discussion Reinforcing the Gustav Line, Italy 1944

[TIM FORSTER]

Ok, so anyone who has followed by last three projects not only has patience, but also knows that I am generally a slow worker… they usually take at least 3 years.



So I have resolved that this one is going to be much quicker! As part of the strategy I am only including one vehicle (although it is open-topped) plus an infantry cart. I am also going to avoid buildings altogether (unless you count a bridge and a roadside shrine). However, the figure count is probably not going to be any lower than my last one and, just to add a twist, two of them are going to be donkeys.

However, the dominating feature is here is going to be the mountainous terrain.

The general idea is to show the challenge facing the Germans as they sought to hold the Gustav line on the Italian front before, in May 1944, the Allies finally captured Monte Cassino and swept down the Liri valley towards Rome…

 

[rtfoe]

I already like where this is going Tim. The layers are the key to the composition and telling the story. Three years...okay made reservations to a nearby hotel and brought along a comfortable designer chair.

Cheers,
Wabble

 

[TIM FORSTER]

I already like where this is going Tim. The layers are the key to the composition and telling the story. Three years...okay made reservations to a nearby hotel and brought along a comfortable designer chair.

Cheers,
Wabble

Thanks Wabble... I hope you aren't holding your breath at the same time!

 

[John Race]

Hi Tim, count me in. Sleeping bag at the ready

 

[minitnkr]

You gotta love Italian masonry.

 

[TIM FORSTER]

Thanks guys, this may not be quite as exciting as my last project, but I hope that it has enough drama nonetheless.

The main inspiration for this project was the Tamiya Wespe that I bought a couple of years ago.



As you can see, I also went for a lot of extras - most of which I will end up not using.

Like the 250 that I put on my last dio, to my mind the Wespe qualifies as a ‘cute’ vehicle. It also manages to pack an awful lot into a relatively small space - I mean it is a 105 mm howitzer on a (stretched) Panzer II chassis after all…

As with all my projects I started out by working out the space needed by mocking up the scene using bits of card, sanding blocks and whatever came to hand. Since the Wespe was going to be the only vehicle I had already started putting it together.






The idea was to have the Wespe making its way up a relatively narrow road, passing in front of a cliff face and over a bridge, with a mule track running up above in the opposite direction. I needed to allow enough height and depth to incorporate several elements: the steep drop in front of the road, the road itself (still wide enough to take a Wespe), the lower cliff face, the mule track set into its face and the cliff rising above it…

 

[John Race]

Great planning Tim.Being able to see it like that pays off later.

 

[Jim R]

Always nice to see a dio with height. Looks like another great plan.

 

[TIM FORSTER]

Thanks folks, I hope it lives up to expectations...

Here are a few more shots of the project in its early stage.





Obviously the vehicle and figures are all work in progress at this stage - half of them are simply blu-tacked together.

As can be seen, I used three blocks of ceiling insulation to build up the terrain and then edged it with hardboard. This type of insulation board is very cheap (i.e. free from a nearby skip) and carves very easily with saws, knives, a rotary tool with sanding attachment and a screwdriver. However, it is also very messy, so best done outdoors. I used PVA to fix everything in place with the odd tack nailed in here and there to help whilst it dried.

The road was laid using cork sheet and the bridge was made from high density foam, scribed with a knife and then a cocktail stick. I based it on this picture which I took in Tuscany about 10 years ago:



The next step was to start making the rock texture. In the past I have used Woodlands Scenic plaster rock moulds, which are very convincing. However, for such a large area I thought that this would be too much work. Plus all of the pieces would need to be joined together anyway and I was worried that this would look a bit odd.

So I
decided to use good old DAS air-drying clay instead. I used two colours - Stone and Terracotta - to help create some contrast between the rocks and the earth areas. I will be painting everything eventually, but this helped me to work out the lie of the terrain better as I went along


In the image above you can see that I had started building up the foreground. The bridge has been further detailed and by now I had added a roadside shrine to add a little more interest to the middle of the scene. This was put together using another piece of high densiry foam, a resin casting of a saint (from a bag that I found at a model show for £1) and some tiles left over from my last Italian project several years ago.



Thenext step was to start building up the rock faces using the DAS and strategically placed stones.




I first covered the foam in a decent layer of PVA before using my fingers to press the clay into place. I then used a small pallete knife and wire brushes to shape the surface using photos as a reference. It's important to work out which way the strata run and then try and keep this consistent...