This is my first diorama of 2010, a E-Class destroyer HMS Echo had a very colourful history throughout WW2


The buildings, and basically everything else is stuck down with PVA glue, the sea effect is simply a piece of MDF painted dark green and a very thin layer or acrylic gel allowed to dry and the tugboat, just a touch of light grey and bright white for the churn of water as it pushes the Echo slowly against the harbour wall, again, MDF with a smuttering of plastic bits and pieces, the large oil tanks are wooden buttons (one cut in half) the buildings, plastic again cut in half, and one PE large shed, a quick diorama deliberatly set into a dull envioroment, if there's a chance of both good and bad comments, then please feel free to leave them for me, thank you.

Nice Al.

Yes Al, very nice. I like the way you use different materials, i.e. non-modeling, to build your dio. I also like the rigging. What did you use?

I have a couple suggestions, or comments. From everything I've read about the RN, the First Lieutenants, the officer in charge of order on ship, were pretty fanatical about neatness. Unless the guns and torpedo tubes were actually in use they would be trained fore and aft. The jack, national flag, aft was only flown there when the ship was not under way. When the mooring lines were cast off the flag was switched to the main mast, the after mast in the case of your Echo.

Those are just small quibbles.

Alec: A nice model no doubt. I think you used stretched sprue for the rigging, however, it's way to thick for the scale (1/700) Look at pics of real ships. You can almost never see the rigging. (and that's full scale) So, as a general rule, if you can readily see the rigging on a 1/700 ship, it's too large. Try getting some 20 Denier fly tying monofiliment. It is the proper scale and once you get used to it, it's pretty easy to work with. PM me for full details if you'd like.

David

Thank you all very much for those constructive remarks, I shall do my best to carry these onto my next model, I never knew about the flag swapping over, just goes to prove you learn something new every day. Thank you again.