Takom Mk.IV Male "TV build"

J

Johan Andrée

Guest
Oh God, not another one!! :D

Funny enough, those were pretty much the exact words of my 7th grade teacher.
Say what you want about Jens but the guy sure leaves a solid, long lasting impression :D

Her class was probably both the quickest and proudest F I've ever received.
 

spanner570

SALAD DODGER
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Ron
Looking good Jens.

Re- the barbed wire. Keep in mind the barbs are not much bigger than a thumb nail - Then look at a 1/35 figure....:eek:
 
J

Jens Andrée

Guest
Looking good Jens.

Re- the barbed wire. Keep in mind the barbs are not much bigger than a thumb nail - Then look at a 1/35 figure....:eek:
I know... It was really painful to make them, smaller and smaller until it looked correct in scale. The ones in the picture is a discarded earlier attempt that I only used to see what it looked like and something I didn't care if it got full of dirt and glue.
The same goes for the duck boards. They were also replaced soon after the picture to ones made with thinner and narrower pieces of balsa wood.
Making things in 1/35 scale is really tricky...
 
J

Jack10

Guest
Wow I missed your update when you posted this the other day, just come across it now. It's looking great and I am really looking forward to it. They look some really nice figures too!
 
J

Jens Andrée

Guest
Cheers guys! :smiling3:

I've ripped up and redone a lot of the base and it's now looking a bit more natural and in scale. The duck boards were way too thick, the ground looked "engineered" and the ground in general lacked from variation.
It feels weird painting earth from a flower pot in order to make it look more realistic - when in fact it can't be more realistic than it already is, but that's the name of the game I guess :p
I'm also trying to clutter down the base because reality isn't clean, especially not the battlefield in trench warfare. Adding the figures will add plenty of action but without detail it still looks empty so I'm working on it.

There's been more than a few rip-ups with this first diorama because working in scale isn't easy - especially when it's almost impossible to reproduce something in correct scale and size, but as this is my first vignette/diorama there's a lot to learn and many mistakes to make and I think I've ticked more than a few boxes here ;)

One part of me wants to start from scratch with the base due to things I've learned the past two weeks, but then I might never be done so it's staying. I need to buy some dead static grass because painting green grass making it look dead didn't work...
 

monica

“When there's no more room in hell, the dead will
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fantastic job,Jen,real do like this one,;)
 
J

Jens Andrée

Guest
Some sort of work in progress here.
The track marks aren't fully done yet because I'm pondering if I'm going to glue the Mk.IV down to the base or make it "plug in" to the sunken in track marks?

The dirt and mud is a bit mono-tonal in these pictures, and still wet, but there's going to be more shades of brown to liven in up before it's done.
I don't know what else to do until the figures are in place because they will dictate which areas that needs more detail. That's how I'm thinking anyway.

TakomMKIVDio10.jpg

TakomMKIVDio11.jpg


The wood has a grey wash, and then a colour wash with raw umber oil paint and thinner, and then finally some green streaking grime to simulate wet streaks and the beginnings of moss etc.
I will blend some areas with fine sand paper before I call it done on the wood, and perhaps add some mud splashes where the solders would've walked/run?

When everything is done I will add the barbed wire because they were a pain in the ... to make and I don't want them full of paint and stuff by mistake.

I've done just about every error I could on this first diorama/vignette base but that means fewer (I hope) errors on the next ;)

Initially it was going be fully covered in grass and just the track marks showing, but after looking at WWI pictures this felt wrong because all the vegetation seemed dead so I just improvised and decided to make this a "learner" instead.

There's still plenty to do but I thought I'd post some work in progress pictures as proof of me doing some actual modelling!
 
T

Trekkie_John

Guest
Very nice Jens, very nice indeed matey. "Through the mud and the blood to the green fields beyond".

Have fun, John
 
J

Jens Andrée

Guest
Very nice Jens, very nice indeed matey. "Through the mud and the blood to the green fields beyond".

Have fun, John
Cheers John! :smiling3:

My goal is to make it look rather wet and muddy, and portrait some kind of sudden surprise when a Mk.IV tank suddenly appeared on the edge of a trench line which caused panic amongst the German soldiers who had to improvise some sort of defence. I've not yet got the figures but I think they will look right in that setting...?
It's never easy doing something for the first time, but I've really enjoyed it and I will try to make a few of this smaller type before attacking the large Schwerer Gustav in Sevastopol towards the summer, hoping I've got the experience then to pull it off?

When I started this build I didn't know about angles and stuff when making dioramas and vignettes so I'm glad I had the artistic flair to make it slightly askew and not just everything in line with the wooden base.
Also trying everything in the kitchen to make soil, mud, dirt and grime should've been done as a separate project and not directly on your project, but mistakes can be hidden with paint and dirt so I just continued.

Using old, dried earth from a dead flower pot mixed with PVA worked pretty good, but I only had outdoor PVA, a.k.a. water tight glue, to mix with and that wasn't the best choice I think because even if it was water soluble at first it then became rock hard and had absolute zero flexibility so next time I will buy some cheaper PVA glue. This one didn't like to be mixed with paint either. Lesson learned!

