Hello and welcome! If you are a regular follower of this blog you will have seen me working on my diorama of an Easy Eight US Army Sherman tank in the markings of FURY from the film of the same name.

This project began in my minds eye a long time ago when visiting a friend one evening and enjoying some dinner and a movie. That movie inspired me to build a Sherman just like the one in the story of the film and about a year later Italeri released a E8 1/35 Sherman with FURY as one of the build options. My mind was set to get this kit and to build a replica armour model of FURY in 1/35 scale. I am not a natural armour modeller so much thought went into this.

As time passed, more thoughts were processed and more materials acquired for this project. The big expense was managing to find the excellent Bravo 6 1/35 US Tank Crew figures that just so happened to resemble the characters from the film-Who knew?

Now I had a full cast and I wanted to put on a show! Why not? If you have the kit and the figures to go with it, you may as well display them in an appropriate setting! Hence, this armour build became a diorama….

For those of you who may have missed it, here’s how the project came together over the months since I began the project in November 2017.

FURY: Part 1

FURY Part II

FURY: Part III

FURY: Part IV.

The idea was to depict  all the crew sat on top of FURY like in this photo from the film:

The film itself is a raw insight to what it was like to be in a US Army Tank Crew during the latter stages of WWII, if you have not seen the film it is well worth a watch:

As you can see, this tank was well and truly weathered and carried a lot of gear. I studied many pictures and went with what is my own interpretation of this subject.

For the most part, my build is a scale replica. However, I did apply unit markings and serial codes to the model. This was purely to please my own eye and I believe it works well.  The display plinth was entirely home made with a stone wall and wooden cart from Mini-Art. Photo etched leaves courtesy of Eduard were used to adorn my tree kit.  Making the tree was a tricky affair, but I reserve the right to claim it as my first attempt at an autumn weather tree and hopefully it looks the part!

Grass matting from Noch and Vallejo Mud paste rounded off the groundwork nicely. I also took the time to scratch build a warning sign as seen in the film to evoke a sense of drama to the scene:

With all the elements of the project slowly coming together I found myself becoming more and more enthusiastic and the work more and more rewarding. The base, the groundwork, the tank, the painting, weathering, the figures, the details it all flowed into one and before I knew it I had a 1/35th film replica on my workbench.

Here is my finished diorama, I hope you enjoy it!

FURY and her crew await their fate on a country road somewhere in Germany:

Thanks for visiting my blog and for looking at my work. If you like what you see why not follow this page via WordPress or email alert? That way you get to see all the latest posts as they are published. I’m also on social media, you will find all the links on the home page.

Until next time, take care. And Happy Modelling!

Darren.