Tourists “Look at the size of that thing!”
If you know me, you understand that I spend a lot of effort to ensure my dioramas tell a story. In this case, two…
You’re driving your Tiger, leaving a small French village and you suddenly take a hit from an anti-tank gun. Your commander has been sprayed with shrapnel, and isn’t talking. Your first instinct is to reverse the hell out of there!
But that’s always a problem. You’re blind going in reverse. No rear-view mirrors and certainly no rear-view camera.
Panicky, you put the thing into reverse anyway and hit the gas, blindly crashing into the small café you just passed.
The engine stalls, a track pin breaks, the gun is jammed by the hit, and the commander is bleeding. Everyone bails out and runs.
Eventually a tired squad of infantrymen show up to make sure it’s safe, and not long after that, the ‘brave’ tourists show up. REMFs from Division HQ…
The Tiger and the Jeep are from Takom. The Tiger from the recently released three-pack.
The main figures are from Alpine, and the background grunts from Tamiya.
The load in the Jeep is from Value Gear.
The scratch-built building was the big challenge. It’s all carved foam, with cardboard woodwork, and plastic components.
I’ve been experimenting with the windows, printing the basic frame on my laser printer, on old transparency sheets. Then gluing plastic frames to the ‘glass’. Seems to work.
Of course I HAVE to include some Black & White versions, to see how the photos compare to period shots
I found the café on Google maps, Streetview. In a small town in France. And decided it would be a perfect victim for my crashed Tiger.
The façade was a challenge as the stonework is so unique, I’ve done brickwork, blocks and stucco, but never such a random approach like the ones used on this old building.
Now let me explain why I’m not happy with the result.
I consider this project a staging fail.
My original mental image for this scene had the Tiger more centered, so that the old infantryman standing beneath the gun barrel would have been in the left-front corner. That would have balanced out the scene, with the two tourists standing by their jeep on the right-front.
But I got carried away with the building - trying to match the one in the photo.
That forced the tank to the right. That jammed it with the jeep and left a large, boring, open space on the left (in front of the tank.)
I wound up trying to fill that, give it some visual appeal, with the Tamiya figures set. It helped, but…
And why is that officer standing there holding his binoculars? ARG! He didn’t need to be there, at all.
I considered leaving out the jeep-trailer to help make the scene less crowded on the right, but decided I didn’t want to leave it out as I liked the element too much. I should have left it off…
Let me point out one aspect that I do like – I’ve preached about this often. Note how cool the crates on the jeep & trailer look with their stenciling. It’s much more realistic, and it catches the eye, validates the scale and detailed work. Even though it can’t be read…
Ralph (Brav036)
