What do you think the major errors are in armor dioramas ?

Craig I agree - sometimes you have to take a bit of artistic license to make the base size manageable like putting several ships closer than they would normally operate. But in armor modelers seem to go to extremes and try to get in all the figures in the set along with all this year's armor and maybe rail cars and a crashed aircraft. I remember one that had Allied infantry, German Infantry, Allied tankers, German Tankers, many vehicles, rail cars, buildings and assorted refugees and animals in crowds that looked like New York at Christmas on a base that was something like 2x2 feet.

Modelers should spend more time looking at actual photos. I have seen some actual shots - like one in a book I acquired many years ago that would accomodate a large number of vehicles. It that showed a space between two sets of commercial buildings. The real estate had evidently changed hands several times and featured two knocked out Shermans, a knocked out 251 and several other abandoned vehicles. A manned German SP Gun was moving into the area from one side. A good chance to show a lot of vehicles in a small area - But there were only four figures in the set - the crew of the SP Gun, No dead bodies, no animals, no buzzards, no local populace, and the bulk of the vehicles were abandoned.

Val Kraut

some guys go a little nuts on the realism, too. at one show the entry guys were telling a guy he couldn't exhibit. i thought it might be the talking turd, but it was a guy with a diorama. it had a blown up sherman with 5 crosses next to it, a blown up panther with guys and guts hanging off and a crossbeam with

7 women hanging with placards on their necks. it was amazingly detailed and life like. i would have let him exhibit it, but kept a box over it when adults weren't looking. i've never seen scale blood, guts and did i mention the bloated, dead horses? it was disturbingly really good. i hope it still exists.

...I recall hearing a report on the radio about the Army looking into using first person shooter video games for actual combat simulators because the action was getting realistic enough to be of actual training use...trouble was, there's TOO much action in video games to make them "realistic" enough for simulating real world combat situations - the "hours of boredom punctuated by seconds of terror" factor isn't there. It's mostly terror, vice seconds.

Maybe a dio builder would do well to keep that in mind when he's constructing his dio...

...Andy Warhol was a dio builder?..

i like nico during the velvet era. saw her sing all tomorrows parties at a party, wearing an ugly sack dress, remember those monsters? she had bright red lipstick and that wasted, junky look, which wasn't real, the junk part, i mean. it was awesome.

...dang, that's history. I got the VU album on CD, but I haven't given it a listen in some time. Then I got all caught up in Lou Reed for a bit, but moved on from him, too. Not sure what's out there to interest me now...stoner rock...

you got the lou live with the awesome intro to sweet jane by hunter and wagner? probably the best intro ever, especially when the intro winds into sweet jane. amazing transition and even a change up in speed. wowsers!

Nope - don't have that one, but I know what you're talking about.

I don't think I've bought any music in about ten years now...I mostly listen to net radio...even got it piped into a feed on my stereo across my wireless net.

Some years back there was a question on building a realistic Civil War field hospital. Replys mentioned things like piles of amputated arms and legs and blood on everything - after getting the details I believe the requestor gave up the thought.

I've also seen some dioramas where the artist/modeler goes for a really disturbing or controversal situation and although they do a great job of portraying it, the subject seems almost out of place with the rest of the items on display. I guess I'm there to see the models not a political or social agenda. Sometimes the guys running the show have other problems with that type of exhibit - like if something is disturbing, visitors complain to the organization that owns the facility and it causes problems for future show arrangements. So they tend to not let controversal items go on display. Some years back, one modeler entered a "Santa for Bad Children" - featuring a monster in a Santa suit strangling a small child in front of the Christmas tree - they got lots of complaints over that one, both the day of the show and after.

Val Kraut

When you write that the "whole focus and point was lost on me" you aptly described the problem.

My experience is the best diorama builders practice a bit of minimalism. Every good diorama tells a story and all objects in the scene should contribute to that story by focusing the viewers' eyes on one central point in the diorama. That point should define the theme of the display and be the reason the diorama exists. To clutter a scene for sake of detail detracts from the overall point - as you appropriately put it, the focus - of the display. Detail is fine, but it should be integral to the whole story and not distract from it. Is it necessary to the story? Can the story be shown without it or with fewer items? Why have seventeen figures when five will do to represent the action? Six tanks when two will be enough to show a battle? Etc... The point of a diorama is to tell a story not a novel, to represent an instant in time not an entire movie.

