Diorama 24-02: Some Where in France

I have had this set of figures in my stash for quite some time, in fact it’s the second of these kits that I’ve bought, using the horse from the first kit to build this Vignette, over two years ago!

I’ve been meaning to use this kit for a scene with a horse messenger bringing orders back from the field to a staff in a car for a while, mostly because I couldn’t find a good 1/35 scale German Staff car. Sell I finally found a kit by Bronco Models of a German StabsWagen. It’s a bit small, especially with a drive and a radioman, but it built up quickly enough.

Now the kit is probably the single most expensive kit I’ve ever purchased, so I was hesitant to start, and it had some dreaded PE parts (some of which are still in the belly of the carpet monster). So if you are looking for tinny tiny hood or dement or manufactures badge on this car, you can stop looking, I gave up trying to find them weeks ago.

All the figures where painted by hand, the horse’s body was mostly airbrush for a smooth texture, I really need more practice with larger scale figure painting. I fell back into tried a true, base coat, wash, drybrush and highlight methodology.

The real fun was the base. Aside from the curbing all of the cobbles and tile are hand cast in plaster and hand laid! The hand water-pump and drain came from another accessories kit from MasterBox, and the street sewer manhole cover is 3d resin printed.

Anyway, here is my second diorama for 2024, set in some secondary town in France in May of 1940, I call it “The Messenger”

Moving Picture links:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3