A year ago, on the run up to the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings, I was reflecting on my fathers involvement Operation Overlord and felt the urge to create a scale model diorama as a tribute to the event and in remembrance of my father. Since I had never created such a thing before I decided I needed to do a practice piece and so created a smaller World War II diorama on which to learn some basic modelling skills. Now I am ready to tackle the larger diorama depicting the landings of the allied forces.
The model I bought is of the glue-together moulded plastic variety. I began by constructing each of the vehicles and giving them their first painting. They will all need further painting and weathering later but for now I want to start thinking about their positioning.
It occurs to me that the Landing Craft will look pathetically unrealistic if I just follow the instructions and leave them sitting on top of the waves so I need to think of some way to set them into the water.
Next I constructed the fortress and painted it. I found photos online that I could use as reference and I decided to incorporate some weathering as I went along.
Making these models look real and old is the main challenge here and it's something I'm not that skilled at yet. Sprinkles of brick dust onto the wet paint creates the illusion of muck and debris, and I'm sure there are zillions of other tricks and techniques I need to learn in the future.
Painting the sea was more of a challenge because of the need to use varying shades of blue, not forgetting to make it look sandy at it's shallowest.
Painting the breakers on the waves, and the churning water along the hulls was great fun and the silicon sealant had done a great job.
Please read about the construction of my first model...
Oh, my. this is so amazing. You are learning and creating something special as you go. My brother was in the Invasion of Normandy and then was buried alive under one of the crumbling walls like in the first diorama. He got a Purple Heart for that and another for his feet freezing. He was just 18 in the Infantry. It was all very hard on him. He ended up being a State Policeman in New Mexico. He passed away at 75 years old in 1999. Thanks for sharing your photos.
ReplyDeleteI remember you telling me of your brothers experience when commenting on my first diorama. That must have been such a horrible thing for him to go through. Thank you for your kind comments about this latest creation - your visit is greatly appreciated, as always.
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