Finished Photos of 1/32 Scale BF-109F Desert Crash Diorama (North Africa 1942)

[Phillip1]

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Fellow Modelers,

Below are photos of my 1/32 scale diorama showing a forced landed BF-109F in a desert setting, built in 2023. I have always been intrigued by World War II dioramas showing frontline infantry soldiers picking through crashed enemy aircraft for souvenirs to take back home. Although these scenes do not include intense action, they do provide good storytelling and reflection. The models used on the project consisted of the Hasegawa kit for the airplane, the Tamyia kit for the Tilly vehicle, a Master Box LRDG set for the figures and a Hornet replacement figure head set. A description of the diorama setup is listed below:

The location is the North African desert and the time period is set around February 1942. A Gruppe III/JG27 BF-109F-4 Trop airplane has been damaged in air combat with RAF Tomahawks (P-40B/C) and Kittyhawks (P-40D/E) and made a forced landing deep behind the British lines. The unfortunate Experten Luftwaffe pilot has been captured and taken away for processing to a POW camp. A lull in the ground fighting has allowed several curious British 8th Army infantry soldiers to borrow a Tilly utility transport vehicle to make a quick trip to the crash site to "officially" look for valuable maps or other documents but "unofficially" gather souvenirs to carry back to their basecamp.

On the last photos, a desert scene poster was used in the background to create a realistic forced perspective. I have always wanted a diorama of a BF-109 crashed landed in the desert, as it is such an iconic image. I hope you enjoy the photos.
Phillip1

 

[Phillip1]

more photos1...

 

[Phillip1]

more photos2...

 

[Phillip1]

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[kevin]

Well done, I really like it. The desert background is a nice touch.

 

[BarleyBop]

The forced perspective works really well! And I have to say I love seeing Tilly in there!

 

[Ron2]

Nice work! The picture in the background works better than I would have imagined!

 

[Phillip1]

kevin/BarleyBop/Ron2-Thanks very much for the compliments! They are appreciated! The Tamiya Tilly is a great kit and was built straight from the box. In fact it was the easiest part of the diorama project. Thanks for the comments on the desert background. I have seen posters used as effective backgrounds in a lot of other dioramas, and I must have looked at hundreds of desert posters on line before I found one where the colors were a good match.

Phillip1

 

[BarleyBop]

hundreds of desert posters on line

The match with your base is pretty seamless! I'll have to try that.
So far, I've tried posing builds in front of web images displayed on a large monitor.
Sorta works, but without the base tie-in, not nearly as effective.

 

[Phillip1]

BarleyBop-In the past when I tried using a computer monitor as a background my phone camera viewed the pixels different than my human eye and it did not comes across as clear as when I used a matt finish poster paper.

Phillip1

 

[BarleyBop]

matt finish poster paper

...hmmm, I can understand that. A print can still be higher resolution.
In my case, it is usually more of a focal effect, with the foreground in focus, and the the background less so...

Anyhow, kudos for pulling it off so effectively!

 

[Holz44]

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Absolutely beautiful representation! Kudos to you sir!

 

[Edbert]

This is amazing artwork. Is the background added by AI?

 

[Phillip1]

Holz44-Thanks for the kind words!

Edbert-Thank you! For the background I used a poster board with a desert setting scene on it (see image 293 above).

Phillip1

 

[Jugbutt]

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Fellow Modelers,

Below are photos of my 1/32 scale diorama showing a forced landed BF-109F in a desert setting, built in 2023. I have always been intrigued by World War II dioramas showing frontline infantry soldiers picking through crashed enemy aircraft for souvenirs to take back home. Although these scenes do not include intense action, they do provide good storytelling and reflection. The models used on the project consisted of the Hasegawa kit for the airplane, the Tamyia kit for the Tilly vehicle, a Master Box LRDG set for the figures and a Hornet replacement figure head set. A description of the diorama setup is listed below:

The location is the North African desert and the time period is set around February 1942. A Gruppe III/JG27 BF-109F-4 Trop airplane has been damaged in air combat with RAF Tomahawks (P-40B/C) and Kittyhawks (P-40D/E) and made a forced landing deep behind the British lines. The unfortunate Experten Luftwaffe pilot has been captured and taken away for processing to a POW camp. A lull in the ground fighting has allowed several curious British 8th Army infantry soldiers to borrow a Tilly utility transport vehicle to make a quick trip to the crash site to "officially" look for valuable maps or other documents but "unofficially" gather souvenirs to carry back to their basecamp.

On the last photos, a desert scene poster was used in the background to create a realistic forced perspective. I have always wanted a diorama of a BF-109 crashed landed in the desert, as it is such an iconic image. I hope you enjoy the photos.
Phillip1

Very nice work. I've never done a project like this but it looks like it could happen.

 

[Phillip1]

Jugbutt-Thanks for the compliment! Yeah, with a crashed aircraft diorama theme you can take the setting in a lot of directions.

Phillip1

 

[WtShark]

Amazing!

 

[Phillip1]

WtShark-Thanks!

Phillip1

 

[Steve Ski]

Awesome job, all over!

 

[Phillip1]

Steve Ski-Thank you very much!

Phillip1