WW2 Monastery Scene – Reflections on the Diorama Composition
In this series of articles, I will follow the creation of a diorama of a monastery set at the end of the Second World War when the Americans had already invaded Germany, which shows a company in the middle of a rest. These articles do not actually follow the chronological creation, but are arranged according to some thematic units.
After reading the title, you're probably wondering what this guy is going to be talking about? Rightfully so. Probably, even I would not understand what the writer wants to say if I read such a title. Probably some philosophy. And yes, you are right. But there is a reason why I am writing this text, so please be patient and give me a chance.
Namely, judging by a large number, and participating in an even larger number of competitions, I noticed that a lot of modelers have problems with the believability of the story of their diorama. Either they get lost in a pile of details (a kind of horror vacui), or the scene is much too big for the story it's telling (the exact opposite of horror vacui). Also, in a large number of works there is no "good" interaction between the actors or between the actors and the scene. Well, it all looks like Scotty just beamed them up in the middle of the scene.
This prompted me to write this article to describe the creative process of creating the diorama and its transformation as I completed individual elements. The fact that when I wrote previous articles that I found a sufficient number of photos of the entire diorama with elements in various stages of the project also helped.
How did I come up with the idea for this diorama? For my birthday, Mario and Seb gave me two models. One was an ambulance Jeep (Mario) and the other an American armored Greyhound (Seb). This prompted me to plan a diorama that will contain those two models. Soon the FB feed reminded me of a scene from RT Diorama that seemed perfect to me. A jeep coming into the square, and an armored personnel carrier between two buildings peeking out of the rubble with half the building collapsed on top of it. Fantastic! Buy Marko. When the package arrived, unfortunately, Seb's armored car didn't fit between the two buildings, so he was out of the game. At the Zagreb Cup, I visited the Hobby Chest stand and found the SDKFZ 223 model there. Darko allowed me to open the box and measure the width of the vehicle. It turned out to be 5mm narrower than the passage. Fantastic. What's even better is that I found two sets of Americans with him just to complete my diorama.
The figures I got were: two lying down, two lying down and playing cards, one sitting on his helmet reading something (newspaper), one standing and looking into the distance, one Jeep driver and one riding in a Jeep. Everything is super usable except maybe the one that drives. I scattered the team around the field as it seemed to me that it might work.
In the meantime, I had the idea to put together a MiniArt piano and set it up to play. With a bit of conversion (cutting and hand rotation) I succeeded in my plan. This required a new arrangement of pieces. The one standing will be on the hood of the battleship and will be looking towards the back of the diorama (down the road), and the others will be concentrated around the fountain. The statues will be part of the ruins.
At one of the hobby corners on Wednesdays, someone from the team commented that my first floor was a little empty. I dismissed the idea, but it kept bugging me. Until I realized he was right. A series of figures followed and the only one that passed was the one standing and looking into the distance. But that makes me lose crew interaction with the wreck of the battleship. So I tested how it would look like the one reading the newspaper on it. I was not unhappy with the result. The bench, on the other hand, looked too big, so I decided to fill the part not occupied by the soldier with smaller statues. They were taken out and prepared for "liberation". Let's say the Jeep driver arrives to pick them up.
By setting the texture, the story more or less remained the same. There I had to position the bench as well as one lying down to fit into the volume added with DAS clay.
In the meantime, I assembled the ambulance Jeep (the one in the pictures before was a "placeholder" from another diorama). The ambulance Jeep has a scalameria carrying a stretcher. This gave me the idea to add statues to the stretcher. But it also turned Jeep in the other direction. He leaves with the statues.
I was finally satisfied with the story. In fact, the turning of the Jeep and the lack of interaction of the rest of the team with the driver who releases the statues gives the impression of alienation and lack of morale in extreme conditions. Everyone does their own thing even though they are together in a small space.
I hope that this journey through the making of a diorama gave you at least a little insight into the process of diorama composition. Each part must make sense and be clear about why it is there. Next time, we start with painting.
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Science behind Acrylic Paints
- Binders (eng. resin) – form a film – in our case probably pure acrylates, I suspect they are styrene acrylates.
- Fillers – in addition to adding volume to the paint, they also affect the viscosity, coverage and appearance of the dry film
- Pigments – the main division is into organic pigments and inorganic pigments. Inorganic ones are more covering but have less vivid shades, while organic ones are often quite poorly covering (yellow for example) but their shades are vivid and bright
Additives:
- Anti-foam
- Rheological modifiers – affect the behavior of wet paint on the substrate (e.g. spillage) and the behavior of the paint when a force is applied to it (brush, roller, spray, airbrush). Rheological modifiers also include thickeners that affect the viscosity of the paint.
- Dispersants – envelop pigment and filler particles and prevent their agglomeration during standing. Good dispersion of pigment and filler affects the coverage and uniform appearance of the dry film. There are a bunch more but I won't go into too much detail
- Solvent – in this case water.
