Road to Germany

Awarded: Gold

Users' choice

This gallery has 15.19% of the users' votes.

By: John Schmitt

Manufacturer(s): Dragon,UM

Description: Red Army T34's & troops moving past a knocked out Stug IV on thier way into Germany. The base is styrofoam cut and carved to shape, tile grout was used for the ground work, with sand, stones and static grass, then painted. The trees are self made using small dowles textured with acrylic modelling paste. The pine branches are from a Campbell model railroad tree kit. Figures are from Preiser & Warriors. Ammo, crates etc. are from Attack & CMK.

Judge 1: What strikes me with this diorama is the beautiful detail you can get in the faces of all the soldiers and crew,The camo on the Stug IV shirts is great too. Detail is superb throughout thanks to the mastery of pin washes, good rich colours . I like the shells & their crates, but don't like your choice of Jerrycans MaRs do more realistic shaped cans. The exhaust on the Stug looks very clean as does all the wheels & tracks which just need a little coat of dust or mud. The Pine trees look real as with the grass & gravel type dirt. Nice scene.
Judge 2: There is some excellent work here; the figures are as good as it gets in this scale, well done. The models are well made and painted, I personally would make the dunklegelb lighter in this scale it helps provide a better contrast with the camo colours and makes the model more interesting to the eye. The stowage on the Stug needs special mention; it’s well placed and very realistic indeed. Although the scene is very busy the way you’ve created it leads the eye to the focus point –the Stug, which, as mentioned, is very interesting to the eye with all the extra details, the bright shell casings are well placed to this end. The smaller vignettes within the scene are also excellently portrayed, and reward the spectator for spending time on your piece. Excellent work here. Your style lends itself well to the clean neat vehicles you create but the spectator wants to see more dirt and dust especially considering the sandy/gravel back roads being travelled, this aside you’ve created a wonderful diorama and lastly thanks for the great photos.
Judge 3: That’s a very interesting work in terms of its composition. Four vehicles visually form some kind of cross. They are facing in three directions which adds to variety of impression from the work. The abandoned Stug looks convincing with ammo cases and fuel drums lying nearby. Terrain is nice with pine trees and carefully recreated ground and stones. Still, tops of the trees look a little artificial. All the vehicles look like they’re carefully built, though the single pre-construction photo shows you haven’t avoided problems with the infamous DS tracks. The vehicles are neatly painted with good application of pin washes. Still I’d advice you to put some dust and/or dirt on the chassis with the help of pigments or pastel chalks. Some strains, chipping and stronger shading would make you vehicles simply perfect. The figures are painted better, I like how painted their faces, very realistic.