Dioramas in Relic Helmets

When my passion for metal detecting and relics merges with my other passion, miniature modelling, the result can be things like these helmet dioramas. I think it is very fun to create small scenes from the particular battlefield the helmet was found, trying to catch a glimpse of dramatic events in the past.

These dioramas are all in scale 1/35.

1:

"The approach to Stalingrad"

I got this helmet from a digger who is searching for relics around Stalingrad. The whole front of it is just a big hole, and I really wonder what caused such damage. I guess I`ll never know, but the helmet looked like it could become an interesting diorama base.

I made the groundworks and used a small figure set from Verlinden for the scene. A Wehrmacht officer and a grenadier scaling a slope overlooking the suburbs of Stalingrad.

2:

"Frontline Nurse"

I picked up this Red Army helmet from a bunker in Kurland, Latvia. It was rusty and had been in a fire and the top had rusted away, but I knew I would use it for something in the future and brought it home with me.

A couple of years later an idea came to me when I spotted a cool set of Red Army figures from a producer I no longer remember and as soon as they landed in my mailbox I went to work and made this piece showing a Soviet frontline nurse helping a wounded soldier out of a torched frontline forest.

3:

"Trauma"

A simple single figure scene of a Wehrmacht soldier meeting his fate on the battlefield. The helmet was found in the Kurland Kessel and its top had rusted away making it a perfect dio base.

4:

"Soldatenfriedhof"

Another german helmet from the Kurland Kessel. This one became a section of a War Cemetery. I made the gravemarkers from balsafoam and the tree from thin wires and putty. All the leaves covering the ground was cut from fallen leaves I collected in my garden. Inside the helmet I placed LED lights so that it doubles as some kind of a lamp, and I mounted it on a heavy wooden base.

5:

"Military Archaeology Legenda"

This is one of the "self biographical dioramas" I have made a few of, and it is the first one I have put a figure representing myself in. The helmet is with winter camo and was found in Latvia, and it is depicting parts of the soldier recovery team Legenda on one of its expeditions searching for fallen soldiers.

6:

"Ypres"

A bullet ridden german WW1 helmet picked up from the Ypres battlefields by a local farmer made its way to my workbench many years ago. I spent several weeks making the dramatic close combat scene in a british trench, and also placed LED lights inside the helmet. This was the first one of my helmet dioramas.