UMS "Agram" : WW2 Monastery Scene – Reflections on the Diorama Composition < Articles < Hobby

WW2 Monastery Scene – Reflections on the Diorama Composition

Marko Paunović, 22nd August 2024

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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	Praktični dio Radionice se odvijao na sljedeći način:

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Marko Paunović, 18th May 2025

March to Hren28 week 7

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	Our team is preparing to perform at the Turnip28 tournament called H.R.E.N.28 in Slovenia in July. Ana, Mario, Domagoj, Seb and Antoni assemble their armies and paint, and we follow them on their way!

	  

	ANTONI: „As for my latest pair of Fodder models, one carries a flag and the other carries a nest on its shoulders. The flag is made from a thin piece of copper that is clamped around a brass rod, secured with superglue, and then bent to look like fabric in the wind.

	  

	The nest is made of a mixture of green stuff and milliput that I cut lines into. I put two chicken eggs from the Tamiya farm animal set inside and secured them with a drop of superglue. The other models have all sorts of new heads, from simple medieval helmets to gas cylinder caps. To make it easier to see what they are doing, most of them have candles on their caps. “

	  

	MARIO: „As an unexpected addition to my army, I found an old pipe in the apartment and decided to turn it into a cannon. I had the legs from some bird monsters on the sprue and they turned out great for the conversion. My other toadie (which is supposed to be for Brutes) is a small knight and I wanted to give him some creature to stand out on to compensate. I found a stork from Muller, added the head of the pterodactyl I found on the floor of the Sferakon, and redid the legs. There are more things on the bird coming soon, but I have to decide which ones.“

	  
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	Naša ekipa se sprema za nastup na Turnip28 turniru pod nazivom H.R.E.N.28 u Sloveniji u srpnju. Ana, Mario, Domagoj, Seb i Antoni slažu svoje vojske i farbaju, a mi ih pratimo na njihovom putu! 

	  

	ANTONI: „Što se tiče par najnovijih Fodder modela, jedan nosi zastavicu, a drugi nosi gnijezdo na ramenima. Zastavica je napravljena od tankog komada bakra koji je kliještima stisnut oko mjedenog štapića, učvršćen superljepilom te potom savijen da izgleda kao tkanina na vjetru.

	  

	Gnijezdo je napravljeno od mješavine green stuffa i milliputa u koju sam urezao crte. Unutra sam ubacio dva kokošja jaja iz Tamiya seta domaćih životinja i učvrstio ih kapljicom superljepila. Ostali su modeli dobili svakakve nove glave, od običnih srednjovjekovnih kaciga do poklopaca od plinskih boca. Kako bi bolje vidjeli što rade, većina ih ima svijeće na kapama. “

	  

	MARIO: „Kao neočekivani dodatak mojoj vojsci, našao sam staru lulu u stanu i odlučio pretvoriti ju u top. Imao sam noge od nekih ptičjih čudovišta na sprue-u i ispale su super za konverziju. Moj drugi toadie (koji bi trebao biti za Brutes) je mali vitez i želio sam mu dati neko biće na kojem će se istaknuti za kompenzaciju. Našao sam rodu iz Mullera, dodao glavu pterodaktila kojeg sam našao na podu Sferakona i prepravio noge. Uskoro dolazi još stvari na pticu, ali se moram odlučiti koje.“

	  
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Antoni Pastuović, 18th May 2025

Scratchbuilding Star Wars Crates

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	In this article I’ll explain how I scratchbuild crates for the Star Wars Universe, to use on bases or in dioramas. It’s pretty simple and fun, and the required tools and barrier to entry is really low. These are the tools and materials I have at my disposal when I start the build.

	  

	My materials are two polystyrene sheets of different thicknesses. I choose the 1mm and the 0.25mm for this build, as well as square tubes of polystyrene 7.9mm X 7.9mm and a ruler. These are produced by Evergreen, and are widely available in hobby stores around the world. The tools I use are plastic cement (preferably with a brush), a hobby knife and a nail file.

	  

	I cut off a tip of the square tube, trying to make the length as equal to the width as possible, so 7.9mm. Now I have a cube.

	  

	Then I cut out smaller details for panels and parts (called greeblies in Star Wars lingo) from both the thinner and the thicker polystyrene sheets. Here I cut out as many as possible, to give myself options when assembling the crates.

	  

	An important aesthetic detail of the Star Wars universe is notches, and so I cut notches into several of my panels, like in this illustration.

	Another stylistic factor of SW is that very few things are symmetrical. So I chose to make all sides of my crates different, varying the panelling and details, using both thick and thin polystyrene for variation in depth. Here are some examples of different sides of my crates.

	  

	The larger crate is created only using the polystyrene sheets, and not from the square tube. So I measured and cut out five equal sides (the bottom is open) of the 1mm thick polystyrene and glued them together to form a cube. I used the thinner polystyrene to cut out and create lids for all my crates as well. Everything is glued together using plastic cement which creates a strong bond relatively fast by melting the plastics together. Because of this I now have sturdy crates that I can then use the nail file to polish and clean up - making sure all sides of the bigger crate are flush, that all crates are flat at the bottom, and file down all the hard corners of the crates into more rounded shapes.

	  

	I test out the placement of the crates on my base, and make sure the scale works, before I finish the base.

	  
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	U ovom ću članku objasniti kako izrađujem sanduke za Star Wars svemir, za korištenje na bazama ili u dioramama. Prilično je jednostavno i zabavno, a potrebni alati i prepreka za ulazak su stvarno niski. Ovo su alati i materijali koje imam na raspolaganju kada počnem graditi.