Contrast paints and speed paints – high pigment content, but not so much that it causes high coverage. They are formulated to spread, not to stay where you put them. The result of spreading is that the paint collects in the recesses, where a thicker film of paint remains than on the protruding parts of the miniature. Where the film of paint is thicker (the recesses), the shade of the contrast paint is more pronounced, unlike on the protruding parts where the film is thinner, which is why the shade is then influenced by the color of the substrate.
Composition:
- Binders
- Pigments
- Additives – all listed above + surfactants that reduce the surface tension of the wet paint film, which is why it flows
- solvent
- I would say they do not contain fillers, or contain very, very little of them
Washes – similar in formulation and behavior to contrast agents, only they have a much lower proportion of pigments, certainly no fillers, a higher proportion of surfactants, lower viscosity, and probably less binders.
If we want to greatly dilute acrylic paint or contrast, it is better to use a product intended for this purpose from the manufacturer of that paint rather than water, because it contains all the necessary amount of binders and additives for that paint to retain its properties.
" ["content_hrv"]=> string(4306) "U ovom članku, naša Dunja nam otkriva znanost iza akrilnih boja.
Akrilne boje – visoki udio pigmenta i dobra pokrivnost. Ako su dobro formulirane ostaju tamo gdje ih naneseš, ne ostavljaju „brush marks“ i suše se dovoljno sporo da stigneš napravit što želiš na minijaturi a opet dovoljno brzo.
Sastav:
- Veziva (eng. resin) – formiraju film – u našem slučaju vjerojatno čisti akrilati, sumnjam da su stiren akrilati.
- Punila – osim što dodaju volumen boji utječu i na viskoznost, pokrivnost i izgled suhog filma
- Pigmenti – glavna podjela je na organske pigmente i anorganske pigmente. Anorganski su više pokrivni ali manje živih nijansi, dok su organski često dosta loše pokrivni (žuti npr) ali zato su im nijanse žive i jarke
Aditivi:
- Protiv pjene
- Reološki modifikatori – utječu na ponašanje mokre boje na podlozi (npr razlijevanje) i na ponašanje boje dok na nju djeluje sila (kist, valjak, sprej, airbrush). Pod reološke modifikatore spadaju i ugušćivači koji utječu na viskozitet boje.
- Dispergatori – obavijaju čestice pigmenata i punila i sprječavaju aglomeraciju istih stajanjem. Dobra dispergiranost pigmenta i punila utječe na pokrivnost i ujednačen izgled suhog filma.
- Ima ih još hrpa ali neću toliko u detalje
- Otapalo – u ovom slučaju voda.
Kontrastice i speed paints – visoki udio pigmenta, ali ne toliki da uzrokuje visoku pokrivnost. Formulirane su da se razlijevaju, a ne da ostaju tamo gdje ih staviš. Posljedica razlijevanja je skupljanje boje u udubine gdje onda ostane deblji film boje nego na isturenim dijelovima minijature. Tamo gdje je film boje deblji (udubine) nijansa kontrastice izraženija, za razliku od isturenih dijelova na kojima je film tanji zbog čega na nijansu onda utječe boja podloge.
Sastav:
- Veziva
- Pigmenti
- Aditivi – svi nabrojani gore +
- surfakanti koji smanjuju površinsku napetost mokrog filma boje zbog čega i dolazi do razlijevanja
- otapalo
- rekla bih da ne sadrže punila, ili ih sadrže vrlo vrlo malo
Washevi – po principu formuliranja i ponašanju slični kontrasticama, samo imaju puno manji udio pigmenata, sigurno ne sadrže punila, veći udio surfakanata, manji viskozitet i vjerojatno manje veziva.
Ako želimo jako razrijediti akrilnu boju ili kontrasticu bolje je koristiti za to predviđen proizvod od proizvođača te boje nego vodu, jer sadrži svu potrebnu količinu veziva i aditiva kako bi ta boja zadržala svoja svojstva.
" ["created"]=> string(19) "2025-11-20 13:03:37" ["modified"]=> string(19) "2025-11-20 13:03:37" } ["Member"]=> array(10) { ["id"]=> string(2) "64" ["group_id"]=> string(1) "1" ["first_name"]=> string(9) "Krunoslav" ["last_name"]=> string(8) "Belinić" ["first_name_mask"]=> string(9) "krunoslav" ["last_name_mask"]=> string(7) "belinic" ["username"]=> string(5) "Kruno" ["password"]=> string(40) "eb3fda45fbec0258e90d809803b10491c548b22f" ["born"]=> string(19) "2015-01-18 09:19:00" ["created"]=> string(19) "2015-01-18 09:20:39" } } Krunoslav Belinić, 20th November 2025 - We attended: ModelMania 2025 Marko Paunović, 5th November 2025
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