This diorama consists of the old Tamiya Mobelwagen Quad-Flak tank, kit #101, Verlinden's Farm House Ruin, kit #189, and Dragon's Fallschimjager Part 2, kit #6170, and various pieces and miscellaneous items from the spare's box. Let's get started with the construction of the Mobelwagen.
Tamiya's Mobelwagen Quad Flak Tank:
This kit is ancient, dating back to the mid seventies, but is still a very detailed tank. It comes with the quad flak 38 anti-aircraft gun and four figures. I began the build by washing all parts in soapy water, and left to dry. As this is one of the old kits with the option of motorization, some areas needed to be covered to hide any off/on switches, and other holes. These were easily fixed by filling in the holes with putty and sanded smooth. I assembled the entire set of road wheels and drive sprockets. These were then treated to a coat of Krylon white primer, and set aside. The construction of the lower hull and upper hull started. This was straightforward and I followed the kit instructions step by step, adding the suspension pieces, and the muffler.
The upper hull was built in several stages, adding all the grab-handles, and the driving light. I purposely left off the folding support doors, as they would be painted later and then added. All of the tools were left off to be painted separately and added later. When completed, I went to attach the upper hull to the lower hull, and there was a very noticeable gap at the rear. Looking underneath the upper hull, there are two raised pieces that are supposed to sit flush with the lower hull. This is not the case, and they were interfering with the fit. I figure that these were originally used to give some room for batteries for this tank, as it's one of Tamiya's old motorized kits. Taking a very coarse sanding stick and removing the raised pieces easily solved this problem. Now the two halves mated perfectly, and work continued. The whole unit received a couple of coats of primer and waited to receive paint.
The next step was the construction of the Flak Gun. I assembled all pieces to form the main shell of the unit, keeping off the shields for filling in the ejector pin marks with putty, and sanding smooth. Once completed, the gun received a coat of primer.
Painting:
Ok, now I'm ready to lay down some paint! Both the tank, wheels, and flak gun received two coats of dark yellow craft paint, thinned with water and shot through my airbrush. Once dried, I had to decide on what type of camouflage scheme I wanted. I chose a typical German camouflage scheme consisting of the dark yellow base and then wide areas of red brown and dark green. Tamiya paints were used here. I only added camouflage to the shields on the flak gun. With everything dried, I painted the rest of the wheels, and attached them to the hull. At this time, I painted the tracks, but would be left off for now. Now, I added the rest of the stowage to the tank, and leaving the gun off to weather separately.
The whole vehicle and the gun received a generous wash of black/brown artists' oils, with the mix a little more on the brownish side, than black, which I normally use. After a day for the oils to dry, I added the tracks, and started drybrushing like crazy. First sandstone craft paint was drybrushed on, followed by some black stencil paint. This was done to both the tank and the gun. Now came my favourite part of the weathering process. I purchased a silver colour pencil crayon, and went to town on just "drawing" all over the tank and the gun, to simulate worn areas. If a area was too bright from the pencil, I just took a soft brush and went over the area gently to tone down the effect, and by doing this, the silver actually blended in to form more of a steel colour, which was an added bonus! In the end, I was very pleased with the turnout, now the pencil crayon will be a permanent part of my weathering process. The gun was attached, and finally the vehicle was finished. This was put away in my closet, and now some work on the base could start.
Verlinden's Normandy Farm House Ruin kit:
Even though this is supposed to be a Normandy house ruin, I chose not to use it as such; a farmhouse is a farmhouse, be it in France, Russia, Poland or Germany. I chose to model mine somewhere in Germany, at a time where the Allies were starting to have major air superiority. The kit is moulded in plaster, a little cleanup was needed around the edges to free up the flash, and I had to do some sanding to the bottoms to make sure everything sat evenly. The kit comes with three pieces of the building, a set of steps, a well, and a water pump.
