Diorama Clervaux 1/35 scale, building a castle and more by Claude Joachim

The Castle

Village1

Annexes

Village2

The first part to build was the castle. Without a convincing castle, the whole diorama would fail. It took me two years and a few thousands hours to finish it, starting as a newbie in diorama building but gaining confidence along the way.
In the end, i think i succeeded to build something unique in the modeling world and it was worth the effort.
The dimension of this module is 1,5 m x 0,7 m, the castle filling the complete surface. 60 figures, in little scenes as happened on this Dec 17 1944 are displayed in the build.
All the details of the construction, documented with over 500 pictures, can be read in my new book, available right here on the front page of the site.


This is 1/35 scale!	30000 tiles individually cut and tiled.	The whole interior detailed after reference pictures.	A sniper firing from the apertures	The Inner Courtyard is one meter long.
One of the first artillery hits caused great damage.	60 figures included in the build!	Stonework made out of plaster.	A lot of attention during Euro-Scale 2007 in the Netherlands.	Attentive bystanders watching the castle at Euromilitaire 2007 in Folkestone (GB).

On to the third part! To the right and in front of the castle are two buildings who are part of the complex. One of them features a visually very interesting chapel with a tower, called witch tower. I absolutely wanted to build this one but had a tough time getting it to fit on the module. The front house, with the gate to access the outer courtyard was very challenging also. It features different height levels, curved fronts and a tunnel, basically a mini-castle again. This third module is 1,40 m x 0,70 m big.


On the right and to the front of the castle, those structures were on the Menu now	A better view of the square house and the chapel	In the thirties these were already tourist destinations	The base, still subject to changes.	Building procedure as known from the castle.
The height of the roof is defined by feeling and according to photo perspectives.	I destroyed the house a bit to limit the geometrical look. This of course means detailing the interior-	I filled the interior with remaining's of a Youth Hotel what i supposed it was prior to the war.	The roof is planked with Balsa stripes.	Covering with tiles as usual but with a special finishing on the sides.
Crashing the sides of the roof and detailing.	I'm building the tower using a new method of stone making.	The roof of the chapel with individually rounded tiles, a few thousand!	First look at both parts of the first building.	Mock-up of the next house, the front gate, 50 x 30 cm itself!.
Good progress here already.	The same procedure as every time.	Easy tiling work, but a big surface to cover .	Completely tiled and primed already.	I need to climb on a box to reach every part of the dio!
A wall made of indivdually placed pieces of plaster.	Coloring the whole hill.	Painting and planting .	Three parts together.	Very difficult to make photos
A lot of work ahead to adapt both parts. Picture taken during the local expo	The entrance gate to the outer court yard.	Scratchbuild horsecart and horse with rabbit's pelt! .	A Sherman, my first tank in 5 years! .	I still need to finish the figure .

Let's move on with some more of the village.

5 years ago, i started to build the castle but soon realized that i was not yet fit do master such a build. I needed some training objects so i looked up my reference pictures of Clervaux and choose some buildings i could later use. Fortunately i managed also to build them at a good standard, so i will effectively incorporate them in my dio.


The Hotel Central, renamed by the germans.	The "Café Hunnegschmatts", a typical architecture of the Ardennes.	A former Garage or similar.	The originally planned layout with the houses.	I organized this reference picture from a textile shop who had just celebrated his 140 year anniversary. .
I arranged my layout to fit the textile shop in the row.	The nearly finished facade, compare with the original!.	Everything scratchbuild !


During the painting process of the hill.	The windows are all scratched with plastic stripes	The stair rail is made from brass profiles	An alternative design for the roof tiling.	The author at work.
Big dioramas means big stocks of plants and materials.	Scratched pine trees and hundreds of plants are placed.	A cobblestone road made of 3000 pieces of cork	They told you not to park there!.	The backyards of the houses.
The choice of the fassade colours was a difficult one.	With a little bit of photoshopping, this looks almost real.	The last civilians in the town are brought to the castle.	View from above, i am satisfied about this result afterone year of work.	The castle put next to the village looks even more impressive now.