Longtime readers of my blog might remember that on it I chronicled my return to assembling a plastic model, after decades of inactivity. This pursuit is something that I ended up fitting in the odd moments when the press of other matters permitted. Just the same, it surprised me to find that I last blogged about this topic in February 2018!

At long last I completed the project, and want to take this opportunity to describe it. “Sonderlieferung” (“Special Delivery”) is a World War II diorama, whose focus is on a group of G.I.s rifling through the contents of a wrecked German Volkswagen Typ. 81 mail van, in the waning days of the war. Let’s look at the trio of subsidiary scenes in the diorama.

First up is a corpsman who’s examining the injured wrist of a rifleman. To lend realism to all the figures in the diorama I used painters’ tape, painted appropriate colors, as equipment straps. In a couple of instances I also made helmet straps from the tape.

Next up, the lieutenant commanding the squad. He’s perusing a map while speaking on the radio. The radioman holds in his hand a cigar “liberated” from a nearby house.

The final vignette portrays a pair of soldiers that are looting packages taken from the van’s rear cargo area. I made the packages and the envelopes and Reichpost canvas mailbags scattered at their feet. Notice that one of the G.I.s is about to use his bayonet to open the package he’s holding.

I had a lot of fun conceptualizing this diorama and adding the touches that make it communicate a heightened sense of verisimilitude. I hope you find my resumption of model-building of interest. Let me know what you think!

P.S. I have already purchased the things I require to build another model: I’ll be sharing its saga on my blog, so stay tuned!