this, i mix earth from the garden, wood glue and water together and apply it on the diorama. Right into the wet paste i put the grass and anything else i need.


On such a large diorama i prefer to work in sections. The grass is from Fredericus Rex, the shrubbery is from my "tree man" at cologne" and there are also some little branches form the larger trees which i used as shrubbery.


Everything should applied at once, otherwise you loose the conform look.


As you can imagine this took a while, it occupied the bigger part of the afternoon. It still needs to dry.


As you can see the figures are finished too. I put some pieces in place just to see how it looks all together. The diorama has a lot of depth, i would not have thought that.




Another shot from above to show you the look of the wild growing shrubbery everywhere. I discovered that this is a typical feature of the Appenine mountains.


I think i will relocate the Kübelwagen to this position, it distributes all components a bit more evenly. As soon as everything has dried i will go in with my airbrush and some buff paint to give it a dusty look. I don´t feel like messing around with pigments too much lately.

[PaulAyrey]

Lovely work, really impressive!

[felisbarcinonensis]

Wow! It has indeed a deep perspective; it's so cool! The Mediterranean terrain and vegetation is absolutely perfect (I can tell you, I live there)! And you're right!!!!! no more pigments needed!!!

[Hillbilly]

Very nice Nothing looks more like dirt than real dirt.

[FishBowlMan]

Fantastic, Michael. I'm actually lost for words!

I think this picture is truly amazing. If I didn't know better I would have sworn you'd used a 1/72 half track in the photo to create the illusion of perspective.

[SyntaxModels]

........
How does one even compare......

[HamilkarBarkas]

Are you ready for the last steps and the final reveal? I am


When dry i sprayed over the whole diorama a very light layer of Revell Matt 89 buff to give it a dusty look.


I tried to avoid pigments, but i applied some on the vehicles. The dust effect on models looks better this way.


Finally i glued down the figures and vehicles with wood glue.

Reveal time? Reveal time!

























A video with more detail shots will follow soon. I´d like to thank you guys for following this long and tedious project, i hope you were not bored. My intention was to build a tribute to the magnificent Italian landscape which i love the most on this planet and while doing so i hope you were able to see that building such a diorama is not that difficult, you only need time and the right materials and a lot of stamina!

[felisbarcinonensis]

FREAKIN' AWESOME!!

[Donkeywalloper]

Mike
Just breathtaking.
Not sure where to throw excellence in particular points.
I just loooooove the corrugated roof.
I could go on but to be honest its just one of the best dios posted on here.
Pure bloody excellence.
John

[HamilkarBarkas]

Thank you guys for your very kind and praising words Here is a little video, there is no music but other sounds, you will find out!

[youtube]38_x8cZ8MyU[/youtube]

[SyntaxModels]

Simply amazing Micheal!

You and Coen truly are dio masters!

[GIACOMER]

This Diorama is simply perfect!!
(if you love so much Italy pass from here sometimes, you have an espresso paid al Caffè Greco, in Via dei Condotti )

[Coen]

I just died a little Mike.
That is masterwork my friend, easily comparable with the Spanish masters. No joke. That is truly amazing.
You've gone so far beyond yourself with this one.
Absolutely wonderful work! Stunning.

[mannloon]

I think that's the best foliage and ground work I've ever seen on this forum. It's very good.

[HamilkarBarkas]

Thank you very much guys for your kind words

This Diorama is simply perfect!!
(if you love so much Italy pass from here sometimes, you have an espresso paid al Caffè Greco, in Via dei Condotti )

Bavaria is the backyard of Italy and it is so nearby that i spent most of my holidays in the sun of the south Rome is by far my favourite city and i took a stroll at via dei condotti more than once during my holidays at rome! Damn, i have to go there again...if so i´ll let you know

[AchtungPanzer]

Super Dio Hamilkar !

[JayCub]

Plenty of well deserved praise Michael, where do you keep so many builds, I think I have watched every video to date, and some more than once, really is inspiring work as well as art and history
Tom

[ifkas]

Fantastic, very impressive, I like it a lot

[GIACOMER]

Thank you very much guys for your kind words

This Diorama is simply perfect!!
(if you love so much Italy pass from here sometimes, you have an espresso paid al Caffè Greco, in Via dei Condotti )

Bavaria is the backyard of Italy and it is so nearby that i spent most of my holidays in the sun of the south Rome is by far my favourite city and i took a stroll at via dei condotti more than once during my holidays at rome! Damn, i have to go there again...if so i´ll let you know

Let me know when you come there in the third world country also known as Italy

[amsvkng]

The tiles on the roof have really nice shading!

Cheers

[hansolo]

Michael, this is a truly amazing, awesome and brilliant diorama!!
Stunning work al round. I love just everything about it.
I truly feel like i'm there! the trees, the bushes, the building,
the whole scenery is breathtaking.
This is absolutely one of the top few dio's I have ever seen in my life!
Thank you so much for sharing!


cheers

[HamilkarBarkas]

Thank you very much guys it is indeed a dio i´m very proud of and i´m glad that i was able to build it with the financial help of my YT audience. I spent some money i earned from YT income on the resin building which i would never have bought otherwise. so my thank has to go to the community