Ypres 1/35

This was a project I have wanted to make for a long time, and when I could afford buying the figure kit from Masterbox I decided it was time to get it made.

I had the helmet for several years. It is a surface find from the World War One battlefield, Ypres, picked up by a local farmer.

The top of it was long gone and it is ridden with bullet holes. On the inside of it, in the rolled edge there is still a piece of lead stuck. A real piece of history.

With the WW1 diorama kit from Masterbox I had what I needed to "improve"this relic a bit.

The model kit comes with a section of a trench system, so I cut the lenght I needed and began cleaning up the parts. With the quality of the production this process didn`t take long and soon also the figures had been assembled and made ready for paint.

In the kit comes a lot of extras, such as helmets, weapons etc, so I had an easy job making the trench a bit busy and cluttered. I wanted some S.R.D bottles and searched around a while for something I could use when I spotted the sprue from the figures. The attachment points can be cut off, have the mold line removed and voila, bottle, so easy.

For the painting I used Vallejo Model Color and made random mixes of the shades I wanted. Weathering and shading were done using oils, washes and pigments, and again I have realized that my flesh painting skills sucks and needs improving.

I also had a coil of LED lights laying around and decided to just glue it in place inside the helmet so it doubles as a cozy lamp for those romantic evenings in your military history library.

After a few evenings of painting, things were ready to be put together and final pics taken. Unfortunately the light wasn`t the best so some of the pics are a tad blurry, but I will get that re-done the next sunny day:)

Im fairly happy with the result, and the helmet sure looks impressive in the display cabinet now :)

As I have more diorama projects lined up and not room for it all I am open to offers on this one if you wish to have it displayed in your collection, just contact me with a serious offer:)

Small piece of lead stuck under the rolled edge.

Playing around with trench-clutter.

I used sand mixed with PVA for the soil.

After an evening of painting.

The figures cleaned up.

Always wanted to paint this kind of camo patterns.

A little work and the scene fitted perfectly into the helmet.

Some more paints and washes and the scene is ready for the figures.

S.R.D bottles and a wirecutter.

The finished scene.