Another entirely different purpose for restraint comes from the arena of competition. If you are entering a diorama for competition, more is not necessarily better. Simply put, the more detail you put into a diorama, the more things can go wrong and the more errors discovered to lessen you chance of placing.

Part of the problem is what somebody once termed the "Verlinden Effect" as all of his dioramas were done that way -- e.g. too much jammed into a base to the point where it looked unrealistic. I think he may have overemphasized his products in that manner.

Check out the ones from Steve Zaloga as shown in "Military Modelling" as they tend to be pretty well balanced presentations of single figures.

For larger dios KISS is a good rule to follow -- as some of the guys here said focus on the story, not the details.

Cookie Sewell

My three biggest gripes are:

Personal equipment/webbing that has been dismantled and is shown scattered about a vehicle or defensive position. As a former soldier, I cannot get my head around this. We were always taught to keep all our gear together, so if you got "bounced", you grabbed your kit and "re-grouped" later. No time to scoop up canteens, magazine pouches, rucksacks etc... Even on an AFV, our vital gear was usually attached to our web belts, even if we did not wear the full set...

Second gripe - artillery/tank rounds. My basic Gunnery training had a whole lesson on handling cartridge cases and shells. An artillery or tank cartridge case is usually fitted with a primer, same as any rifle/pistol bullet. This is quite a sensitive component and the vast majority of trained soldiers would be very careful about resting a cartridge case on it's base, just in case the primer came into contact with a sharp piece of gravel or a rough stone, the consequences of which could be noisily spectacular!

We were taught to always lay the cases out flat on a tarpaulin or poncho. I get somewhat annoyed when I see dioramas with cartridge cases leaning up against road wheels or other items or lying loose on an engine deck. Empty cases, yes, but not "live" rounds...

Finally, don't overdo the weathering! Most squaddies will look after their vehicles and equipment to some degree, if only to keep the Sergeant Major off their backs! There's nothing more annoying than a "serviceable" vehicle that looks as though it's leaking oil from every orifice and been stuck out on a gunnery range - as a target - for two or three decades!

Just after reading this I went into the news groups for an update on the situation in Gaza - the lead picture featured an Israeli soldier seated by two sets of ready artillery rounds - all standing on their bases - I think the real thing the modeler needs is a picture to justify his scene - just cause it's dumb doesn't mean in don't happen.

Val Kraut

"> Second gripe - artillery/tank rounds. My basic Gunnery training had a whole

i've seen several ww1 photos of artillery positions in action with shells stacked on their bases.

Shalom.

I once saw a very nice diorama with M-113s in it. These were weathered very nicely including the painstakingly done worn off paint and rust on the bare steel. Ver nice; except the M-113s were made of aluminium and not steel.

Another one I saw that had an interesting error in it was a model of the 1/35 scale Tamiya Churchill tank where the modeller had painstakingly worked the turret roof so that it was flush with the turret sides.

Or how about the Tamiya Sheridan where the modeller did a wonderful job of creating a cast texture on the turret?

SO, I'd say a common mistake is not knowing the construction of the vehicle you are modelling.

Accessorries attached to a model with no visible means of support ie packs, rolled tarps etcetera on the sides of tank turrets and hulls.

Oh, another good one, dioramas wherein a crew member is carrying a fairly long section (10 links or so) of tank track.

Cheers from Peter

Just curious, about how much do track links weigh ?

Craig

Hi there.

Believe it or not that is very hard data to find. It seems that a Tiger track link and an Abrams track link weigh about 60 pounds each. That is why a figure in a diorama caryying 4 or more track links would be inaccurate.

Cheers from Peter

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.ca wrote: : : Accessorries attached to a model with no visible means of support ie : packs, rolled tarps etcetera on the sides of tank turrets and hulls. : Piffle! Velcro. Or double sided tape...

Bruce

I've always wondered how bogies were mounted on the side of the turret (a= nd why up so high...do they just let them bounce off the tank to the ground= ?) Were tarps, etc usually held down with rope tied off on the tie down= s?

Craig