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FINISHED: "Ikarus 1916" - Shot down LVG C II

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Borsos:
Good morning friends,

after a holiday break I'd like to present my first steps in building a diorama for the diorama group build. I intend to do a scene at the site where a German twoseater crashed after being shot down over the bloody Somme battlefields in fall 1916. Some soldiers came along to watch the wreckage while the victorious RFC pilot is brought to the site by his driver in a Vauxhall staff car from his airfield, accompanied by a fellow RFC officer. I want to portray him in the very moment when he sees the dead enemies lying on the ground and his feelings of victory get mixed with bitterness facing the grimm reality of war.

So far in theory. The story of this diorama needs several special figures. The big advantage of bigger scale (1/32, 1/35) is that there are several wonderful injection moulded wwi figures and many even better resin figures. ICM, Masterbox and Tamiya for instance offer high quality wwi infantry of many nations and the resin products of Aviattic, Tommy's War, Wingcockpit, Elan13, Black Dog, CSM and several others are well known here. The problem is: If you want to model a very special scene, all these figures don't have fitting poses. The plastic figures offer mostly the usual fighting poses, the aircrew figures are rather static, made for being put next (or on)to an airplane. If you want to tell a certain story, you cannot go without convert existing figures or sculpting your own respectively. All the great Diorama makers, like Per Olav Lund (if you haven't seen his works: they are breathtaking!), had to go this way. I personnel love figures and dioramas and did several attempts to convert existing figures at first in 1/72 and 1/48, and I am still struggling with that challenge. Sculpting and painting a good figure for me is still the peak (or one of the peaks) of modelling. Although I made some progress compared to my first tries, I still have a lot ( a lot lot lot) to learn. But converting figures makes fun, you don't need to have a huge working space (therefore you can even take your projects with you when you go on holiday) and many things are even much easier than thought - especially if you use aftermarket products.
As this Group Build is about dioramas and dioramas often need figures, I thought it would possibly be a good idea to share my approach in figure conversion.
There are many more relatively cheap figure sets around that contain many useful poses that one could need for a diorama. ICM, Masterbox, Dragon, Mini Art, Tamiya, and many other manufacturers offer a huge variety of figures. The problem is: They don't fit WWI, the vast maiority is WW2. And you'll frequently come to the point where you need a special pose that is not offered as a multipose 1/35 figure and you have to scratchbuilt it, by mixing legs, arms and torsos of several other figures.
These are my solutions to get the figures I need:
1. To detail existing custom made figures
2. To "backdate" existing custom made figures to the desired epoque.
3. To scratchbuid figures with poses not yet offered.
I'll give an example for every of these three ways amd I hope, you like it or can use some of these ideas for your own diorama projects.


Borsos

FarEast:
Looking forward to this Borsos!

Sounds like a great Diorama 

stefanbuss:
I will be following very closely - as you know i had changed a CSM figure recently and would like to learn how you will do that.

Stefan

IanB:
Very interesting scene, I'll be following!
 That photo made me think...I'm just reading "The Somme" by Richard van Emden and literally yesterday read a passage by a Private of the 1/6th Gloucestershire Regiment about the skeletons lying about. He vividly describes "one little fellow, about 4'10" (1.47m), with a small forage cap covering his skull....there is some sorrowing mother away in far Fatherland who mourns her son - probably never knows that he lies uncovered in enemy territory..."
 I wonder if this was the same man....it certainly brings it all home a little more......

Ian

RAGIII:
I am looking forward to seeing your work on the figures!
RAGIII

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