"English Boys, 1940"

This diorama shows to young boys flying a kite on an English beach in the summer of 1940. The beach has been mined in anticipation of Operation Sea Lion, the German invasion of England. When the kite flies away, one of the young boys runs after it, disregarding the warning sign.

As you can see here, the main base contains the principle action with the kite just off the base held in place by a wire.

The signs are a combination of scratch-built and commercial.

The "Danger" sign was made with some Microsoft Picture Editor. I looked online for some manuscript texture for the background and simply added some red lettering. Anyone with a basic knowledge of photo editing can do it. I added a Royal Order number just to make sound official. The crown was hijacked from the famous, "Be Calm and Carry On" poster.

The sign post was scratch built from some balsa wood from Midwest Products that I got through Amazon. Alot of people don't realize that all that wood we modellers buy from our hobby shops is from Midwest Products and they sell the same stuff online, usually with more selection and much cheaper. So I usually just order directly.

I did some playing around with colors to give it some weathered texture and done. I used a burnt sienna wash of Windsor- Newton and followed up with some gray and actual crayons for texture.

The tall grass I did with short sections of frayed hemp rope that I died green with water color. The process is relatively simple and inexpensive. There's a great tutorial video here.