Dad's Army 3 - Civilians Finished

I finished the civilians for the Dad's Army diorama last week. I'm reasonably happy with them, some more so than others...

The weakest figures are Mrs Pike and Mr Blewitt, but, to be fair, these figures don't claim to represent those characters. The Mrs Pike figure was pushing a bicycle in the original pack, and looks like she was simply meant to be a British citizen helping fight the Nazi invaders. Mr Blewitt is a fairly generic "old bloke with a walking stick", so again, I can't really complain (not that that will stop me)

I'm happy with the blacks on the Warden, the Vicar and the Verger. I used the Andrea Miniatures Black set for those, and I'm finally starting to understand how the different shades/highlights behave.

The only one of this group with markings was the Warden, and I'm fairly happy with how they came out. It was quite warm while I was painting, so trying to do fine lines and writing before the paint dried on the brush was tricky.

The figures that do represent characters on the show are very recognisable; it was just a shame that the casting of the figures was so poor.

Finished civilians

Note - the damage to Mr Blewitt and Mrs Pike (hat brims on both models) occurred as I was photographing them. I knocked one over, and just as I was thinking "let's not do that again", I knocked the second one over :-(. The damage, however, has been repaired.

Diorama Layout

I have begun thinking about this and planning stuff out.

I'm setting it in the church hall, but the original idea of simply having them on the bare wooden floor has expanded to include the back wall and the wall with the office door in it.

I've been taking lots of screenshots from the DVDs, and each picture depresses me more. There is a lot of detail in the church hall set that I'd never noticed before: pictures, posters, benches, tables, a piano (on order from Dixon Miniatures) and flags, to name but a few.

The problem is that I've never really done a diorama, or a scratchbuild of this complexity, before, and this strikes me as jumping in at the deep end. However, I've started to decide on some measurements and have picked up plenty of plasticard and foam-card (I'm expecting to make lots of mistakes).

It all needs to be done by the start of October (otherwise it'll be turning into a Christmas present). That gives me about seven weeks, but it has to be designed, built, painted and finished in that time. I suspect my evenings have just been booked for the next few weeks :-)