For some years like many people, end up in a boat of socks and shirts for gifts for the rest of eternity lol. So this year I figured my father-in-law could do with something a bit more special away from the usual. I started this project back in early November 2025 figuring I had ample time.. lol. Fast forward to December 16th finally creating a packaging box from Depron foam so I could wrap it finally. So just in the nick of time!
Why though? Simple, every detail I thought about for a while before moving forward, if a piece of work is to be displayed then it has to be best effort.
Primary Materials:- 6mm thick Depron foam board
- Wood-glue, CA / Superglue, hot-glue, masking tapes (various)
- Ikea box frame - inside 25cm/10in* square working area
- Acrylic Paints various, lacquers & weathering powders
- Sherman Firefly VC 1:72 scale kit
- Spitfire Mk VI 1:72 scale kit
- 3 * 1:76 army figures.
The core of the build is mainly Depron 6mm sheet cut to fit the width of the inside frame (250mm) and stacked with a back plate. I use wood glue for bonding these simply because it tends to not rip the foam when carving later. It does take longer to dry however.
The scene as I imagined it would have a tank firing from a sheltered position, surrounded by allies with a low flying spitfire overhead. Winter time is always a more difficult build to keep the realism but its worth the effort for the effect.
Once my basic scene is shaped using a variety of knives, blunt tools and anything that does the job, there isn't a wrong answer if the end effect works!
Depron as a material is amazing, to paint however not so much lol. So I've found a mix of wood glue with a base acrylic colour mixed 8 parts glue : 2 parts colour will coat very well and if its too thick then simply wipe off excess while wet - its that simple.
With the base coat now dry I can add the beginnings of scenery but keeping in mind a lot of this will loose detail from several future stages, so when you place scenery is important.
For a battle worn area I'd expect no top coat soil remaining really, damaged buildings, infrastructure etc. So my scene is next to a semi demolished building wall with shell impacted earth craters filled with water frozen over. To add to the effect I mix ballast with wood glue to create a thick chunky paste. At the same time I've added a telegraph pole made from balsa snapped at its base.
A second pass adding in grass detail, damaged bushes, wall moss, bullet holes in the wall and initial shading. An airbrush was used not a paint brush. The telegraph pole got its first shading as well.
The only real way to create realistic water with a side cut diorama is epoxy resin. To do this I need to seal the front and sides entirely. I used 2mm acrylic scrap snapped to size with hot glue on all edges and seals
To hold the whole scene and ensure it doesn't still leak and bond to the surface its on. Raising the piece is risky to keep it level but a worthwhile one in my opinion.
I use clear cast epoxy resin for display casting and similar. I used the same acrylic brown tone diluted in the resin while mixing. This gives my ice a tainted dirty brown colour.
N.B: Yes I wear PPE for my eyes and hands when snapping acrylic panel, being able to see is a feature I'd quite like to keep.
It wasn't all easy sailing removing the front panel. I neglected the thickness of the resin at the front in areas. It was so thin that it had a better bond to the acrylic sheet than my scene, this meant it ripped off the acrylic and a part of the foam surface. Part of the risk!
So yes I lost a bit of foam but I gained a kick ass side cut water effect! 100% worth it.
So to address the missing foam in the next step is adding more ballast, this time crushed a bit more and also colour mixed with a smoke effect acrylic paint. This was added to the various parts of the top scene but mainly along the front and bottom front edge. Once dried I used a Dremel with a carbide disc to very VERY slowly cut the front edge stones flat. This enforces the "cut" scene effect.
Again this is dangerous as a piece could catch the disk and fly off, had this happened then the chunk it would of pulled would of been 10x worse than that of the epoxy setup!
But.. it didn't happen! So now my close up shows had any stone/rock sticking out forward was sliced and diced giving this lovely burn pattern. I hoped it'd happen but who knows lol. Any remaining front edge exposed white foam was painted in matt black, to push focus elsewhere.
OK now for the actual box frame. The frame back is actually MDF so perfect to mount on, horrible to paint. I had some cheapo acrylic paints to get rid of. So I used the entire white tube pattern wave applied with a sponge brush. I could of sealed the wood and then painted but two birds 1 stone.
To give strength to the scene I bonded the back board to the inside frame panels.
Note the bottom section is removed.
Once dried I test fitted the frame but it was still able to shift around a few millimetres each direction which I dislike. So when pinning the backboard I predrilled some M2 holes as far to the edge as I could, when I tapped the nails in at an angle they cause the veneer surface to protrude by.. a few MM :)
Before the scene can go in I need to address all areas around the foam core. They need sprayed matt black so when it all goes together any gaps between the front panel and inner frame aren't really visible.
