Hi guys!
Let me show you one of my early works. Looking back to old works could be a little painful, there is so much I would have done differently today. Actually the jungle is quite good, I would use about the same technique today. But I would not use the figures out in the jungle, this kit of figures made by Bravo 6 would be better to use in a camp, before they go out patrolling in the jungle. (Australian SAS)
Anyway, this was made 3-4 years ago when I just have started to make dioramas. I remember it was really nice to sit at the work bench and build up the jungle step by step. Nowadays the diorama is in a box in my garage.
Your detail shots on what you actually used is great. I’ve been wanting to tackle a diorama and this is inspiration that more is at hand then one may realize!
jungle looks very nice for a heavy double canopy. Remember when you hit triple, it gets dark in there! Plus everything is damp, and silent. Been in triple twice and was scared to death from the time started.
In your dio, you show a well used trail. Stay off the path! The high point should be attended but access comes from an out of the way venue. Is that some kind of a shot gun? If so you’ll want a bandolier (belt like) that will hold about thirty rounds to go with it. Don’t worry about getting that wrong as 80% in the bush were home made. Canteens also need help. You are in deep do do when you run out of water. There’s water all around you and you can’t drink it. Try for two one quart plastic bottles (most were clear, but some were either O.D. or black [memory escapes me]. In there you should add a machete. There’s a short one and the one you in the photos. Each is fine. M60 belt is a tad long, but leave it alone as some guys like thirty or forty rounds rounds in stead of twenty (I did). Be sure to add the orange juice can to the side of the sixty; as you life depends on it feeding right. Oh! I almost forgot! The shotgun rounds are green plastic Remington RXP’s in OO buckshot. I’ve seen Remington 870’s, Winchester Model 12’s and even a few Winchester 97’s in the bush. All were pump operated, and results are final. Kinda surprised you didn’t mix up the uniforms. It was rather common to see this unless going thru the fence. If your on the otherside of the fence, it was common to see modified ChiCom RPD’s that had been seriously reworked. Those guys would have taken whatever they were comfortable with. On the east side of the fence it would have been U.S. made weapons 90% of the time.
Now I’ve seen SOG teams using a form of black tennis shoes, and I’ve seen groups wearing jungle fatigues that were a dark charcoal color. (kinda common in late 68 in I-Corp) Still where they were inserted is not known. Boonie hats were the norm unlike Hollywood wants you to believe. And yes I’ve seen them in tiger stripes and just O.D. green. I’ve even seen what looks like a pork pie hat with tiger stripes a few times. Nobody in their right mind is caught wearing a side arm outside of the clothing! It denotes your importance, and results are fatal. I’ve seen jungle boots spray painted black! In the end you can do nothing much wrong, but think about the way the bad guy thinks
gary
Thank you so much guys! I am glad you like it.
What I am most proud of is that the vegetation is 95% made by dried plants I picked my self.
The only parts that not being self made is one palm tree and a packet of ferns. The rest is collected out in the nature in Sweden.
I will definitely go for another jungle diorama.
I bought this kit last year, want to build a ca 20 x 15 cm vignette using the Warriors figures.
It will be a wet/muddy ground and a lot of green jungle plants. Oh man I just want to start build right now:) cheers!
Ps to say jungle maybe incorrect, I actually mean South Pacific forest.
Actually the jungle looks pretty real, and something you’d see down by Kam Duc. Further south, and your starting to see a little triple canopy. My area was very similar to the Smokey Mountains National Park. Actually a little too much like the place
Well used trails are a well known death trap, and that’s why I said to stay off them. Maybe twenty five to fifty feet off to the side. That high point you have would also be a great place to string an antenna for a radio check. Commo checks are never good deep in a valley. Another little thing most folks miss is that your never really alone. You just like to think you are. Instead of standing around, you place folks out to keep a watch on things. That trail going down hill is the perfect place to set a series of mechanical mines (cluster of claymores). If the trail watchers are lazy (most were) or tired, they will be moving down hill watching the ground. Two or three is about the right size for that small area at the bottom (always use odd numbers!). I’ve seen as many as nine claymores in one trap, but three and five are the most common
Your work on the broad range of plant-life in the jungle you created, is phenomenal. Suitably dIverse and realistic. Great job. And the architecture with the background and the top cap solves another problem for this type of dio. Bravo.
What they’ve all said, and if I’d been making that dio there would have come a point where I wouldn’t have poked my finger into it any more, for fear of some venomous bite
actually that snake bite is the least of your worries. The dense plant life is leech city! Scorpions live in there as well as the famous centipede that will make you wish you could die. Plus you now move on to the four legged creatures that can take a serious bite out of you. Think Tigers, leopards, and black panthers as well as the common rat. And there are a few elephants down towards Kam Duc so they say.
Probably the worst bite would come from the green tea snake or as we called it the emerald viper. You’ll loose fingers if not your entire hand. Very nasty little guy. He almost got me twice. If your lucky; you’ll only meet up with a clan of rock apes. All they do is throw rocks at you.
gary
The birth of a legend. If that’s an early work, then what we mere mortals can do.
Amazing work Erik, I love particular the jungle foliage you did here, and the use of green in the soldiers gives the right feel. Well done
Thank you very much guys!
I was very enthusiastic while building the diorama, actually it’s wrong to say “build”, it’s more a sort of work to get the plants to “grow”.
This is a diorama were the figures isn’t the main attraction, they just happens to be there.
I learned a lot while building it, but I put a lot of labor hours in it. Next “jungle” dio will definitely be smaller, as I said before, maybe 15 x 20 cm.
/Erik
You can write a book on hw you did this.
