i am going to start building my first diorama soon, but before i get started, i want to have most of the stuff figrued out, anyway. I am looking at building an urban combat sceen from late wwii. The setting i was thinking is some random bombed out city, so in order to do that, i have to populate the diorama with rubble and wreckage. What i want to know, it how should i go about making things like chairs and tables and other random things that would be in a city

Scrunge,
I have done a few dios like that in the past. My advice....try to stick to exteriors, but if you absolutely want to show some interior details, try to keep it near the edge (in other words don't end up doing a whole building). Also remember that if the roof is mostly gone on a 2 or 3 story building, chances are it's what would be covering most of the furniture.

Rubble...most people (including me) do not represent the correct porportion of rubble for bombed out buildings. A large building, again 2-3 stories, that is mostly down will have produced a large amount of debris. More than just a scattering of bricks, more like a few feet of bricks. If you look at reference photos of bombed out cities you will rarely see the cobblestones on the road for instance.

Just my thoughts. Have fun with it.

Jim

:-) Hi scunge,

There are a great deal of after market items available to dress up your scene. Hey us after market guys need to live too, ha-ha. Contrary to popular myth, they are much easier and often times much better than doing your own. I think it is the little tell-tale add ons that add such flavour to a scene. Strive for a good balance, and avoid things like an undamaged Verlinden grand piano sitting in the center of a bombed out shell of a building. You might laugh but I've seen it dione before.

Jack

Something that's easy to use to reproduce anything made out of wood is balsa.
You can find some rather thin "sheets". People who build rc aircraft know this inexpensive material well.

penpen

thanks jim, where can i get reference photos of bombed out cities?

Scunge,
Good question. I will see if I can dig anything up on that. Maybe Ken will chime in too on this link/image request.

If you find any good sources for that be sure to let us know too.

Jim

Hi,

You can find some pictures of bombed city at

STALINGRAD

Hope it helps

DUST.
You don't really need to see a picture to imagine what bombs do to a building. I'm sure you can still see the pictures of September 11... just close your eyes. What strikes you the most ? DUST !
A bombed building may show bricks and rooftiles, broken wood structures, pieces of wall (with wallpaper ?), broken glass, broken furniture... but don't forget to cover it all with a lavish layer of grey-ish powder and rubble. Not just the building, but everything else in your diorama surrounding it. There's stray bricks laying at least as far as the other side of the street. I'm not talking just a little dust here. If you ever did reconstruction work (demolish a ceiling...), you will remember that the dust is many centimeters thick.
The rain and wind may take away some of that after a few days/weeks/months, but a lot stays. Think of ground zero...

Jan

Thanks for the help, when i am finished, you will se the results

In your preplanning, try and work out, how long before has the place been bombed. If it has just been bombed, loads of debris. If it has been bombed months earlier some may have been cleared away for example using the remains as a store or hide out or living in it. Just a thought

Sorry - this may be to little to late.
On top of the great previous posts you can scout out the train section of your hobby shop. Some of the fences or posts and rails work well for some scratch built furniture substitutes such as chair rails, legs, runners etc.

While not a "ruin" you might find the FEATURE ARTICLE i recently posted "How to Scratchbuild a Diorama" helpful. The first chapter is posted freely, and will give you a lot of ideas (hopefully!). I do an entire street scene (4 buildings - almost 2 feet long!) in a variety of ways, using common and easily worked materials.

If you like the article, Jim and i are going to make it available in full format 95 chapters - 40+ pages -100 plus photos) showing the process from the ground up, including things like building streets, interiors, furniture, water/and pier, plus general tips and techniques. I was originally going to submit this to Kalambach Publishing, but though i might do better going directly to the "hardcore" target at a far cheaper price ($4.95 for the download version or $9.95 for the CD-ROM.).

If you'd like to see the artilcle after it "rolls off" the front page of features, then go to FEATURES / DIORAMAS and you be able to find it there.

KFMagee