Now the white acrylic paint coating has fully dried the MDF will no longer soak up paint like a sponge. So I can use my airbrush to start sky blue filling in from a distance, leaving gaps as clouds building up the colour around them slowly. The background isn't meant to have focus here at all.
The Sherman tank VC has two build options from Airfix. You can choose to build the tracks up from scratch if you want to be very specific or they also provide a cast of a complete track assembly that looks identical. By choosing the "easy" way I get to use all the other parts from the other option. So, now I can make out previous battles left bits of tank all over the place with some even frozen in ice!
So far I've only thought about terrain detail with various additions but now it's time to go further and break out the weathering powders. The snow white powder is brushed on with a slightly damp brush initial, it clumps but I brush it out. Then I add with a dry brush so it sticks to the first pass a bit better. This way I can build up the edge of the ice to appear a brighter white / thinner ice. The same applies to top and edges of all surfaces that wouldn't be well walked or drove over.
This is another one of them super risky steps. The work put in so far is dozens of hours, but I really want a frost look.
Not only do I need to lightly spray the scene but remembering that the matt lacquer sealer WILL dull areas back to clear so..
Too light = vague effect
Too heavy and you loose all detail.. May as well skip the 1st steps and go direct to painting it white lol.
It's now time to matt lacquer seal the entire scene with a single coat so I don't wipe half the detail off going forward lol. It is also time to actually bond the scene into the inner frame bottom - hence I removed the bottom panel, this allows the scene to sit about 2mm lower than is visible when assembled. I can now control the gap entirely to be whatever I like.
Given I work with all sorts of machines I popped into work and took advantage of our lasers to cut out a gold mirror 3MM acrylic plaque, engraved from the back. Then when home to really push the "fancy" effect I cleaned out the engrave and filled it with chrome effect ( Tamiya Color X-11 in this case ). It really gives the lettering a nice depth in my opinion.
Back to the models!
I glued some spare kit frame parts to none visible areas of the kit as grab sticks using regular plastic glue (weld). Once finished I cut them off and leave the stub inside, its 10 times easier and nobody will ever see it - except here - on this public webpage :D LOL.
Once I've applied two layers of base over the primer and etched some wear in NOW, as following layers will enforce the worn down pit effect. So time to break out the blutac and create some camo as per the illustration. Then I spray over with Army green.
Both models are now ready for final assembly and weathering.
I used CA to affix the models in the scene but without kicker. It takes way longer to dry but no white spray to clean up. In my head the tank was always going to be firing a shell, its been some time since I've done flame effects and having an airbrush to hand etc it became much easier. The core is simply a 1mm steel rod heated and pressed into the cannon end.
The shell is a piece of kit plastic shaped and glued to the end. Tanks firing always have this huge cloud around the barrel end in a disk shape with the shell kind of pulling the flame out with it.
Now for.. soldiers. Not my favourite thing to paint but for this scene.. worth the grind. Now a friend donated these kindly as I wasn't going to buy a box for just 3 lol. What I did not realise however was the 8th Army setup for desert combat in shorts and sleeves .. whoops.
Time to get creative and carve the short edges down slightly then build up paint layers to hide it all. These don't take paint well initially so expect to add many layers or use a special primer coat designed for this material which I don't have.
I opted to go for a mixed camo to attempt to hide distinctive lines even further. Painted boots using many coats eventually hides the socks and just looks like a boot. I'm very very happy with the end result given they were free.
Given the scale I think I got pretty far with detailing. Certainly further than I thought I would before I began truthfully speaking.
So last steps are to cut the bases off the figures VERY VERY carefully! And affix them in their final positions. The two firing soldiers sit within a tank track that has been carved out firing. In real life I'm sure them soldiers would be deaf but if a tank commander seen danger close then.. yea.
Along the tank tracks I used a mix of dark acrylic paint, ballast mix and sand to create mud/rock gunk.
Also just as a point.. A Sherman tank at about 34T on ice above 40-50cm thick on solid earth below not a water surface would not crack :)
The Spitfire Mk VI was a fun build. The weathering for walk way wear patterns, air flow battered leading edges, trims etc always adds a lovely "used" look.
The same can be said for the Sherman Tank Vc. Trawling through a winter muddy scene wouldn't leave a tank show room fresh, it'd be as dirty and gritty as you'd expect. I did however glue the cannon position as the flame effect shell kept bringing it down lol.
The tank track bits in the scene merged in with the dirt.. "Just another day".
The final result after weeks of work. A scene that grows with detail the closer you get too it. Although its very hard to see the box frame does have a 1.5mm acrylic front panel. With the back sealed means this will have no dust ingress going forward.
For only being 25cm squared inside its surprised me how much I was able to get away with.
WWII winter close encounters diorama box frame gift
