D-Day Diorama - Part 1

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.

Back to the Landing Craft, I decided to cut rectangular sections out of the plastic base for each of the two boats to sit in. I wrapped each boat in clingfilm, positioned them in the cut-out's and then used bathroom Silicon sealant to mould waves and splashes around each hull.

Once set, the clingfilm was removed and the jagged edge of the silicone was tidied up just a little with a scalpel. 

Now it was time to get the sea painted and break out my granddaughters tub of play sand to create that beach. The beach was simply a case of spreading PVA glue over the base, with plenty of random lumps and humps, and then sprinkling sand over it. 

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.

Because of the way the Landing Craft had been set into the sea, they were easily removeable for painting. 

Each was given plenty of scrapes and scratches, dirty greasy patches and lots of rust. 

Trying to create realism like this is a real skill and I don't have the first idea. I stand in awe of those modellers that have mastered the art.

The next stage is to finish painting the fortress and the vehicles and to get them arranged in the scene.

Please read about the construction of my first model...

World War II Diorama