The pump is resin, and is very well moulded. It needed absolutely no cleanup at all. One of the end pieces had a slight bow in it, and it would not mate flat with the other pieces, so I would deal with that by adding epoxy to the gaps later. The building received two coats of craft paint, two different colours for the two types of brickwork. Both colours were different shades of sandstone. Next, I added pieces of balsa wood into the window frames. At this time, I decided to try something new. I wanted some broken glass sticking out of the windows, so I had a paper thin piece of acetate, and I just took my razor and started making jagged shapes and then they were glued to parts of the window frames with white glue.
Base work and rubble:
The house was attached to my wood base with 5-minute epoxy, along with the well, and steps. At this time, I noticed and filled in any gaps along the seams with epoxy, and repainted with my sandstone paint. The well and stairs were inserted, along with the water pump. The inside of the house received a coat of burnt umber paint, followed by some peel and stick wall paper, purchased at the local home centre. I went for the smallest design, it's a little out of scale, but when weathering time comes, it will not be too noticeable. I also made a partial second floor out of balsa wood, and attached it. Ok, now for some rubble!
I made my rubble my usual way, pouring a sheet of plaster and taking a hammer to it, and bagging it up. I added some colorant into the plaster to try to match the colour of the building, brick coloured rubble doesn't really apply here! J At this time, I painted up tons of flat toothpicks, bits of balsa wood, and some nylon roof shingles and set them aside. I purchased the newly re-issued Tamiya Road Sign set, (#35067) and painted up the wagon wheel, and the pole and attached a couple of the signs. The pole was attached with CA glue to the base before the rubble went down. I mix my rubble in a very easy way: I take a jar, add in the plaster pieces, toothpicks, shingles, balsa wood, sand, gravel and shake it all up to mix it thoroughly. Now the time has finally come to lay down some rubble! I started by adding a small layer of sand, and gluing it down, then I started pouring on the rubble in piles, shaping it, if you will, to a specific layout, keeping in mind that I needed the tank to sit in, but not too buried in the rubble.
I added the wagon wheel, a portion of fencing made out of coffee stir sticks (the unused kind J ) a bicycle, some beams, and a sign that had fallen off of the pole. The tank was roughly laid in to get a feel of how I wanted it to sit. After I had the look I wanted, I removed the tank, and started adding my glue/water mix to everything to secure it all to the base. Then the tank was re added, and glued down with straight white glue. Once everything had dried and was solid, I applied a brown/black oil wash to the majority of the rubble, and gave the house a wash as well.
The tank was added, and any gaps between the treads and ground were filled in with a little rubble, and given a wash too. I proceeded to give every bit of rubble and the house a lot of drybrushing, using a sandstone and antique white craft paints. The upper portions of the house received a darker mix of black and brown oils, added straight to the tops, then by using a thinner-soaked brush, dragged the paint down, to form silt and grime runs.
Figures:
Figure time! I added the kit-supplied figures for the flak gun, using Floquil German Olive Drab for the uniforms. I had to omit the figure sitting in the firing position, the instructions said to partially assemble the figure, place it on the seat, then complete assembly. I did not do this, and when I went to place it, the figure would not fit. So I left him out. I decided at the last minute to add some Fallschimjäger figures from Dragon. This is a really nice kit, one of the Tenth Anniversary kits, and it is packed with lots of extra goodies like extra weapons, webbing, and best of all, heads! I wanted them to be portrayed as if they are just passing through, stopping for a cigarette break.
To paint the splinter camouflage pattern, I painted the blocky areas with green and brown paint, and then I took a extra-fine green marker, and just started adding all of the little splinters. This was time consuming, but I feel the results were worth it. They all received my usual washes and drybrushing to finish them off. Various boxes, gear, and other accessories came from the spares box. I finished this diorama the night before a big contest in Vancouver, British Columbia, and it must have paid off, because this received a second place in the diorama category. I had a blast building this little piece, and now it's time to start planning out the next project on the To Do List.
Kelly Zak
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