SAS Jeep In Italy

Hello, and welcome to another project showcase! In today's post I will cover a diorama I call "SAS Jeep in Italy." Its not the catchiest name out there, I know, yet that does not take away from the fact that this is my favorite diorama to date.

Let me give you the backstory: two SAS men have been assigned a top-secret patrol through the mountains of the Italy, intending to find the location of a crucial command-post. However, while climbing a mountain pass, there is an explosion behind them, and while scanning the sky, they see a German fighter lining up for a strafing run. The assistant driver grabs his Lee-Enfield, and gets ready to jump from the jeep. 

The kit jeep is from Tamiya . . . sort of. The jeep itself was actually made by Italeri, as you have probably guessed from the box lid, but the detail parts and two of the figures were from Tamiya. I am not going to go into much detail on the construction of the jeep, however I will say that construction went smoothly, and that all the extra detail parts Tamiya provided lived up to their very good reputation. 

The jeep was painted with a hand-mixed color, the ratio of which I can not remember. Sorry. The jerry cans and some of the smaller bags were painted with Model Master Acrylic Green Drab, while the larger bags and the crewmen's uniforms were painted olive drab, with the berets being Vallejo Model Air Red. The guns were painted with Testors Model Master Acrylic Gunmetal, with the straps on the ammo pans and the grips of the guns being painted with a dark brown.

Weathering was simple and straight-forward. A rust-color paint blend was applied along the wheel arches, fuel tank caps, and other places where rust would (at least in my mind) accumulate. This was followed with serious dry-brushing of a Vallejo Model Air Light Brown and Testors Model Master Acrylic Light Gray to simulate the dust from the mountain pass and other back-country roads. 

Now for the diorama...

The diorama was actually rather simple to make. The basic structure is constructed from some pink foam insulation board I had lying around, held together with a foam glue.
The sub-road being made from a thick piece of card, supported by more pink foam board. Then followed the longest part-creating the rocks. Ideally plaster and rock molds, or even Hydrocal would be used for this, yet I did not have either of these. Instead, I used more pink foam board, carved to represent the various out-croppings and clefts of the rock face.

Next came the painting. I can not give you to detailed of an account here because I have honestly forgotten the order of the paints I applied, and even what a few of those pains were. However, I can tell you that the majority of the diorama was covered in a few layers of Testors Model Master Acrylic Dunkelgrau RAL, as well as Model Master Acrylic Gunmetal, with highlights on ledges and edges in Model Master Acrylic Light Gray.

Once the rocks were painted, I painted the roadbed with gunmetal, then applied a layer of Woodland Scenics Light Gray Ballast held down by white-glue. This was followed with Woodland Scenics Green Blend for grass, and Woodland Scenics Gray Coarse Talus. (If you have been wondering what the fire ball in the corner is, that was my first attempt at creating an explosion with a painted cotton ball and an electric candle, which failed quite badly.)

So there you have it, the "SAS Jeep in Italy". Thank you for reading and I will see you on the next one.