This will be the first time I will be writing down the step by step process of building my dio so I hope everyone bear with me.
As I mentioned on my previous post, the diorama I am building is the scene at Argentan, France Aug 1944. The first thing I did was to brainstorm for ideas and come up with interesting scenes for this project.
At first I sketched an idea on paper and played around using Lego blocks to visualize the scene.
Soon however I got some more ideas using just the Lego blocks. I discovered that it just saves time for me.
The Story
The scene is basically US infantry from the 80th division with armour support trying to liberate the French city of Argentan. The real event was that this relatively new division had not seen real combat since its arrival into Normandy. The Germans defending the city however were battlehardened troops and were desperate to hold the city till their larger force escape the Falaise pocket which were about to be cut off by Allied forces. Argentan was the last city in this pocket and Germans had to hold on to it long enough. The initial assault by the 80th division were quite disasterous as the German had their best Tiger tanks and troops defending the city. After several unsuccesful assaults, the US army pounded the city into ruins for several days to demoralise the Germans before making another attempt to liberate the city.
Next was to build the base for my dio so I bought a frame and plywood about 30 by 25cm. I then glued and nail them to keep em together. Next I painted the frame black and applied some wood varnish to the surface and sides of the base. Then I masked the sides with tape to protect it for the work that is going to pile on top of it. (Con't next post)
