Now!
The diorama will be called "Kaffeefront Aachen, 1951".
What I need:
a) an evidence to prove it's a scene at the frontier
b) the coffee-tank
c) the Opel
d) a kind of shelter for the Opel
e) a surrounding
f) (a) customs officer(s)
a) First, I'd build a barrier:
Parts are taken from the box of leftovers.
The shield in the middle of the barrier will later be printed by a traffic-sign (white, circled with red, HALT!, black stripe, GRENZE! [STOP! FRONTIER!])
b) the Hobby Boss kit (No. 82452)
(with a frame made by wire of sparklers. A tarpaulin will be added also.)
c) the ICM kit (No. 35477)
(Look at the front-axis; it's piece of art by ICM! I know some ICM-kits and I love and curse the filigree.)
d) A shelter?
Why? (The customs vehicle must be hidden to grant a successful surveillance of the smugglers and to follow them.)
How? (A ruin in the woods close to the barrier, because I am forced to use a small base (No room for a 1-square-meter-diorama.).
I used a structurated sheet of brick-paper by NOCH, Germany.
Funny is, the sheet is designated as scale H0 (1/87), but the mesurement with a ruler brings the bricks verrrrrry close to the dimensions of 1/35 standardised german bricks of the "Reichsformat" (imperial size), used until the 1950ies!!
Below the bricks, I'd used corrugated cardbord (the gaps will be closed).
The door- and windowframes and the rest of the floor are made by whisks taken from McDonald's.
e) The surrounding will show a forrest path, the ruin and a battered wood.
Why battered? Battered because the woody region around Aachen was very frayed in the fall of 1944 while the battle of Aachen. So I only will place some young trees, otherwise only bushes, a hand full of flowers, undergrowth, climber/ivy, tree stumps and much dead wood.
f) The customs officer(s) will be made by german soldiers of the Wehrmacht, because of the similitude of the uniforms.
Norbert
(will be continued)