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This little diorama is meant to depict a KV-2 and its crew that gave their all to defend a town square, before being flanked and knocked out by an AT gun. Now its serving as cover for the assault troops.
This is the Trumpeter KV-2. It’s a sweet kit and left me wanting to get my hands on one of their KV-1 kits. The kit went together very well with no fit issues. I used the ABER barrel, primarily because I wanted to see the rifling with the barrel being so large. I really liked the kit tracks, both the vinyl and length and link ones, however because I wanted to depict this with a blown track, I used a set of DML links from their JS-2. I also replaced the hand grabs with wire so as to induce some sag from heavy use. The fenders are the kit fenders, just thinned down with a file then clipped and bent with the hot water treatment. The engine screens are from the Eduard set the Eastern express KV-1 and fit well.
Base coat was Tamiya Hull Red used as a primer. I then tried the salt method with Model Master Russian top side green over the salt. I think I had too much water which melted the salt too much. This salt residue kept coming up through the paint, but that in itself was a nice effect as well. Then, because I was too lazy to breakout (and clean up afterward) the airbrush, I applied a coat of Model Master Acrylic dulcote using a brush. Well, some of it ended up too thick and dired whitish. Viola, faded whitewash! I then used washes of Ivory Black and Raw Sienna followed by MMP power for the soot on the commander, inside of hatch, and coming out of all the view slits. The exhausts were painted with raw sienna oil paint, then MMP Rust powder sprinkled on. The “mud” is Elmers School Glue Gel, daubed on, with MMP Medium Earth sprinkled on top. I was quite pleased with the result and the ease. Finally, the spent shell casings are real .22 cal short brass. They may not be 100% accurate, but must be about the right size, and no one can say I did not get the brass color right, or the powder residue.
The dead commander volunteered from the old Tamiya SU-85 kit. The blood was my daughters nail polish. The German troops are from the old Tamiya Panzer Grenadiers kit. The detail is kind of soft, this kit being probably quite old, but it was on hand, and worked ok.
The cobble stone street is ceramic. I made a “master” from a finished section I had, by rolling some clay over it, then firing it to harden it. Now, by rolling more clay onto this, I can crank out as many streets as I need for pennies. My wife has a ceramic business so I have all kinds of raw material and the Kiln to fire them with.
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