The first aircraft diorama I ever built, “Nest”

I haven’t built an airplane for a while, but here are a couple of old ones. First, a picture of me just after moving into a new home in 1976. The planes were crated up and I’m preparing to glue them all back together. This photo was a real embarrassment to me. When I was a cop, my partner and I were always making high profile splashy busts that seemed to somehow make the front pages. The reporters were hanging out with us a lot during that period. One reporter came to the house for a follow up on some bust or another, anyway, he saw these and had to take some pics.

The next day, I opened the newspaper and here was that picture. It was captioned, “Bob Letterman, one of St. Louis’ toughest crime fighters, plays with toy airplanes when off duty”, or words to that effect. I had to take crap over that for months! You can see some of those ancient Tamiya armor kits on the shelf behind!

The idea for this dio came from an old 1/24th scale Bf 109e-4, I believe it was an Airfix kit. Somebody was at a club meeting selling off some kits he no longer wanted. I have never taken into consideration what is available and what is not when I plan a diorama. That probably sounds dumb, but it has always worked. If some vehicles or figures are not available, I will convert them or scratch build them. I was fortunate on this one.

This dio was built in 1982. It was called “Nest” and featured in several magazines. It was a French “Castle Farm” as is found along the Normandy coast. It is in 1/24th scale by the British firm Airfix. The searchlight and buildings were from scratch, the figures were all converted from those four Tamiya 1/24 Rommel, etc., and the Tamiya race car figures. I really detailed the engine and cockpit as there were no aftermarket stuff back then. BTW, excuse the photo quality, digital hadn’t even been thought of yet!

I used two kits to build this with. I needed to have the replacement engine being uncrated.

I used two Heller kits for the cars, a Mercedes and a BMW sportscar. The 1/24 Opel Blitz was an Italeri release.

I started the scratch searchlight with the plastic cap of a Gillette shaving creme can!

“The Liberation of Sheila”

This next one is about a beutepark. The one located in Paris-Nanterre. The Germans would move captured Allied aircraft to the units, put them back into flying condition, then, rotate their pilots through to fly them, discover the strengths and weaknesses. They all had German insignia for obvious reasons! This is in 1/48th scale, the B-17 and C-47 were from Monogram and the Mustang was Hasegawa, I think. The vehicles were Bandai and some Verlinden. The B-17 and the Mustang were one of my very first attempts with resin/PE update sets. Fooling with the PE, I thought to myself, nobody is going to use this stuff! Was I wrong! The figures were mostly kit figures, to be honest, I can’t even remember now where I got all of them.

Actually, the most difficult part of this dio was the hanger. The beams and trusses and all the frames of windows. As is almost all my dioramas, the planes, vehicles and figures are accessories. The buildings are the major work and focus.

I hand painted the Nose art on both Sheila and the C-47. Sheila was out of my imagination.

Little Chief Cockeye was another story. Wes Bradley’s father was in the Army Airforce in WW II. He actually painted nose art for the unit he was in. He then took photos up close and I used this one of his for the C-47 nose art. I will leave the explanation of the title to your imagination.

The left side of the dio. The car was Heller and the truck was Bandai.

That’s all folks!!

Bob

This entry was posted on Friday, September 4th, 2009 at 10:22 am and is filed under "Dioramas(Old)Aircraft". You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.