Not being a military model guy, I had a hard time decided what I was going to do. Being figures was my thing, I looked for something that might fit the bill. I found this 90mm Alpine Miniatures kit of a 101st Airborne Screaming Eagles soldier from Last Cavalry. Doing a quick search I saw that there were there at the Battle of the Ardennes Forest. From a friend building a similar scene with armor vehicles I know that there are many pine trees in the forest, and with that I had the vignette in my head.
I started with the figure, and honestly the box art was of little help. But doing an online search led me to a seller that had a series of 360° view of the model. They didn't call out the colors so I did my best to match them up.
Because the soldier wasn't dressed for the Ardennes winter, and I would have to use artistic license, I decided to help it look better by adding a bit more red to the soldiers cheeks, nose, and hands to give the illusion he's very cold.
I found a section of log in Michaels, and two two different sized dowels to represent the trees. This is supposed to be an old growth forest so I took it that the trees would be pretty large. I cut the dowels at 7in. lengths, which is plenty of room above the soldiers head. They were screwed thru the base and into the dowels from below. The ground is the Plastic Wood putty, because it dries incredibly fast.
I wanted to make a sort of "roof" for the top of the vignette to frame the scene so I have to make a few pine branches.
I started out with 3 or 4 long folds of florist wire and tightly twisted them.
After taking it out of the drill I untwisted a few strands to create the smaller branches. Next step was to dip the branches into Mod Podge.
After making sure I only had a thin glue layer at the ends of the branches I pour whats know as Chinchilla Dust over the glued wire. This is sand for... chinchillas... apparently they can't take water and only takes dust baths. It's used here because it is incredibly fine grained and helps maintain the scale look. You buy it in a jug the size you see and one of these jars will last a life time!
The Mod Podge also dries *very* quickly and I was able to glue them into drilled holes at the top of the trees. I did leave one on the forest floor with yellow leaves to busy up ground with a few dead branches. You can see I also added dusted Mod Podge to help simulate some roots for the trees. The trunk of the trees also got glued and then a dust bath to help simulate the bark.
Next step was to add the dirt. It's that pre-mixed stuff you get from miniatures dealers. You can see I also added the "needles" to the pine trees. They are just 2mm static grass tufts grabbed with tweezers and the bottom dunked into Mod Podge. After dunking, hold the tufts for a few seconds and the Mod Podge will start to skin over. Then push it into place on the branch and the tuft will stay put. They made pretty good needle bunches! Do that a few dozen times, and you have nice pine branches.
Adding a few layers of yellow and brown grasses to the forest floor, it was time to add the snows that was seen in pics of the Ardennes. My soldier didn't have the heavy winter jacket on so I took artistic license and only added a little snow... And with that I was done. Thanks for looking.
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