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Death and Destruction !!! ?

AndyFettes

AndyFettes

Master at Arms
I thought about this a lot recently and would like your opinions in this matter
I thought we could open up a nice lively debate about the subject
So,..........


Should death and destruction be included into our model displays ?

I know of one known chap on the internet that wouldnt have anything to do with corpses or death etc etc

I aslo know of a very well known figure painter that includes departed soldiers in his vig`s and dio`s

So gentlemen please be upstanding and give us your opinions !! :)
 
Duh What a plum I didnt give you my opinion

I am all for it as long as it is modelled well and tasteful so to speak ( no lakes of blood running down the road)
 
ANDY,

Ya' know sometimes they say less is More. I agree with you. I guess if it's done tastefully ... But then again That in itself is Subjective. More importantly if th Vignette is done Accurately is th point.

Case in point. - What if you did a vignette of a Panther in Normandy that took a penetrating shot to th side of th Turret & you had a G.I. looking into th Panzer from th Commander's copula ? If you did a full interior, would it be out of bounds to show th after effect. I mean some guys place a high value on Realism of Armor, so why not All of it ???

Or what if you modeled Wittman's Last Tiger after detonation ? I believe there would be a mess in that TIGER I. DO you model that ? you're not Defaming th Crew any more than a Director who portrays it in a Movie.

A vignette of th Hand to Hand combat that took place in Stalingrad ?

War is Hell! Often, Quarter is Neither Given nor Granted ! It's up to th Artist & Their Audience.

Sometimes it's what is needed to Really drive th Point Home.......


ERIK
 
Personally, it's a subject that I would never model. The subject matter simply does not interest me and I am not interested in portraying the horrors of war like that. Building and vehicle destruction and wreckage yes... but never bodies or people in the actual process of being injured.

BUT... I would never criticize the work of someone else simply because it portrays that subject.

I judge a diorama based mostly on the quality and whether it tells a story... the actual subject matter is less important to me.
 
" Tastefully " modeled death is a bit of a conundrum , .......... can't say I would model it , ....... but then again , ........ we really can't ignore the fact if we're modeling any historical conflict .



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKs_HKbAvkI
 
I think it depends on the subject and how it's treated. I wouldn't do it. I think John sums up my feelings about as well as I could.

Should we model death and destruction? Well we get the destruction covered nicely, in my case, when I don't even intend to!! I think I could model something along death lines if treated with respect. Maj. Thomas Howie is a subject I've thought of doing. He was killed in the opening battle to take St. Lo in Normandy. But his planning and rallying of the troops prior to the attack inspired his commander to have his body driven in to town on a flag draped stretcher and laid him on the rubble of a church in St. Lo.

but modeling dead bodies to just fill in gaps, I think one would need a better story line.
 
As weird or naive as this may sound, I model the machines. Not the politics, not the purpose for which they were intended, but for the engineering and mechanical attributes. I guess if someone made a snowmobile kit or a lawn tractor, I might be interested in building those too. :idonno
 
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You brought up an interesting point, Andy. In fact, just a coupla days ago I was asking myself this same question.
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I wouldn't really know how to depict a death scene tastefully, except by not showing a lot of blood. But on the other hand, building a destroyed tank can be just as cruel and shocking - as a fellow member here said to me once, he preferred to build airplanes to tanks because the latter, more often than not, tended to "end up as it's crew's coffin...". Whenever I see a diorama that includes destruction I can feel a bit of the drama of war (sometimes a lot). It took me quite some time to overcome this sense of tragedy and decide I would build war stuff. :unsure:

But in a nutshell, I don't really know if I'd do such a scene (with death very present), but I would certainly not condemn those who build one in the name of historic accuracy.

Cheers! B)
Fernao
 
I wouldnt do it,I'm just not that good,but I have no problem with anybody else doing it.
 
Hi there.

I don't see any reason why corpses couldn't be included. After all it is war and war is hell. It should be tastefully done though. A scene with troops advancing past dead enemy or even their own dead could show the high cost of battle. I often think that people want to sanitize all aspects of war but was is anything but clean.

If a person does model with dead figures that modeller should keep in mind where the model is going to be displayed. If it's going to a public show where many youngsters will be then more restraint might be called for.

I remember as kid watching some genuine war clips. Whenever a plane crashed without the crew bailing out or whenever a tank brewed up without the crew escaping my dad would say, "you just saw some men die."

What we want to portray with our models and/or figures will determine if we need bodies in the scene. Sometimes a body or a few bodies will make people really stop and think. The decision to include bodies has to be left to the individual modeller.

One thing that I have noticed though and something you should be made aware of is that many judges will give low marks to any diorama that does include dead bodies no matter how well done everything is. Including bodies can be the kiss of death to an otherwise award winning diorama. I ia that because the judges don't want anyone to be offended?