It still needs more clutter I think but I'm not sure what? It's meant to be on the outer edge of a trench system so it's not going to be as trafficked and used as the main trench line, but there would still be some stuff laying around? I'm thinking broken boxes and stuff that's no longer of any use, just chucked towards the end of the area?
I've searched photos trying to find if they had signposts or similar pointing directions etc but my search was inconclusive as I only found the odd picture with signs over bunkers, made by the soldiers to make it look more homely I guess?
I know I can do whatever I want with my models but it's nice to have some sort of reference to history too...

What would you do if this was your vignette? What would you add, apart from the figures I'm planning to add?

Many thanks in advance!
Jens
 
T

Trekkie_John

Guest
I would just add a few figures like you say Jens, me personally thinks it looks just right. They're just broken through the German Siegfriedstellung (Hindenburg Line), and that was just mud and lots of it lol.

Have fun, John
 
J

Jack10

Guest
All the time and effort you are putting into this is really paying off mate! It's looking great! How are the figures coming along? When it's finished it might be worth entering into a comp next time you go to a show? ;):smiling3:
 
J

Jens Andrée

Guest
All the time and effort you are putting into this is really paying off mate! It's looking great! How are the figures coming along? When it's finished it might be worth entering into a comp next time you go to a show? ;):smiling3:
The figures are somewhere on a boat right now from China towards Sweden. It's impossible to predict when they'll arrive so I'm kinda stuck until they turn up.
We'll see about competitions next year... I might enter a couple just for fun, but the ones I think are the best never win so there's something fishy with how they judge?!
It's not important but it would make it easy for me to meet other local modellers and that's the only reason - but a good one - for entering a competition.

Thanks for your kind words Jack! :smiling3:
 
J

Jens Andrée

Guest
I would just add a few figures like you say Jens, me personally thinks it looks just right. They're just broken through the German Siegfriedstellung (Hindenburg Line), and that was just mud and lots of it lol.

Have fun, John
Cheers John! :smiling3:

I've done some more thinking tonight and I think it might help the over all look if I add just a little bit grass in a few places?
It's currently a bit flat and boring with regards to colours - which I guess reality would be in such a situation, but a bit of green in a few secluded and protected places might lift it?
I can place some grass without glue and take a step back and look so it's easy to find out!

Figures should hopefully arrive soon so I can add them. I don't want to do too much before in order not to risk making it too busy in some places...
I got the book "Vignettes - a how-to guide" in the mail today so I might discover all sorts of good things tonight reading it!
 
J

Jens Andrée

Guest
It seems my useless postal service has finally bothered to start scanning all the hundreds of thousands (yes! I'm not kidding!!!) packages that's been lying in sacks on bare tarmac at Arlanda airport in Sweden since long before Christmas, out in the rain and snow, because someone scanned the package with my figures for this vignette on the 2:nd of January!
It's been lying there in a sack for at least three weeks, possibly longer... I've also got a couple brass stencils in the package but I doubt if any of it has survived... sigh.

If I'm lucky and my figures and stuff have survived and the address label is readable enough to make a delivery I can finally finish this vignette.
I've waited long enough, that's an understatement...

Worst case scenario I have to order new figures if mine are broken. One box of tracks for the Schwerer Gustav build had been stepped on but although the box was totally mangled and crushed the contents had survived. Probably because all the pieces were flat. I was so nervous about my 1/72 Dora kit until it arrived, but that were stamped FRAGILE with large letters so someone actually took care of it. It was also packed in triple layers of thick cardboard, which they usually don't do with scale model.

Keep your fingers crossed so I might receive my figures tomorrow! :smiling3:
 
J

Jack10

Guest
Hope they are useable jens! its disgusting the amount of money you've wasted in the past on kits etc that haven't turned to because of the useless post service over there
 
J

Jens Andrée

Guest
Hope they are useable jens! its disgusting the amount of money you've wasted in the past on kits etc that haven't turned to because of the useless post service over there
Cheers mate!
I've pestered you more than I should've about the post service we've got here in Sweden since the Danish took over, but something like every fifth Christmas present wasn't delivered in time for Christmas this year and that's pathetic - let alone how bad it was for us parents trying to explain to the kids, or worse those kids where the parents only were able to afford that specific present that didn't turn up :sad:
My stuff was ordered well in advance to avoid the Christmas madness but they were still not delivered. 5 items I'd ordered for Christmas didn't turn up for Christmas. One only turned up when the seller shipped another, two have now arrived and two seems to be lost forever so I've started to ask the sellers if they can ship new ones, but I fully understand if they want more money for this...t

What makes it even worse is that some of them were shipped with couriers and customs diverted them to Postnord (our post service) and they were gone despite the fact that they were shipped via courier.
DHL are the only ones that take them all the way, the rest are handed over to Postnord, and you as a buyer have little chance of controlling this.

A few important items I had shipped to a friend in UK who then took them with him when he flew to Sweden, and then posted them to me when he arrived! Domestic packages have worked better since they didn't have to pass through via Arlanda, but on time they're not despite the fact.

I've stopped ordering from eBay now because of this and I'm ordering everything from my local hobby store now. This means that I have to ask him to buy the stuff I want and I have to pay a lot more for them, but at least I'll get them this way, or I'm not paying any money until he's got them at home. Luckily I built up a huge stash this year so I don't need to buy kits for a while, but buying kits are half the fun... ;)

Let's see if the postman has a surprise for me tomorrow or not?!
 
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