WWI Trench Periscope 1/6th Scale

After making the WWI trench section diorama I figured there should be some way for soldiers to see over the trench without exposing themselves to enemy fire. I did a search and came up with some images of a real WWI trench periscope. I got together some balsa wood, silver foil, little plastic hinges, wire and some acrylic paint and attempted to make a scaled version, I didn’t know the dimensions of the original so I had to guess on the size.

I realize I should have weathered the label and moved it down!

WWI Trench diorama 1/6th scale

After I had made the 1/6th scale sign I had to make a trench diorama to go with it. So I broke out the polystyrene pieces and glued them to a wooden base, I applied a covering of plaster of paris to cover the polystyrene to give the appearance of mud. I collected together some craft sticks and balsa wood and made some flooring pieces and trench uprights, corrugated iron sheeting was made with the interior of cardboard pieces which were painted and dry brushed.

I obtained some 1/6th scale sized barbed wire made from real wire from another 1/6th scale hobbyist. This I placed in lemon juice to corrode the wire and gave some dry-brushing to give the appearance of rust.

Barbed wire posts were made from paper clips bent to shape and painted. Sand bags were made from pieces of an old t-shirt I sewed together and filled with rice and stuck in position.

I painted and dry-brushed with acrylic paints, wanted a weathering that depicted a muddy wet environment. I added my metal sign and made some other signs based on real signs.

The diorama needs another layer or too of sandbags and some really extensive weathering to finish it off, but so far it sits on a shelf gathering dust while I work on obtaining a WWI 1/6th scale 12-inch figure to compliment it.

WWI bullet ridden sign 1/6th scale

Many moons ago I used to make a lot of 1/6th scale action figure accessories and dioramas and sell them worldwide. I still dabble now and again and the current 1/6th scale action figure goes well beyond GI Joe figures. A picture I saw at the Imperial War Museum in London prompted a project that ended in a World War I diorama that is sitting on a  shelf awaiting finishing.

WWI Sign

This is the original war ravaged sign at the museum. I corrected the perspective in Paint shop Pro (PSP) then printed it on the inkjet printer at a size I thought would be the ideal 1/6th scale size. I cut out the image and pasted it on a piece of aluminum from a soda can, I dry brushed the sign to grime it up and make the metal appear rusted. I took an X-Acto knife and cut out the bullet holes and ragged edges of the sign, the metal was easily bent and curled to look like the original sign. Once complete I hit the sign with some dullcoat to seal it.

Of course now I had the sign I had to make the trench diorama to put it on. Here is a shot with on the edge of the trench amid the rusted barbed wire and corrugated sheet and sand bags.

* the Mik’s Studio watermark is from my original Photobucket album.
** the trench is still too pristine and needs a good weathering and dirtying up.