Hi fellas, I've been building a dio for the last 3-4 months with vehicles, I have given my aircraft builds a rest for a while. It's my 1st proper dio, so i've been learning as I've been going along. There might be some ideas here you can use for your dio B-17.
I wanted to build a convoy of DAK vehicles on a mountain road. I spent the 1st 2 months building the vehicles, various makes all 1/72.
I then went onto the diorama base, I used some wood I had in the shed to build the basic shape, glued and screwed together.
I then used some expanding foam to fill in the gaps, it comes in an aerosol can, you spray it on, let it expand and cure, then you can cut it to whatever shape you want to create your landscape. It should be available in your local hardware store and its not very expensive.
If using it wear gloves!! And overalls, its VERY sticky when its wet!! If you can get some acetone, this cleans it up easily enough if you have an accident. Also it cleans out the spray tube and cap when your finished with it.
Sprayed on the base, left to cure, then cut away.
I then plastered smashed up peat to create rock faces, when it was dry, I plastered the gaps, I just used some cheap wall filling plaster you mix with water for this. I then painted it with a pale emulsion paint I had in the shed. Then painted the road grey and the rocky mountain sides a yellowy red colour, I just used water colours for this.
I painted some diluted pvc glue onto the road in the middle and the edges and covered the whole thing in sieved turf ash.
Left it overnight and the blew ashes off it, it left sandy bits in the middle and edge of the road and in cracks of the rockfaces. I smashed up some gravel with a hammer to make small rocks which were thrown onto the dio and spread around with a dry brush, the dust produced from smashing the gravel was also added. mossy bits from my trees in the garden were glued in place too. Hopefully they'll turn yellow over time.
Here's a couple of pics with some vehicles in place.
I have since widened the bend as it was too narrow and removed some of the vehicles as it was too crowded, I still have the figures and equipment to paint and add to the vehicles.
I hope this gives some of you guys some ideas for your dioramas, I couldn't belive most of the stuff used in this was lying about the house and in the shed! It has only cost me about €15!
Linear Mode
