Small Scale Military Headquarters

so, ive been playin with my joes, and sams, and all the other brands, for years. many years. and when i say play, i mean outside, in the dirt, leave em outside, cause THIS IS WAR DAMMIT!!!!! ha, anyway, the older i get, the more complex my setups get, and i began to look for ideas online. there my problem, google image search of 1;18th dioramas, well, seems noone does this outside, at least, not a permanant type thing. in closing, soon as my old lady shows me how to use a apple laptop, ill laod photos of my base. which, has no nome, so, any names yall wanna suggest ill consider, and any tips, suggestions, critiques, anything will be accepted. the battle of bainbridge will soon be documented, in a way never before seen.

also, imlooking for a good source of trucks. namely a destroyed cargo truck, for the village scene.

I really enjoy looking at WWII dioramas.This sounds like a big realistic diorama.I can't wait to see it.Too bad for me that i don't have a backyard to do one myself.All of us 1/18 guys and 1/6 guys need a back yard because our scales are too big to do dioramas inside the house.

How one approaches outdoor dioramas is really subject to one's tastes and preferances. You can search the 1:18 forum or the Customs forum for threads about 1:18 outdoor dioramas as many of us have made them over the years. Some members do large, permanent or semi-permanent setups others temporary setups. All of us seem to strive for a great degree of realism.

I am a bit of an amatuer photographer and my outdoor dioramas tend not to be elaborate, but rather simple. My goal is to capture a moment with soldiers, vehicles, and a bit of landscape & scenery as realistically as I can with what ammount to plastic toys. It usually all comes down to positioning, lighting, and my choice of location and background. If I set things up right, I get a neat little diorama


This photo won 2nd Place in the 21st Century Toys USMC Photo Contest in 2005. It was taken in a flowerpot.










This is one of my earliest diorama photos - its not actually outdoors and is on the desk at my old college apartment 6 years ago, but I always liked it

If you're really creative, you can do videos of your dioramas. This was a very simple one that I made. Other members and people with far greater cinematic talent have produced far better work than my Corsair starting up

Very Tman

Dios are excellent! Very nice composition

How did you do the spinning prop on the corsair and the swaying foliage effect? Very realistic and well done

gouchy wrote:Very Tman

Dios are excellent! Very nice composition

How did you do the spinning prop on the corsair and the swaying foliage effect? Very realistic and well done

Thanks In the Corsair video, I placed a large box fan sitting just to the left of the camera and about a meter from the plane. I adjusted the speed from low to high to get the prop & sound effect. Not quite the right sound & there should be exhause smoke, but close enough I shot the film in my backyard when the grass was ripped up for resodding several years ago.

Those are some really neat dios.

Hello,
My I present you my own creations. Hope it will gives you some ideas. As often as possible, depending on season, weather, place to find and the mainly short time I have: only temporary scenaries. It needs a lot of patience, some time it seems so simple in the idea, but when you're in the terrain, have to take your shovel to find again your camera that falled in the sand or snow... Can't tell you how much 1:18 stuff got lost. And how many pictures throwed in the basket, because 1 soldier falled down, was looking in the wrong direction, and so on. I would also be very interested in having a look at the outdoor work of others.

This thread makes me feel bad about my the small size of my 1:18th scale collection. Those are some incredible pics you guys have. I especially like you modern stuff Granch, the little cave and the convoy are awesome. Jealous of the Kiowas as well, I remember I almost got one back when Smalljoes had them for $35 and then they just ran out of stock, never to be seen again . What kind of figs are you using in those dioramas?

Tman, would you happen to have more pics from the 21C USMC photo contest? I remember I used to have the 21C page with all of the bookmarked and then I lost it, I really liked those pictures.

These were done on a 6 foot table. IMG]http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb10 ... e005-5.jpg[/IMG] IMG]http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb10 ... e007-3.jpg[/IMG] IMG]http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb10 ... e010-2.jpg[/IMG] IMG]http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb10 ... 002-12.jpg[/IMG] IMG]http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb10 ... e006-3.jpg[/IMG]

granch wrote:

I managed to get a HMMV nearly that stuck once, my crowning military achievement.

Seriously though, some real nice pictures in this thread.

and these also IMG]http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb10 ... 002-12.jpg[/IMG] IMG]http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb10 ... e010-2.jpg[/IMG] G

IMG]http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb10 ... e004-7.jpg[/IMG]

Tmanthegreat and 1958Zelda,
you make a really nice work, thank you to allow us to view it, though I don't particularly like the 2nd WW at all. Love the idea of blowing on the Corsair prop to move it. I tried it with my helicopters, but the strong wind killed down the soldiers. Now I'm fixing them straight with needles in their boots, they keep up a little bit better, but I am working with small electro motors in the fuselage: a long way, have a Blackhawk and a Kiowa on my workbench. The only finished one is a OH-6 (see the field helipad in the dawn, below).

Nugget,
Don't feel bad. I've started with 6 figures and 1 vehicle (1:18), about the size of 1 patrol, it's anough to put your imagination at work.



I've mainly 1:18 BBI figures. Of course, with the time, I've built a small army, about 100 soldiers. A big problem is the lack of modern ennemies (just 2 Vietcong, 2 Middle East from 21st Century), so I had to customize. If you choose the 2nd WW, you can find Japs (6 21st. figures, and a lot of German from different brands), so much more possibilities, but I really prefer the modern period:

[/quote]

Thanks In the Corsair video, I placed a large box fan sitting just to the left of the camera and about a meter from the plane. I adjusted the speed from low to high to get the prop & sound effect. Not quite the right sound & there should be exhause smoke, but close enough I shot the film in my backyard when the grass was ripped up for resodding several years ago.[/quote]

Simple and genius, thanks Tman I have your technique filed for future reference

Granch and Zelda, very nicely done dios too

I missed that the Corsair was a video, went back and watched , that was great.

I imagine there are hours and hours of work to set those dios up, thanks for sharing.

Awesome! Too many damn bugs outside for me to do anything like this.

Awesome pics granch. Especially like the little bird night ops pics

Rowsdower wrote:Awesome! Too many damn bugs outside for me to do anything like this.

Perhaps your soldiers will protect you ... or even better, you can take photos of them battling the larger bugs.

The photos in this thread are awesome. And yes, I tend to take the figs out and play when I have a nice (less bugs, not cold) day:



The above series continued when Marvel's Constrictor appeared and ambushed the Japanese patrol.

And I tend to mix genres, as this large force was just looking for a skirmish:

Some very talented and imaginative guys around here. I enjoyed them.

TTT

Looks good guys!! Love your stuff Zelda!!!

I took these outside along time ago, with a blue background.

Fantastic work all around. 1958Zelda has a wonderful mix of your custom work with the outdoor scenery and I love the large-scale modern dios that granch constructs. Not too many of us seem to make those and yours come out great (especially the helicopter one!). I like Jnewboy's use of the Playmobil German buildings as well. A question for MCalamari: how do the Japanese soldiers fare against the Mon Cal banzai attack

Well, thank you for these emphatic comments on wide and sophisticated dioramas; now, I present you what could be the smallest 1:18 diorama in the world: