Music not withstanding, this is a pretty amazing build.
https://youtu.be/JiZ614wNT08

Wow, thanks Chris....nice dio!

Impressive work on the bridge. Pity his figure painting skills don't match his architectural talents. A lot of guys with 'thousand yard stares'! Decent job on the tank,but why is that guy riding on the rear with the gear? Seems like he should be in his hatch in a combat zone. Oh well,maybe too much Rhine wine?
Regards,Bob

Without wanting to sound like a pedant, bridge builds like this frequently suffer from a common issue, what is the actual focus of the scene? Is it the prisoners walking back being watched by the tank crew and cameraman, or is it the bridge itself with the various things going on upon it? Here, like most such builds, the bridge has become the focus. The bridge is "the model" and everything else are accessories. If that's what you want, fine, it mostly succeeds but the number of other elements on the bridge should be reduced as they take away from the bridge.

If he wanted the prisoners to be the focus, they are lost on the bridge and even though several other figures draw your attention to the prisoners, the size of the bridge, the bridge elements and the other repair crew all work to draw your eye away from the story, the prisoners.

If the prisoners are the story, the section of bridge build could, and should, have been much, much smaller. Just the walkway, the nearest column, and the roadway immediately under the cameraman. I'd have deleted everything else, including the tank. It all takes away from the prisoners.

The tank isn't the focus and could be deleted no matter what.

It's impressive, but because of that it has become unfocused and, therefore, loses a lot of it's ability to tell much of any kind of story.

He spent a lot of time and effort on this and I think most of it is wasted. Too big to hold all of it in your eye and yet not enough to engage you or draw you in.

Diorama composition. It's a thing.

Yeah but thank the maker it's NOT one of those whimsical cute-sey pooh scenes with with animals, bathing beauties or kids! It's just a moment in war and I'm OK with that.

Besides the bad music,I think the bridge is very well done and all in all I just like it.My 2 cents.

Tom

The big difference between a diorama telling a story ('a' as in meaning one, in contrast to "lots").
Lots of figures and things does not make a diorama, it just makes a large scene with lots of little sequences going on without anything being in focus.

This is the way to tell a story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYP-2UCS5nY
Tight, focused, nothing included except those figures and objects needed to tell the story.

/ Robin

One modeler's opinion:

The bridge model is the perfect size - not too large a section, nearly perfect considering it is in proper scale with the figures and vehicles being displayed.

Lots of different stories going on here. (Humm, a lot like World War II.) Engineers repairing the bridge, Allied forces heading East, Captured prisoners moving West and a Combat Photographer thrown in to boot! (Thank you Sir for representing the Signal Photo Companies!)

Perhaps add some smoke & raised dust to the rear of the tank to show it's movement. (The tank is NOT guarding the prisoners.) And maybe some unbroken rows of Allied soldiers moving East behind the tank.

Overall I like it (i'm sure my seal of approval will make the builder happy). LOL


I think its impressive an I like he used some cool tools to make it. 3D printer and laser cutter in there.

Also he actually finished it and that's huge !

To use a literary analogy dioramas are short stories. A large one that tells numerous stories would be an anthology or even a novel with numerous stories against a single background.

Visual storytelling is different because unlike the clever video or a totally written work -- there is no narrator. Just how would you present all those interlocking relationships without the all knowing narrator?

There is an entire language in storytelling through images. Look at great historical paintings. There are those with many figures telling numerous stories but they surround and amplify a central image. Conversely the whole panorama could be the point with the details telling little tales of their own. But it is still a worthwhile endeavor.

Just a different genre of the storytelling medium. Many "effective " "tight" dioramas are short stories like Poe. Tight in focus and narrative. Here we have a grand vision like Tolstoy.

There's more than one way to tell a story in a visual medium.

Having read all the comments and 'suggestions' above I just hope that every author has reflected his comment with the most important goal of our modelling hobby (at least, so I hope, for the most of us), in his mind: just having fun in building it and by sharing it with the community.
To be honest: I personally consider it quite negative to comment on the abbilities of the figure painting, based on a 'prefect' building and painting of the bridge.
Or to comment on the missing interlink between the various activities........

It is a great contribution to show how modern laser and printing technology can support a hobby.
And it seems that the builder had joy in sharing the various stages of his build.
Why else would he share it?

Well said Paul!

However:
The purpose of critique/comments is also to help improve. If nobody ever commented and pointed out faults and mistakes the pace of improvements in all areas would be greatly reduced all over the world. Fixing faults/mistakes is one of the greatest drivers for improvement. Sometimes it is verbal sometimes there are other means (why are my competitors selling more than I am?).
Why do I never win contests? Because other models are better in some respect. A friendly judge will point out the areas of improvement to the builder, a judge who doesn't care will just deliver the valuation and walk away.
One of the central points of diorama, and the most difficult one, is the telling of a story. It can be what has happened, what is happening or what is about to happen.
The video told parts of the story of how the bridge was built, there are more videos, and how it was painted.
Great work by the way!
The final result does not tell a story, it is a collection of things happening. It is like watching a traffic intersection, pedestrians and vehicles come and go all the time but there is no focus.
The creator calls it a diorama and that means it gets "judged" as a diorama.

If I were to make a model of a warship with crew all over the decks, some chipping rust and painting, some working on the guns, some talking and pointing, some cleaning and mending their personal items, some resting, some on watch running the ship.
It could possibly be a great model but it would not be a diorama. A single AA-gun with the crew firing at something would tell a small story, especially if I titled it "kamikaze!". Instant story and I don't need the whole ship to tell it.
A single German soldier, blue/white face, "looking" at the sky, body partially covered with drifting snow titled Russia 1943 could possibly convey a message about the horrors of war.
/ Robin

Edit: And yes, getting critique sucks, it really does. At least until one manages to find the small grains of valuable improvement suggestions hiding inside it .....

I come at this as a web comic creator with more than a 1000 pages of content including five completed narratives with an Education in writing, film making and graphic arts. And less and less a model builder.

That's my hobby. I have to tell a story in every panel. What's in the panel and how does it advance the narrative? But sometimes you do whole splash panels that are sometimes big scenes with a bunch of stuff going on. Then in a film or comic you can zero in on something. A diorama is static so there is no way to make the scene more specific. No zoom in, but that doesn't mean many tales can't be told simultaneously.

The whole theme may be "all this going on." A panorama rather than a snapshot. The opening set up shot, the slow pan or even a montage as opposed to the medium shot or close up. It is all viable language and vision in the medium.

It's a hobby. It's a fun pastime. But every scene tells a story. An event is a story. Humans are storytellers it's probably one reason the species developed language.

Again, this is a panorama, an anthology or collections of stories as opposed to one narrative. Writers and other creators think and work on this a lot. And I have a lot of tricks in composition that cannot be translated easily into still dioramas. That's why I stopped doing them outside of minimalist groups on vehicles. But that's my opinion based on the consensus of many of my fellow creators.

A small comment added to my earlier remarks - regarding the video rather than the model itself. The shooting of any video allows for movement. An example would be as in starting with a tight shot on the GI with the grease gun then panning and/or pulling back to see the German prisoner. This can animate an otherwise still image.

These sorts of pans and zooms used to add movement to still photographs have in some circles come to be called "The Ken Burns Effect." a.k.a. His popular documentaries such as "The Civil War" and "World War II".

The telling of the many individual stories contained within this overall large but motionless diorama might well have been enhanced by the use of such film/video techniques.

Just a comment NOT a criticism.