This is some kind of experimental diorama. I bought some flats from a friend , painted it and tried to make one of my usual dioramas with it. Adding some trees, bushes and even stripes of grass made of flat pewter.
Flat figures have a great tradition here in Germany and there are still collectors or makers of flat figures. Mostly they don´t have online shops, so you can buy flats on big events like the Kulmbach fair (which is not very far from where I live).
The painting….good painted and with black undercoat the figures look very good in my eyes. The tanks looked awful first but with some drybrushing, washing and blacklining they went out also good.
The trees and bushes were a real pleasure to paint. It was like old fashioned pre Christmas handcraft work…..OK not the soldiers and tanks….too brutal for Christmas.
The figures…..very good poses in my eyes but especially with the tanks you can see that this are handcrafted products engraved after free hand paintings, no high tech models. Some details are quite poor or simply wrong….nevertheless they have charme.
The positions of the figures were also a new experience for me. When I use round figures I can let them interact easily with other figures on the base by putting them where and in which direction I want. Not this time. The pose of the figures limits the variety of where the figure can be placed.
The photography….is also very limited. I love taking pictures from different angles...also not this time.
The costs…...were quite high. For the big tree (unpainted) I paid nearly 20 EUR, Overall material costs for that small scene were over 130 EUR.
For me it was very intersting to work with that new material and I am happy with the result...but I will not be a big flats-fan in the future.
Regards from Bavaria
Thomas