Come to think of it, I have even seen contests where prospective entries that had a corpse in them were not allowed to be shown.

Cheers from Peter
 
Tankbuilder said:
I remember as kid watching some genuine war clips. Whenever a plane crashed without the crew bailing out or whenever a tank brewed up without the crew escaping my dad would say, "you just saw some men die."
Click to expand...

I think one of the most vivid shot of this is the gun camera footage of a (I think) a FW making a run on a B17 from the back end. He's pretty close to the bomber and is just having his way with it. You see smoke trails of rounds going into the engine nacelles and the German pilot starts raking the rounds across the wing into the fuselage. You can see the ball turret moving around to engage, then you see a smoke trail go directly into the ball turret...and it stops moving pointed straight down.

When I was a kid I use to think that footage was cool, till it dawned on me what I just watched.
 
oh well - i see no problem with builds like that!

if someone is too tender minded for builds like that, that user should not click on them!

war is no birthday party with bozo, no picnic with buzzing bees and no pleasant afternoon tea!

war is also not the propaganda pics of the funny war adventure!

minors are able to visit here? they see more and real cruelties in television anyway and blowing out an enemy's brain in a game is part of newer generations entertainment! r-rated games are no problem for minors to get, my bro had tons of them and horror videos before having reached te age of 18! just think of how easy is it for minors to surf www.rotten.com ...

the world isn't pretty in pink, nice and full of harmony and there's no princess lollipop in candyland helping to keep peoples from watching the reality of human nature!

long story, short meaning: build and show whatever you like! if you want to depict a soldier holding his intestine inside with his hands, do so! if you want to show a destroyed tank with glop inside, do so! if you want to show the effect of heavy artillery barrage, disembowled bodies, decaying bodies or body pieces spread all over a battlefield, do so!

as long as it is done good i have no problem with that! the only critique that would come from my side and had to be feared would be constructive critizism!

a good example of what i'm speaking of is a dio i have seen some years ago, dealing with großdeutschland division in fierce battle on a graveyard! that was an intense and brilliant idea that i liked a lot! the only thing i disliked was the quality - could have been done better! (lost the link! if someone recalls that dio and could provide me with a link, it would be highly appreciated! i would love to check it out again!)

we're not in fawlty towers, we do mention the war!

where i draw a strict line is the holokaust! holokaust was murder in first degree and not war! if i see a thread dealing with holokaust it will be wiped from the server without warning! i won't name the community where i saw two holokaust dios but i was nauseated!
 
Hi all,

There`s some pretty interesting and thought provoking comments so thank you for all of those

Its quite interesting to see one of the comments about judges downgrading scores because theres a clearly departed chap in its midst,..Bill Horan is one of the worlds best figure painters and his Vigs and Dios are awesome but he includes some fatalities, so does Mike Blank, and even Doug Cohen

All these guys achieved mastery standards within our hobby.

I totally agree Laura about access to such stuff on the internet regarding minors and myself am guilty of letting my 11yr old play war games on the PS3.

I, as, a figure painter am quite fascinated by the idea of a departed soldier purely from a artistic angle, as the folds in the cloth are quite different from someone that is standing up as are the positioning of his personal equipment,..........
for example, bodies are looted and pockets are emptied in war its a fact.Some were relieved of their boots etc etc etc

I really do intend to do some at some stage and I am going to depict a departed soldier it would not be with with his guts splashed to the four winds, I would purely have him lying down down in an appropriate angle as we all know some fatalaties were down to percussion from an explosion with little or no marks on the body
Some were hit from a single shot or a piece of shrapnel and killed instantly,...No blood

If you look around the net some manufacterers do, do some casualties but I think the poses that they represent are IMHO terribly represented and look unnatural.

Holocaust Victims are indeed a no no

A good debate please keep up posting your opinions !!!
 
Andy, are you familiar with the "Sharpshooter of Devil's Den"? Famous photo that Alexander Gardner took of a confederate sharpshooter at Gettysburg. There's been much debate about the placement of the body in the photo. Some say that Gardner moved it for dramatic effect. But there is an artist who has studied the original photos in question and he makes a pretty good case against it. James Groves is his name, http://www.jamescgroves.com/henry/ very interesting read.

Point is, I think this would be a great subject for such a project. According to records, the body of the sharpshooter was not molested at all but the concussion of the parrot round against the rocks killed him.
 
Sounds like a " Tasteful casualties " , future group build ?

I think the reason a lot of us steer away from casualties is because it's as hard to model effectively as realistic/believable water and other certain " get it right " effects .

It's hard enough to model convincing " live " figs. and vehicles :laugh:
 
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