Vietnam Medic Station
I started building this station based simply on my own experiences
with field medical stations. I have never built one in a war zone, of
course, but I have set them up in fields, cities, parking lots, and
high-way roadsides, and the basics are the same. Medics the world over
operate the same way.
I wanted to show the 'other' side of the medic, the side away from the
surgery table, etc. This diorama showcases the more dull, routine
world of the medic between crisis. He has his pictures up on the wall,
and scattered on the work bench. Parts and pieces of various tools and
broken equipment are scattered about. Everyone always thinks medical
areas are clean and spotless, but in reality, we are SLOBS...
cleanliness comes well after saving someone's life. During the rush,
we are pigs.. trash here, there, scattered around. we don't care. I
envisioned it would be worse in the jungles for this fellow. |
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Vietnam Medical Station Diorama
I built this only because I had an old bamboo/wicker towel
rack/cabinet that had fallen apart. When i started to throw it away, i
knew that the bamboo slats would be an excellent "wall" in
Southeast Asia somewhere. This diorama is actually "convertable"
in that it basically features only two walls, and a built in table.
Add accessories, and you can make it any time period or era you
wanted.
Another great re-use idea is to grab those old film cannisters and paint
them. They make perfect Trash cans, and with some help, can become 5
gallon buckets for your troops too.
I used a fish food container for trash cans in my Medic Station, and I
just found that the plastic canister that some drink mixes comes in
would make a great 55 gallon barrel/drum.
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Secondary Survey
A shot to show the bench, and details of the medic. Again, note that
I didn't try to create the entire station, just the area here where
the action is taking place.
To make easy 1/6th scale signs, get a sign/label catalog from
someone in the working world. Brady, Lab Safety, Emed all send out
mailers to safety engineers and facilities personnel. The signs and
labels they use in these catalogs are very nice for 1/6th scale
background effects. I can't guarantee they are perfectly scaled, but
they look darn nice.
I have found that the plastic 'cover' on the boxes of 21Century
soldiers or Hasbro Joes is a perfect stiffener for your signs-to-be.
Carefully remove that clear acetate plastic sheet from the box (I
know that ruins the value of the box. But if you were a purist, MIB,
NRFB person, you wouldn't be kit bashing signs for a diorama, would
you?). Then, take rubber cement (find it in craft/hobby stores, even
department stores), and lightly smear a section of the acetate the
size of your paper cutout. Press the cut out onto the acetate,
cutout on top of rubber cement on top of the acetate, and let it
dry.
Once you have prepared this, you can store your signs for whenever
you need them. I simply cut them out with scissors as I need them,
because keeping one large section of signage is easier than keeping
and sorting a hundred tiny signs.
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Making 1/6th Photos
I "found" these photos at the edges of my normal (1:1)
photos. These are simply close cropped snips of people in the
background of other photos, etc. Not shown, but I have a Chinese
Pagoda pic that is actually from Epcot Center, when I was focusing on
someone else in the near foreground. I found that perfect 1/6th scale
people were wandering around in the backs of many of my pictures.
Photos:
A great use for all those old/bad pictures you have lying around. I
carefully culled through a bunch of regular world photos, and found that
in the background of many of them were people sitting, standing,
looking, etc. They were small, tiny, and perfect for cutting out into
1/6th scale photos. In fact, one photo I took at Epcot of the Japanese
temple and drummers cut up nicely into 5 different 1/6th scale pictures.
The woman in the corner of this scene is from a picture i took at Epcot
center. Don't know who she is, but she makes a great MOM to my medic.
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Top view
A simple piece of wood was suspended from the wall to make a shelf,
and torn up T-shirts were folded to make towels and sheets.
A Hasbro flame thrower was converted into Oxygen tanks, the larger
resting on the floor to the left, the smaller in a wall mount near the
table.
If your sign is on a post, you will want to paint the acetate backing
a nice silver/metal color. Or, you can paint the backing black, to
hide the wording that will show through. For hanging signs on walls,
no prep work needs to be done.
1/35th scale modelers can point you to sections of plastic I-beams and
H-beams that make excellent sign post material. Your new sign is now
ready to be glued/mounted. If you want to preserve the sign longer,
you can coat with a clear/matte protector coat, either from a spray
can, or simply apply a coat of clear fingernail polish.
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Vietnam Tunnel Rat "Hootch"
I had some extra Spanish Moss left over, and wondered what I could do
with it. Making a "lair" for a Vietnam Tunnel rat seemed
cool, and a few bends of bamboo garden stakes and some gauze wrap
later, I had a start.
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Fantasy, not reality
I didn't want to do an accurate "hootch" since it would
likely be a quonset hut, so I created a "cool" version. This
rat lives out in the boonies, with his Doberman. I filled the hut with
his gear, some of it normal, and some totally invented by me. His bunk
is simply a suspended netting hammock, held in place with a bamboo
stake.
His shotgun has a clip!, and he has a live grenade wired to his bed.
Doing this gave me a chance to put nearly anything into, under, or
attached to the frame. I figure this guy is a bit of an outsider, and
he would live in a place a lot like this: filled with his trophies,
his gear, and all the junk he collected that he will someday
"use".
Under his bed are broken pieces of plastic, pieces of wood, scraps of
cloth, and an old helmet. I didn't care what they actually were in the
1:1 world, they look like the kind of detritus this Tunnel Rat would
pick up in his travels.
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Making the gear
I found a great fast footlocker, if you have access to these items. I
had photographic slides made from some pictures a while back, and the
package the lab sent the slides back in was a small, rectangular
plastic box with a hinged lid. I saved the thing, because I save
everything, and I came across it when I was making my tunnel rat
diorama. Two coats of homemade OD paint, and viola, a small footlocker
for my soldier. Technically, it is not as deep as a normal footlocker,
but it looks darn good for the ten minutes it took to make it. If you
want to add detail, you can add corner braces, even a rope or metal
handle, but I simply covered mine with enough stuff to make that
unnecessary. Maybe my next one will have handles.
The girlie pictures were cut from an adult magazine, where they were
advertising back issues. Amazingly enough, they are about 1/6th scale!
I also laminated the cover of one of those to some folded colored
paper from another magazine to make a 1/6th magazine next to his bunk.
I found a great fast footlocker, if you have access to these items. I
had photographic slides made from some pictures a while back, and the
package the lab sent the slides back in was a small, rectangular
plastic box with a hinged lid. I saved the thing, because I save
everything, and I came across it when I was making my tunnel rat
diorama. Two coats of homemade OD paint, and viola, a small footlocker
for my soldier. Technically, it is not as deep as a normal footlocker,
but it looks darn good for the ten minutes it took to make it. If you
want to add detail, you can add corner braces, even a rope or metal
handle, but I simply covered mine with enough stuff to make that
unnecessary. Maybe my next one will have handles.
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