	  

	Moji materijali su dvije polistirenske ploče različitih debljina. Odabrao sam 1 mm i 0,25 mm za ovu konstrukciju, kao i kvadratne cijevi od polistirena 7,9 mm X 7,9 mm i ravnalo. Njih proizvodi Evergreen i dostupni su u hobi trgovinama diljem svijeta. Alati koje koristim su plastični cement (po mogućnosti s četkom), hobi nož i turpija za nokte.

	  

	Odrezao sam vrh četvrtaste cijevi, pokušavajući da duljina bude što jednaka širini, dakle 7,9 mm. Sada imam kocku.

	  

	Zatim sam izrezao manje detalje za panele i dijelove (koji se u žargonu Ratova zvijezda nazivaju greeblies) i od tanjih i od debljih polistirenskih ploča. Ovdje sam izrezao što je više moguće, kako bih imao mogućnosti pri sastavljanju sanduka.

	  

	Važan estetski detalj Star Wars svemira su urezi, pa sam izrezao ureze u nekoliko svojih ploča, kao na ovoj ilustraciji.

	Još jedan stilski faktor SW-a je da je vrlo malo stvari simetrično. Stoga sam odlučio napraviti različite strane svojih sanduka, mijenjajući obloge i detalje, koristeći debeli i tanki polistiren za varijacije u dubini. Evo nekoliko primjera različitih strana mojih sanduka.

	  

	Veći sanduk izrađen je samo od polistirenskih ploča, a ne od četvrtaste cijevi. Tako sam izmjerio i izrezao pet jednakih stranica (dno je otvoreno) polistirena debljine 1 mm i zalijepio ih da formiraju kocku. Koristio sam tanji polistiren za izrezivanje i izradu poklopaca za sve svoje sanduke. Sve je zalijepljeno plastičnim cementom koji relativno brzo stvara čvrstu vezu topljenjem plastike. Zbog toga sada imam čvrste sanduke koje zatim mogu upotrijebiti turpiju za poliranje i čišćenje - pazeći da su sve strane većeg sanduka u ravnini, da su sve sanduke ravne na dnu i isturpijam sve tvrde kutove sanduka u zaobljenije oblike.

	  

	Prije nego što dovršim bazu, testiram položaj sanduka na svojoj bazi i uvjeravam se da vaga radi.

	  
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Sebastian Søgård, 12nd May 2025

March to Hren28 week 6

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	Our team is preparing to perform at the Turnip28 tournament called H.R.E.N.28 in Slovenia in July. Ana, Mario, Domagoj, Seb and Antoni assemble their armies and paint, and we follow them on their way!

	  

	ANTONI: „My cult, Feast of Charybdis, is based on one or two of these Scuttlers (my plan is to make only one) that jump out of the mud, i.e. deployment is anywhere on the board and they have to make a charge. Also, their melee must end so that they or the target end up out of action, so the fight repeats until someone dies. The cult now allows all units to bury and jump out from turn to turn. I want it to end up looking like a walking island that rose out of the mud, so the top next to the tower will have some vegetation, and everything else will be muddy.

	  

	The second unit I worked on is the blackpowder Fodder. They are the most numerous unit in Turnip (12) and rely on having as many of them as possible at all times. My idea is for them to look unmistakably like line infantry, but each one has a gimmick that sets them apart from the others, e.g. an underwater mine for a head, a barrel with a relic on its back. Since they consider the radish a sacred manifestation of "Root", their uniforms will be a pale purple, their helmets and weapons rusty.“

	  

	  

	MARIO: „This week, I did some minor converting as well as finishing work on the Proboscis which I managed to prime as well.“

	  
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	Naša ekipa se sprema za nastup na Turnip28 turniru pod nazivom H.R.E.N.28 u Sloveniji u srpnju. Ana, Mario, Domagoj, Seb i Antoni slažu svoje vojske i farbaju, a mi ih pratimo na njihovom putu! 

	  

	ANTONI: „Moj kult, Feast of Charybdis, bazira se na jednom do dva ovakva Scuttlera (moj plan je samo jednog napravit) koji iskaču iz blata, tj. deployment je bilo gdje na boardu i moraju napravit charge. Također, njihov melee mora završiti tako da oni ili meta završe out of action, znači fight se ponavlja dok netko ne pogine. Kult sada dozvoljava svim jedinicama da se iz turna u turn zakopavaju i iskaču. Želim da mi na kraju izgleda kao hodajući otočić koji se podigao iz blata, pa će vrh pored tornja imati malo vegetacije, a sve ostalo će biti blatno.“

	  

	Drugi unit na kojem sam radio su blackpowder Fodder. Oni su najmnogobrojnija jedinica u Turnipu (12) i oslanjaju se na to da ih je što više u svakom trenutku. Moja ideja je da nedvojbeno izgledaju kao line infantry, ali da svaki ima neki gimmick koji ga razlikuje od drugih npr. podvodna mina umjesto glave, bačva s relikvijom na leđima. S obzirom da smatraju rotkvicu svetom manifestacijom "Roota", odore će im biti blijede ljubičaste boje, kacige i oružja zahrđala.“

	  

	  

	MARIO: „Ovaj tjedan malo sam konvertirao, ali i dovršio Proboscisa kojeg sam čak i prajmao.“

	  
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Antoni Pastuović, 12nd May 2025

We took part in: Sferakon 2025

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	UMS "Agram" je ove godine na svom štandu u subotu 10.5. organizirao interaktivne Back to Basics radionice bojanja minijatura prilagođene svim uzrastima (od 8-99). Radionice za do tri polaznika su u trajanju od sat vremena.

	

	Prijave nisu bile potrebne već po principu first come, first served. U pauzama između radionica, naši volonteri pokazivali su i demonstrirali razne minijaturističke tehnike.

	

	

	
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    string(19) "2022-01-21 09:02:32"
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}

Mario Grgurev, 12nd May 2025

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