How would I go about making graves, like the ones below from Verlinden, without that Verlinden price?



I was thinking Balsa wood, cut and glued into crosses. With a German helmet glued to the top of it.

Let me know.

~Chip :-)

Balsa would work, but would be pretty fragile. I suggest getting some bass wood. Assemble your cross, stress it, then try do do a resin cast of it. Very sturdy, and you can make as many as you want. Good luck.

Patrick

I saw your post and picked up a set of the Warriors German Graves & Markers (35258) that were on sale at my local shop. Regularly they are $15.95 but were marked down to $4.99.

The set consists of four resin burial mounds, one of them surrounded by rocks like the one on the right in your photo. They are all the same size as the one on the right as well. One grave marker is just like the Iron Cross one in the picture, one marker has a small shield, the other two are each different and look like they are made to mount empty helmets on top. There are two empty helmets included.

Let me know if you are interested, it should be only $2 or so to mail this set in the US.

I wouldnt even consider buying something like this! It would be easy enough to scratchbuild it. Thing is, if you buy the set you have shown, you still have to build some ground work for them to be placed on anyway. When building your normal groundwork ... make some humps, surround by stones and paint as if the ground is fresh, or even as a bit older! Crosses could be made from balsa or base wood as suggested, or some scribed plastic lengths, or even small thin twigs tied, as crosses like this surely must have been used at some stage! Helmets and rifles and personal gear is available in any figure set. As you have been building for some time, you must have pieces like this left over from other projects! Just another option for you!!

Check out your local "dollhouse miniatures" store... I found several generic White Metal headshtones for about $1.00 each.... I used them in the graveyard section of my Abbey Ruin feature article shown below ("Last Rites: Coloring a Church Ruin").

And Sabot... if the original poster doesn't take your offer for the kit you mentioned, let me know - I'll take em! [email protected]

Thanks Sabot,

Ia m thinking about doing this one the old fashioned way. If things do start to go shi**y I will check out those doll house stores around here.

Take the offer if you want to there, KF. Its cool with me.

~Chip

Thanks again guys!
:-)

why not just do the traditional rifle in the ground butt up with a helmet on the ends?

Because Iron Panther, that would be to easy. See here at Armorama, we strive to make things as complicated as they can be! Infact the more harder, and mind melting, the better!
#:-) #:-) #:-)

Actually, that is a good idea. I could do both.

~Chip :-)

And if you DO use a gun, make sure it is made useless. Before leaving guns and weapons behind, the part that is used to reload the gun (I have no clue how you name this in English) is removed, so the enemy can't use the gun later.

When a soldier is burried in the field, often a very simple cross is made, with materials that can be found near. Often a cross is made of branches or pieces of wood. The helmet is often added to that, or some personal item.

Proper burial (later) would include the kinds of materials you'd find at a civilian cemetary. Graves at military cemetaries often are all identical.

Very nice diorama Keith. My wife saw it over my shoulder and commented that it looked very realistic. I agree. The graves will be in the mail on Tuesday due to the Columbus Day holiday. I just noticed one grave had "SS" spelled out in small stones on the mound. Real neat and good quality set. This set was lying in their clearance pile for a while. I'm glad to see it going to someone who will put it to use. I knew someone would probably want it. Great value at $5.

BTW, Jan, I think you are referring to the bolt that is removed to render the weapon inoperable. The firing pin can also be removed as well, but would be invisible externally.

There is also another reason for this. A rifle stuck into the ground with out the helmet is a marker for a casualty and the rifle with a helmet on it is a marker for a dead body. Used to aid direction for the medics to the casualty / corpse when they're following up on the battlefield.

GF,
The word you are looking for is the bolt or working parts,yes normally 1 part of the dog tag is left with the body to add futher idenifictaion when they come to revover the body for proper burial.I was trained to to body disposal ect on my unit enviromental health tec course in the army, normally the body would be covered in lime to aid decompostion,
Chip you could use little bits of gravel to represent stones and these will not melt when you cast them also cat litter would ideal to use just make a little mound of it and your away

Cat litter, never thought of that! Very good idea!

~Chip :-)

chip,
you can use cat litter for alsorts of things desert and building walls seen some one use it for that looked really well

Look what I found : molds to make plaster gravestones ! http://www.hirstarts.com/grave/grave.html

Thanks GF! Very helpful!

~Chip :-)